Risk, Environment and Society : Ongoing Debates, Current Issues and Future Prospects

by Strydom, Piet

• ISBN13: 9780335207831
• ISBN10: 0335207839
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-01
• Publisher: Open Univ Pr

Summary

"Risk, Environment and Societyis an inventive and core text within the framework of risk studies, and should be read first by any scholar interrested in that field. If you are a newcomer in that field, this is the book to begin with, because it is clear and extensive. ... Among recent books, I can't think of a more useful scholarly achievement in risk studies, making Piet Strydom one of the true leading theorists in his discipline." Sociological Research On-Line How and why have the closed expert debates of past decades become an open public discourse about nuclear, environmental and biotechnological risks? What can a cultural and institutional analysis reveal about risks and their social construction? Is it possible to develop a new critical theory of the risk society? This book offers an overview and analysis of nuclear, global environmental and biotechnological dangers, threats and hazards in the context of public debates about risk from the 1950s to the present. It considers what impact these risks and debates are having on society, transforming underlying cultural assumptions (for example about nature) but also public communication, social institutions, and even the way society is organized. Piet Strydom reconstructs public debates and social scientific theories to provide a fresh approach to the risk society. From this comes a new theoretical perspective for studying the emerging social conditions of the twenty-first century. The result is a penetrating and essential text for students and researchers across a range of areas including sociology, environmental studies, politics, and cultural and communications studies.

Author Biography

Piet Strydom is Statutory Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, National University of Ireland, Cork. He is a former founder-director of the Centre for European Social Research, Cork, where he was responsible for a variety of collaborative EU research projects. Having published noted articles in journals such as Political Studies, Theory, Culture and Society, Philosophy and Social Criticism, European Journal of Social Theory and Current Sociology, he most recently presented his research programme in a major work entitled Discourse and Knowledge (2000).

Table of Contents

Series editor's foreword	ix
Preface and acknowledgements	xiii
Introduction	1	(1)
Public discourse and the social sciences	2	(1)
The societal significance of risk	3	(2)
Theoretical approach	5	(1)
Structure of the book	6	(3)
Part one Problems, debates, frameworks and theories	9	(62)
The risk discourse: the contemporary concern with risk	11	(25)
First phase: nuclear energy, safety research and the risk assessment debate	13	(3)
Second phase: nuclear and environmental opposition and the social acceptability of risk	16	(5)
Third phase: public concern and the problem of risk perception	21	(4)
Fourth phase: full-scale public risk discourse	25	(9)
Summary	34	(2)
Background theories and frameworks of understanding	36	(17)
Background theories: from human ecology to the theory of modernity	37	(9)
Epistemological frameworks: realism and constructivism	46	(6)
Summary	52	(1)
Major theoretical directions	53	(18)
Critical theory of the risk society	54	(9)
Sceptical theory of the contingent society	63	(6)
Summary	69	(2)
Part two Cultural and institutional analysis	71	(72)
Risk - what is it?	73	(15)
Risk semantics	74	(1)
Lexical and conceptual history of risk	75	(2)
Scheme of safety and danger	77	(1)
Classification of the semantic field of risk	78	(2)
The universal, global and irreversible quality of new risks	80	(4)
The reality of risk and its social construction	84	(3)
Summary	87	(1)
Societal production of risk: society as laboratory	88	(17)
From religion to science	89	(3)
Culturally defined processes of risk production: the state and science	92	(6)
The modern relation to nature: organic, mechanical and cybernetic	98	(3)
The experimenting society: society as laboratory	101	(2)
Summary	103	(2)
Discursive construction of risk: the new public sphere	105	(18)
The communication revolution and the transformation of the public sphere	106	(2)
Public communication, discourse, and the contemporary public sphere	108	(6)
The social construction of risk	114	(8)
Summary	122	(1)
Consensus and conflict in the risk society	123	(20)
Changing cultural foundations: nature	124	(2)
Emergent cultural forms of legitimation: sustainability, responsibility, citizenship	126	(6)
Emergent institutions: new and reflexive	132	(4)
The nascent society of the twenty-first century: world government and bio-society?	136	(5)
Summary	141	(2)
Part three Rethinking the risk society	143	(24)
Towards a new critical theory	145	(15)
Risk society, knowledge society, communication society	146	(1)
The new cognitive sociology	147	(3)
Constructivism	150	(2)
Responsibility in the experimenting society	152	(1)
Socio-cognitive critique	153	(4)
The public role of sociology	157	(3)
Conclusion	160	(7)
References	167	(14)
Index	181