Risk, environment, and society : ongoing debates, current issues, and future prospects / Piet Strydom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Strydom, Piet, 1946-

Series:

Issues in society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Risk--Sociological aspects.

Risk.

Risk perception.

Risk-taking (Psychology).

Physical Description:

xiv, 192 pages ; 24 cm.

Place of Publication:

Buckingham [U.K.] ; Philadelphia : Open University Press, 2002.

Contents:

Public discourse and the social sciences 2

The societal significance of risk 3

Part 1 Problems, debates, frameworks and theories 9

1 The risk discourse: the contemporary concern with risk 11

First phase: nuclear energy, safety research and the risk assessment debate 13

Second phase: nuclear and environmental opposition and the social acceptability of risk 16

Third phase: public concern and the problem of risk perception 21

Fourth phase: full-scale public risk discourse 25

2 Background theories and frameworks of understanding 36

Background theories: from human ecology to the theory of modernity 37

Epistemological frameworks: realism and constructivism 46

3 Major theoretical directions 53

Critical theory of the risk society 54

Sceptical theory of the contingent society 63

Part 2 Cultural and institutional analysis 71

4 Risk - what is it? 73

Risk semantics 74

Lexical and conceptual history of risk 75

Scheme of safety and danger 77

Classification of the semantic field of risk 78

The universal, global and irreversible quality of new risks 80

The reality of risk and its social construction 84

5 Societal production of risk: society as laboratory 88

From religion to science 89

Culturally defined processes of risk production: the state and science 92

The modern relation to nature: organic, mechanical and cybernetic 98

The experimenting society: society as laboratory 101

6 Discursive construction of risk: the new public sphere 105

The communication revolution and the transformation of the public sphere 106

Public communication, discourse, and the contemporary public sphere 108

The social construction of risk 114

7 Consensus and conflict in the risk society 123

Changing cultural foundations: nature 124

Emergent cultural forms of legitimation: sustainability, responsibility, citizenship 126

Emergent institutions: new and reflexive 132

The nascent society of the twenty-first century: world government and bio-society? 136

Part 3 Rethinking the risk society 143

8 Towards a new critical theory 145

Risk society, knowledge society, communication society 146

The new cognitive sociology 147

Constructivism 150

Responsibility in the experimenting society 152

Socio-cognitive critique 153

The public role of sociology 157.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [167]-180) and index.

ISBN:

0335207839

0335207847

OCLC:

49226353