Risk Society: Towards a New Modernism

Beck’s influential statement on the contemporary western condition has introduced the idea of the "risk society" and, along with Giddens’s work below, has produced the framework for the central social theory debate in Europe during from the mid-90s to the early 2000s.

The concept of "reflexive modernisation", (modernity turning on itself) is the cornerstone of the analysis, which is strongly based on the idea that exposure to risk is the main stratifying factor in late modernity. Beck’s approach makes awareness of major risks a precondition of the risk society and the operation of the social and political spheres in late modernity. Although, conscience is by definition the fundamental component of sociopolitical change, it is probably wrong that concern for major catastrophes underlies contemporary vulnerability.

It is from this point of view essential to establish if contemporary vulnerability, particularly after the end of the cold war, originates in principled and distant risk projections or if it comes from the immediate sphere of experience within the competitive framework of increasingly liberal capitalist democracies.

This is part of the focus of this WP and sets the stage for the development of all insecurity-related problématiques within the Challenge IP.

Beck U.,Risk Society: Towards a New Modernism, Sage Publications, London, 1992.