This paper synthesizes and builds on recent critiques of the resilience literature; namely that the field has largely been unsuccessful in capturing the complexity of governance processes, in particular cause–effects relationships. We demonstrate that absence of a causal model is reflected in the black-boxing of governance processes which is problematic for resilience studies with explanatory ambitions. We introduce mechanism-based thinking as alternative research perspective that offers more analytical rigour and elaborate the key principles of this approach. Mechanism-based approaches are aligned to the ways of thinking in systems theory and complexity sciences and can be used to advance scientific inquiry and policy practice to govern complex sustainability issues.

本文综合并建立在对弹性文献的最新批评的基础上。也就是说，该领域在捕获治理流程的复杂性（尤其是因果关系）方面基本上没有成功。我们证明了因果模型的缺失反映在治理流程的黑匣子中，这对于具有解释性雄心的复原力研究是有问题的。我们将基于机制的思想作为替代性研究视角进行介绍，它提供了更为严格的分析并阐述了该方法的关键原理。基于机制的方法与系统理论和复杂性科学中的思维方式保持一致，可用于推进科学探究和政策实践以管理复杂的可持续性问题。