PR 1450 Introduction to Globalization

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PR 1450Introduction to Globalization

• Lecture 12
• Environment and
• world risk society
• Chris Rumford

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Everyday risks

• Candles may pose a risk to childrens health
  because they contain lead
• Mobile phone use may increase the risk of cancer
• Watching your team lose at football can increase
  the risk of a heart attack
• 350 farms in Wales are still affected by
  radiation more than 20 years after the Chernobyl
  nuclear accident

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• The risk society thesis is associated most
  closely with the work of Ulrich Beck

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Introducing Becks work

• There exist hazards that are on the one hand
  created by society itself, but on the other are
  neither attributable nor accountable nor even
  manageable within society (Strydom, 2002 59)
• Paradigmatic risks are nuclear, chemical,
  genetic, ecological

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• From terrorism to environmental hazards and the
  risks inherent in everyday lifestyle choices
  (food, relationships, mobile phone usage) we seem
  to be bombarded with risk, and information about
  risk
• Contemporary society seems to be characterised
  by risk and debates on how it should be managed
  at both the institutional and personal levels
• However, we need to ask what it means to
  characterise western societies as risk
  societies and investigate further the changes
  that this designation supposes.

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Risk society natural or man-made?

• Havent societies always been risk societies?
• Beck says that in pre-modern times risks were
  associated with nature plague, famine,
  earthquakes (or taken as evidence of supernatural
  forces)
• A world of uncertainty, rather than risk
• Nowadays, risk emerges as consequence of human
  activity (e.g. over-production)
• For Beck, risk has replaced uncertainty

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• We have moved from a world of where uncertainty
  was the result natural hazards
• to a world where risks are manufactured or the
  product of human attempts to dominate nature
• Read the newspaper article Unnatural disasters
  by Andrew Simms www.guardian.co.uk/analysis/story/
  0,3604,1063081,00.html
• What does this tell us about the nature of
  manufactured risks?

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Risk Society Towards a New Modernity (1992)

• In his book Beck argues that we have witnessed a
  shift from the production and distribution of
  goods
• to a concern with the prevention and
  minimization of bads (i.e. risk)

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The nature of risk

• Since mid-C20th industrial society has been
  confronted with threats to human life on an
  unprecedented scale
• environmental catastrophe
• nuclear power
• biological weapons

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• Beck argues that whereas natural risks
  (uncertainties) were calculable and manageable
• In risk society calculation, management, and
  insurance all fail. Risks are no longer
  localized, visible, and easily containable
• Contemporary risks have the following key
  qualities
• they are not limited in time and space
• they can be catastrophic
• mechanisms of social insurance are inadequate
  (welfare provision)

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The Chernobyl disaster

• The Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the Ukraine in
  1986 is a case in point
• the risks were not localized
• no one country could manage them
• the risks posed are to future generations

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For background on this story look at the
excellent BBC achieve on the Chernobyl disaster
http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/guides/45690
0/456957/html/nn1page1.stm

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The extent of Chernobyl fallout
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• Chernobyl was a catastrophic event, the effects
  of which were not limited in time and space, and
  against which mechanisms of protection and
  compensation were totally inadequate
• Read the article Chernobyl still haunts hill
  farms which can be found at http//news.bbc.co.uk
  /1/hi/wales/3049759.stm
• Why do you think 180,000 sheep in Wales remained
  affected by radioactive fall-out 17 years after
  the disaster?
• What does this tell us about the nature of risk?

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Now read the more recent article, No plans to
end radiation testing by Nia Thomashttp//news.b
bc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/4946352.stm

• One farmer says that in 1986 they were told
• 'This thing will be with you for three weeks -
  three months at the most.'

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• In industrial society risks were evident to the
  senses.
• Today, many risks escape immediate perception
• radiation
• toxic chemicals
• pollution
• GM food

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• In addition, risks are increasingly contested.
  GM food is a good example
• industry, governments and farmers argued that
  no risk attaches to genetically modified foods,
  while the banking sector withdrew from investing
  in biotechnology and supermarkets banned GM food
  from their shelves in view of the European
  publics perception of genetic engineering as a
  high risk technology (Strydom, 2002 60)

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• Scientists have lost authority over risk
  assessment and risk calculations can be
  challenged by pressure groups and activists
• Read the article, Worried consumers 'shun GM
  foods'http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3618386.stm
• Beck says that there is a struggle over the
  meaning of risk between those who produce them
  (experts) and those who consume them (public)

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• Risk associated with mobile phone use is also
  contested
• Pollution fears over sperm count
  http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/3378315.stm
• Rural mobile phone use riskier
  http//news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4552645.stm
• Mobile phones tumour risk to young children,
  http//www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,8122-14365
  43,00.html
• What do these articles tell us about the
  contested nature of risk assessment? Who can we
  trust when looking for guidance?

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Concluding section

• Poverty is hierarchical, smog is democratic
  (Beck)
• In industrial society the impact of poverty was
  experienced differentially
• Risk cannot be mapped onto class
• Even the rich and powerful are not safe from risk

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• For Beck, risk society is closely related to
  globalization
• Many risks have an obvious global dimension
• pollution
• global warming
• nuclear power
• New communities of risk can be created across
  national borders communities of danger
• Global problems demand global solutions
• Risk society is also world risk society

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• One (potentially positive) outcome of this is
  that we need to recognise the necessity of
  cooperative international institutions (e.g. the
  UNs Kyoto Protocol) http//unfccc.int/essential_b
  ackground/kyoto_protocol/items/2830.php
• Industrial society, through reflecting on its
  own behaviour and mistakes, may come to see
  itself as risk society

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Finally

• Whereas class society was dominated by idea of
  (in)equality and welfare, risk society is
  dominated by the idea of safety
• Beck says, The dream of class society is that
  everyone wants and ought to have a share of the
  pie. The utopia of the risk society is that
  everyone should be spared from poisoning (Beck,
  1992 49)

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• The driving force in the class society can be
  summarized in the phrase I am hungry! The
  movement set in motion by the risk society, on
  the other hand, is expressed by the statement I
  am afraid! (Beck, 1992 49)
• Communities of need have given way to
  communities of anxiety
• Insecurity has replaced scarcity

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Read an article by Ulrich Beck The politics of
risk society at www.envsci.nau.edu/sisk/courses/e
nv555/Readings/Beck.PDF
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References

• Beck, U. 1992 Risk Society towards a new
  modernity. London Sage.
• Beck, U. 1999 World Risk Society. Cambridge
  Polity Press.
• Dean, M. 1999 Governmentality power and rule in
  modern society. London Sage.
• Denney, D. 2005 Risk and Society. London Sage.
• Lupton, D. 1999 Risk. London Routledge
• Mythen, G. 2004 Ulrich Beck a Critical
  Introduction to the Risk Society. London Pluto
  Press.
• Strydom, P. 2002 Risk, environment and society.
  Buckingham Open University Press.