In many respects we are safer than ever, so are we living in a ‘risk society’? — UCL Science Policy (2017)

One of the hallmarks of modern society is its ability to implement sophisticated mechanisms to ensure the safety of its citizens. The focus of this essay is to examine whether we live in a ‘risk society’. I will first state the problem of the essay, and outline the main alternative theories that attempt to deal with it. I will consider the notion of risk society in some detail, which I maintain is a plausible account of how society aims to make people feel safer, then I will consider approaches to theorising risk. On the one hand there is the realist or cognitive science perspective of risk, and on the other hand there is the social constructivist approach, and I maintain that the social constructivist approach is a better account of how risk ought to be theorised for the purpose of science-policy making. The arguments for why we are living in a risk society can be explained through the ideas put forward by Ulrich Beck who argues that society has developed ‘systematic ways of dealing with hazards’ caused by modernisation (Beck, 1992, 21).

Interestingly, one might interpret Beck’s account of ‘risk society’ as evidence to suggest that society is no more safe than it has ever been given that some of the most extreme risks are the result of modern science and technology. Furthermore, it is important to note that the question appears to assume that the notion of risk society is defined by how safe (or unsafe) our society is, and whereas this might be true in part, I will show in this essay that the notions of risk society and risk transcend the binary distinctions proposed in the question and that what is in question is not whether society is safer than before; but whether the source of risks is progress itself.

Before I begin the substantive body of my essay, I would like to define some key terms. According to Anthony Giddens, a risk society is “a society increasingly preoccupied with the future (and also with safety), which generates the notion of risk,” (1998, pg. 209) while Beck defines it as “a systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernisation itself” (1992, pg. 21). It is also important to note that the terms ‘modern societies’ and ‘risk societies’ will be used interchangeably for the purpose of this essay since, explains Giddens, it is with the advent of modernity that notions of risk are generated.

Risk societies differ greatly from traditional societies when it concerns the nature of the risks faced by its individuals. In traditional societies individuals faced risks normally associated with nature such as flood, famine, tsunami or crop failure and completely lacked the expertise or technology to prevent or manage these risks. Risk societies, on the other hand, have the capacity to organise effective responses to the risks posed by nature. In the case of natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes, for example, there exist early warning systems that make use of real-time strong motion signals in order to reduce hazards (Wu et. al., 2008). This example supports Giddens’ notion that we do indeed live in a risk society where modern science and technology helps us understand and mitigate ‘future’ risks by assessing the possibility of adverse events in ‘precise’ and ‘quantitative terms’ (Renn, 1998, pg. 51).

Another reason to accept the notion of risk society is the fact that modern science and technology continues to enable us to venture into the unknown, which reflects the character of ‘risk’ in an earlier period where the word primarily carried feelings of ‘bravery’ and ‘adventure’ (Beck, 1992, pg. 21) as opposed to some of its modern connotations of ‘danger’ and ‘hazard’ (Risk, n.d.) though the heroic undertone of the word can still be seen in the modern age. Space travellers, for example, receive high doses of cosmic rays, far higher than the dose rate they receive on earth and as a result, astronauts are at risk of contracting cancer (Edwards, 2000).

What is worse is that there is no ‘direct human evidence’ of the extent to which these radiations damage the body, which makes the potential threat they pose all the more unsettling. And yet, when the American Shuttle Challenger Seven exploded and claimed the lives of the seven onboard, the astronauts were hailed as ‘heroes’ by the American public for willingly putting their lives on the line for the sake of scientific progress (Simmons, 1986. pg. 262). What this example demonstrates is that as modern societies seek to discover new sources of knowledge, they inadvertently expose individuals to unprecedented risks, and as shown in the case of the Challenger Seven, sometimes civilians willingly volunteer themselves to these risks knowing fully well the possible dangers they pose; a point I will expand upon when discussing the various ways of theorising risk.

Now that I have discussed how risk societies differ from traditional societies, I will move onto further examine how modern science and technology create risks and benefits alike.

According to Beck, modern societies are ‘reflexive societies’ that face risks previously unknown as a result of the ceaseless advancement of science. Beck further notes that ‘the social production of wealth’ is ‘systematically accompanied by the social production of risks’ (1992, pg. 19). In Beck’s view, the understanding and managing of risks has become central to society and to science policy, more central than our concepts of ‘class society’. Additionally, modern states relentlessly try to distribute risks so that they can neither ‘hamper’ scientific and economic progress nor ‘exceed the limits’ of what might be deemed ‘tolerable’, which can result in conflicts of interest, particularly in parts of the world that are only beginning to reap the fruits of modernity (pg. 19, 20).

In the developing world, for example, the process of modernisation, which has thus far been more enjoyed by the developed world, promises to unlock ‘hidden sources of social wealth’ (Beck, 1992, pg. 20). This can be evidenced by the collaborative research made between poorer nations such as Nauruand and Tonga that lack the scientific expertise and technology required to exploit the high mineral wealth that can be found in their seas and richer nations such as the United States and Canada that have the necessary expertise to mine hydrothermal vents (Kennedy, 2017). Moreover, this example raises important questions about how the researchers should go about managing the possible long-term risks and damage to marine ecology and if such damages were to ensue, it is unclear as to which countries would be held accountable. This supports Beck’s assertion that emancipation from poverty in the developing world is highly contingent on a careful assessment and mitigation of risks and that the political and health risks associated with a potential ecological catastrophe ‘ignore’ national boundaries; Beck uses the term ‘boomerang effect’ to describe this phenomenon (1992, pg. 23). In addition, what this example serves to illustrate is that risks are not evenly distributed between the developing world and modern states but are instead more pronounced in the former for a number of reasons.

On the one hand, members of the developing world might be more lenient in their approach to minimising risks due to a lack of expertise as discussed above, and on the other hand members of the developing world might place a disproportionate faith in their modern counterparts. In the case of deep-sea mining, the UN-sanctioned International Seabed Authority (ISA), which is the regulatory body that governs mineral extraction from the deep seabed outside national zones of jurisdiction, does not ‘have a mandate to identify which parts of the sea floor are most critical to ecosystem health in the ocean’ and despite their promise to ensure that ‘financial gains made from marine genetic resources’ are shared among the nations in question equally, there is no guarantee that these mechanisms will be effectively enforced, particularly in the countries that have ‘weak’ or corrupt legal systems (Kennedy, 2017). This leads me to examine how, explains Beck, the diffusion and commercialisation of risks is connected to how we might go about theorising risk (1992, pg. 23).

To accept the notion of risk society, one needs to examine the notion of class society since some risks are not distributed across class positions evenly (Beck, 1992, pg. 23). But instead of rejecting the notion of class entirely, we should draw parallels between our notion of risk society and attitudes towards capitalism, which, alongside class and unlike risk society, is an indubitably long standing paradigm that is normally ascribed to many modern states (Berman, 2010). According to Beck, risk society is in a sense a ‘world risk society’ in that ‘ecological disasters and ‘atomic fallouts’ are not restricted by national jurisdictions (1992, pg. 23), which I maintain is initially plausible. Where I think Beck’s concept of the boomerang effect fails is that it implicitly eliminates notions of risk inequalities altogether by suggesting that all countries regardless of whether they ‘produce or profit’ from the risk are prone to the risk to the same degree (pg. 19).

Under capitalism, private businesses are self-serving, they primarily seek to maximise their profits and will employ various methods to protect their interests above anything else (Hazlitt, 2010, pg. 60); the same can be said concerning research units being public bodies that are commissioned by the government and are thus subject to their policies and interests (Ritchie, 2013, pg. 48). As such, it would be naive to suggest that if an ecological fallout were to occur as a result of a deep-sea mining project going awry, the private entities or government researchers of said modern states would willingly subject themselves to the same level of risks as those that would be faced by the people in the developing countries. Even though it is possible that the pollution produced by such an event could circulate across different nations, the acute risks would very likely be felt by the countries nearest to the point of origin.

To illustrate my point, I will refer to the Chernobyl nuclear accident of 1986. Although the effects of the radiation released by the nuclear explosion could be felt across the globe, the country most affected was Ukraine; where Chernobyl is located; along with neighbouring countries: Russia, and Belarus, all of who continue to be burdened financially with ‘substantial decontamination’ and ‘monthly compensation costs’ (Sweet, 1999; Peron, 2006; Lebedev, 2006). What this example shows is that developing countries will willingly expose their civilians to risks if it means that they can reach the same heights as those that have been reached by modern states and that Beck’s take on the boomerang effect seems to understate the pronounced risk inequalities between the developed and developing world largely because the former; motivated by capitalist ideals; will capitalise on the knowledge and market opportunities associated with such ventures.

Now that I have established the merits of Beck’s notion of risk society, examined how modern science and technology create risks and benefits and evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of Beck’s notion of the boomerang effect, I will proceed to compare the realist or cognitive science perspective of risk with the social constructivist approach.

According to Deborah Lupton, realists define a risk as being “an objective hazard, threat or danger that exists and can be measured independently of social and cultural processes, but may be distorted or biased through social and cultural frameworks of interpretation”; weak social constructionists, which Lupton holds is strongly associated with risk society, view risk as being “an objective hazard, threat or danger that is inevitably mediated through social and cultural processes and can never be known in isolation from these processes” (2007, pg. 35). I maintain that weak social constructivism is a more plausible account of how risk should be theorised than realism for the following reasons.

Firstly, social constructivism recognises that risk perception is never exempt from personal values and preferences and that these need to be integrated into risk-policy decisions (Renn, 1998, pg. 53). For example, one study has shown that after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, the number of Americans involved in fatal road accidents surpassed the total number of passengers who were killed on the four flights in their attempt to avoid the risk of travelling by plane (Gigerenzer, 2004, pg. 286). What this study demonstrates is that the public tends to fear dread risks: “low-probability, high-consequence events”, which might seem like an inherent flaw of a value-laden perception of risk, however, it would appear that on a fundamental level people are more trusting of themselves and are naturally inclined to volunteer themselves to high risks that they feel are not ‘imposed’ on them (Renn, 1998, pg. 62). Whether these inclinations are valid or not is beyond the scope of this essay, more importantly, though, is whereas a realist simply treats people as ‘emotion-free’ (Lupton, 2007, pg. 22) and ignores their preference for avoiding situations in which many people may be killed at one point in time, social constructivism succeeds by recognising these inclinations and can go a step further by educating the public.

The second reason to be doubtful of the realist approach to theorising risk is the impracticality of directly assessing risk in terms of probability. Nuclear power stations, for example, have low failure rates and so to gain any useful insights into the chances of a nuclear meltdown, one would have to ‘tabulate the operating histories’ of one-thousand nuclear reactors for ten-thousand years (Stehr and Grundmann, 2005, pg. 80), which is hardly feasible. For this reason, I agree with Covello (1983) who asserts that ‘scientific assessments’, in the realist sense, cannot aid an individual’s response to risk in so far as they are ‘integrated’ into their ‘individual perceptions’ (Renn, 1998, pg. 60). As such, I contend that the realist’s one-dimensional predilection for statistics and disregard for the human psyche should be exchanged for social constructivism as statistics alone are not enough to convince the public that dread risks should not be avoided.

In conclusion, I have argued that between traditional and modern societies, the nature of risk has undergone a significant transformation rather than complete obviation, which one can take to mean that life is no less safer than ever. However, I have shown that, in the light of modern science and technology, science policy-makers continue to put measures in place that somewhat protect us from the natural hazards, the same cannot be said for ‘imperceptible’ threat that stem from scientific ventures (Beck, 1992, pg. 40). Also, it is normally the modern states as opposed to the developing countries that benefit from such measures even if they are not completely exempt from the risks from which they profit as explained by Beck’s boomerang effect. Furthermore, I have argued that risks are not always negatively perceived and instead both governments and individuals alike will take risks if they feel it is worth it; the motivations behind a government doing so are normally for the purpose of growth in knowledge or the economy, whereas an individual’s motivations will stem from the undercurrent of heroism associated with taking risks, although they might not be willing to do so if the risk is beyond their scope of control as illustrated by the aftermath of the terrorist bombings in the US. Finally, I argued that social constructivism is a better approach to theorising risks than realism by virtue of its multidimensionality.

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