Risk and techno-industrial progress: taking "risk society" seriously

Abstract

The risks associated with techno-industrial progress may be interpreted in different ways. For one thing, risk suggests that the evils of progress can be anticipated and controlled by experts and legislation, the two combining to establish acceptable techno-industrial safety frameworks. But risk is also intimately bound up with the potential social and environmental problems that accompany progress. Ulrich Beck"™s "risk society" theory was a milestone in this respect, facilitating a more critical understanding of the relationship between risk and society. In Beck"™s theory, risk is not seen simply as a collateral consequence of progress, as something that can be controlled by society"™s major scientific, political, economical and legal institutions, but as a constitutive and fundamentally problematic feature of our societies. The problem of safety points directly to the body of social and economic commitments and interests by which risk is constituted, thus severely constraining the possibility of creating alternative safety scenarios.