Resilience-Oriented Sustainable Regional Competitiveness: Integrating Civil Protection, Asymmetric Threats, and Institutional Quality in Europe

Sustainable regional competitiveness and civil protection have traditionally been treated as distinct fields: the former rooted in regional economics and innovation studies, and the latter in disaster management, public safety, and risk governance. However, increasing climate-related hazards, technological disruptions, geopolitical instability, and the fragility of critical infrastructure demonstrate that competitiveness and resilience are deeply interconnected. This study presents a narrative literature review of publications from 2022 to 2025, integrating insights from evolutionary economic geography, institutional theory, sustainability studies, disaster risk reduction, spatial planning, and governance research. Building on this synthesis, we propose a novel conceptual framework that links civil protection capacity to long-term regional competitiveness. The framework introduces a multi-pillar model encompassing risk governance, institutional quality, critical infrastructure resilience, spatial planning systems, human capital dynamics and demographic stability, social trust and regional legitimacy, innovation driven by risk-management technologies, and multi-level governance coordination. Our analysis highlights how asymmetric threats are characterized by unpredictability, non-linearity, and uneven territorial impacts—interact with structural vulnerabilities, amplifying regional disparities and challenging conventional competitiveness strategies. Importantly, the framework demonstrates that robust institutions and integrated civil protection mechanisms can transform exposure to shocks into opportunities for adaptation, innovation, and structural upgrading. By conceptualizing competitiveness as a dynamic, emergent property shaped by economic, social, and risk-management capacities, this study positions civil protection as a strategic, measurable, and foundational component of sustainable regional development. The framework provides a theoretical foundation for future empirical research, policy design, and multi-criteria assessments aimed at fostering resilience-oriented competitiveness.