World Risk Society

Author: (German) Beck / Wu Yingzi / Sun Shumin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-05-01
Features: Anyone interested in understanding the breadth of Ulrich Beck's works on the risk society should read this challenging collection of essays by the sociologist of our time. Addressing scholars and policymakers, Beck analyzes the impact of the private risk society on the environment and reflects on the implications of organized irresponsibility for social, political, and economic behavior in the context of globalization. World Risk Society is one of the outstanding sociological theories of our time: powerful, rigorous, and deeply relevant to society. This important work, written by the distinguished European sociologist and political theorist, collects several key essays. These essays argue that a new reference framework is needed to understand the world risk society in which we live today. Beck focuses on the ecological and technological aspects of risk and their social and political implications. At the same time, he discusses and responds to the criticisms raised by his earlier, widely cited works on the risk society. Beck believes that we now have a "global politics" that we did not have several years ago, which can be understood in terms of the dynamics and contradictions of the world risk society. It raises questions such as: What is the environment? What is nature? What is wilderness? What is humanity? These questions should be reposed and reconsidered in a transnational context, even if their answers remain elusive. These essays form the basis of Beck's "cosmopolitan declaration." They propose a dialectic of global and regional issues that do not apply to national politics. By recognizing that pluralism, individualism, and skepticism have been embedded in our culture, we can forge a new form of social cohesion, a new foundation for cosmopolitanism, where creative uncertainty replaces hierarchical certainty. Beck encourages political experiments aimed at fostering a global moral of shared risk, which could, in the future, give rise to a powerful cosmopolitan movement. This book is an important teaching material for scholars and students in the fields of sociology and political science. It can also be read by a broad readership interested in the important sociopolitical issues of our time. Ulrich Beck is a professor of sociology at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.