Risk, Uncertainty, and Rational Action

by Jaeger, Carlo C.; Renn, Ortwin; Rosa, Eugene A.; Webler, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9781853837708
• ISBN10: 1853837709
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-08-01
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Risk as we now know it is a wholly new phenomenon, the by-product of our ever more complex and powerful technologies. In business, policy making, and in everyday life, it demands a new way of looking at technological and environmental uncertainty. In this definitive volume, four of the world's leading risk researchers present a fundamental critique of the prevailing approaches to understanding and managing risk--the "rational actor paradigm". They show how risk studies must incorporate the competing interests, values, and rationalities of those involved and find a balance of trust and acceptable risk. Their work points to a comprehensive and significant new theory of risk and uncertainty and of the decision making process they require. The implications for social, political, and environmental theory and practice are enormous. Winner of the 2000-2002 Outstanding Publication Award of the Section on Environment and Technology of the American Sociological Association

Table of Contents

Foreword	7	(2)
James F. Short, Jr.
Preface	9	(4)
General Introduction	13	(22)
Risk, Ontological Security, and Uncertainty	13	(3)
Risk and the Human Condition	14	(1)
Imprimatur for the Age	14	(1)
Ontological Security	15	(1)
What is Risk?	16	(4)
Defining Risk	17	(2)
Analytical Perspectives	19	(1)
The Rational Actor Paradigm (RAP)	20	(9)
Rationality as Worldview, General Theory, and Special Theory	22	(3)
Durability and Malleability: An Example	25	(1)
Rationality in Economics	25	(1)
The Larger Sociological Critique of RAP	26	(2)
The Macro-Micro Link--and Markets	28	(1)
Plan of the Book	29	(6)
I. THE RATIONAL ACTOR WORLD
RAP: The Monarch and his Shaky Kingdom	35	(32)
Philosophical Underpinnings of RAP	36	(5)
Economics: RAP as a General Theory	41	(11)
Trusting the Invisible Hand	41	(4)
Adventures of Utility	45	(7)
Inside the Atom: RAP and Psychology	52	(6)
Sociology and RAP: The Fundamental Tension	58	(9)
The Macro-Micro Link and the Problem of Consciousness	58	(6)
RAP Knocks on Sociology's Door	64	(3)
Risky Decisions of a Single Agent	67	(54)
The Monarch and Risk: A Love-Hate Relationship	67	(1)
Insurance and Protfolio Investment	68	(5)
Investment Decisions and Expected Values	69	(1)
Insurance	70	(2)
Portfolio Investment	72	(1)
Decision Analysis	73	(12)
Decision Theory and RAP	76	(4)
Critiques of Decision Analysis	80	(5)
Quantitative Risk Assessments	85	(10)
The Actuarial Approach to Risk	87	(2)
Probabilistic Risk Assessment	89	(2)
Toxicological and Epidemiological Approaches to Risk	91	(4)
Natural Hazards	95	(6)
Cognitive Psychology	101	(7)
Problems of Policy Making	108	(13)
Comparing Risks	109	(3)
Establishing Standards of Acceptable Risk	112	(9)
Risky Decisions of Interacting Agents	121	(38)
Risk in the Theory of Games	121	(6)
Probabilities in Games	121	(3)
The Labor Market as a Game	124	(1)
Conceptual Issues	125	(2)
Risk Communication	127	(9)
Senders, Transmitters, and Receivers	129	(4)
Risk Debates	133	(3)
Risk and Social Movements	136	(8)
Resource Mobilization	136	(4)
RAP and Resource Mobilization Theory	140	(4)
Organizations and RAP	144	(15)
The Rationality of Aggregated Actors	144	(5)
The Rap on the RAP Actor	149	(10)
II. LOOKING FOR OTHER WORLDS
Challenges and Alternatives to RAP in the Study of Risk	159	(50)
Cooperative Discourse about a Risk Problem	159	(6)
Risk and Organizations	165	(4)
The Concept of Social Amplification of Risk	169	(6)
The Process of Amplification	171	(3)
Signal Amplifiers in Social Communication	174	(1)
The Arena Metaphor	175	(8)
Actors in Policy Arenas	176	(2)
Resources in Policy Arenas	178	(5)
Cultural Theory of Risk	183	(10)
Acceptable Risk and the Origins of Cultural Analysis	185	(3)
Grid/Group Analysis	188	(3)
Cultural Biases Clashing: Interference of Risk Cultures	191	(2)
The Social Systems View of Risks	193	(16)
Risks and Double Contingency	193	(4)
Social Facts as Irreducible Reality	197	(7)
Uncertainty and Social Indeterminacy	204	(2)
The Challenge of Complexity	206	(3)
Modernity and Beyond	209	(34)
Risk and Modernization	209	(4)
Risk and Scientific Rationality	213	(8)
Social Functions of Scientific Reasoning	213	(4)
The Use of Science in Policy Making	217	(4)
Post-Modernism	221	(7)
Fundamentalist Revivals	228	(3)
The Relevance of Critical Theory	231	(12)
The Dialectics of Rationalization	232	(4)
Communicative Action	236	(7)
From Monological to Dialogical Rationality	243	(54)
The Nature of the Challenge	243	(15)
Some Problems with the Idea of Rational Action	243	(4)
RAP and Human Choice	247	(4)
Labyrinths of Perfection	251	(4)
RAP Claims in the Light of Competing Social Theories	255	(3)
Elements of a New Paradigm	258	(23)
Scope Conditions	259	(2)
Ambivalent Preferences and Expectations	261	(6)
Rule Evolution	267	(5)
Prices, Investment, and Risk	272	(5)
Reflexivity	277	(4)
The Practical Context	281	(16)
Implications for Political Behavior	282	(3)
Implications for Economic Behavior	285	(3)
Social Theory in Historical Context	288	(9)
References	297	(16)
Index	313