Societal Risk Assesment - Term Paper Example

Societal Risk Assessment   and Section # of Societal Risk Assessment   The food we eat, the water we drink, the atmosphere in which we breathe, our practice and lifestyles, and, not least, the many technologies that we are becoming more and more reliant upon are all more or less imbued with uncertainty as to what their effects might be. Whereas a number of sound effects are taken for contracted as desired benefits, others lurk as possible injurious outcomes. At the same time, citizens in modern nation states intuitively think that they have a moral right not to be put at risk unless there are good reasons for this to happen (Hansson & Peterson 2001,157). Governments and industry are also widely understood to have a moral obligation not to impose risks on the innocent unsuspecting public. Many institutional on texts are crucial for how risks are framed and communicated. Science and technology map causes and effects in various real systems (in terms of mechanics, energy, chemistry, or psychology). The broadcast media disseminate information that often emphasizes that the world is a dangerous place to inhabit. Since interests invariably diverge — among individuals and more importantly among social groups, corporations, and organizations — issues of risk and safety are increasingly political and controversial (Boholm & Löfstedt 1999). The identification, definition and management of risk become area under discussion matter to the enclosed or unwrap strategies of political performer trying to accomplish their desires, to win confidence, support and voters. The South African government’s policy which is towards aids, the British government’s handling of BSE, the colza oil scandal in Spain, or the environmental scandal of the Hallandsås train tunnel in Sweden (Löfstedt & Boholm 1999,41) illustrate how concerns about risks to human health and the environment can turn into intensely contested political affairs. In such events, the allocation of benefits and negative effects of modern technology and lifestyles, the legitimacy and trustworthiness of the state and government policy are spotlighted. In the future, questions on the management and distribution of risks can be expected to become even more intensely debated topics on the political arena. (Ferreira, Boholm & Löfstedt 2001) Discussion Risk is usually defined in mathematical terms as the statistical probability of an conclusion in combination with severity of the effect construed as a ‘cost’ that could be anticipated in terms of money, deaths or cases of ill health. To cite one example, an article from a Swedish newspaper with the headline ‘Polluted air makes many people sick ‘ presented a medical study of 380,000 individuals living in Göteborg. The scientists found a statistical correlation between instances of death or lung or tranchea illness and polluted air. Their conclusion was as follows: ‘the risk of dying of lung or trachea diseases increases with the concentration of ulphate. Every increase of 1 microgram per cubic meter increases the risk by 5 per cent.’ In other words, risk here refers to the statistical probability of an adverse event that has a known or hypothesized cause. By applying this technical perspective, scientists’ analysis of risk allows comparisons of very different risks. A low probability risk, which has severe consequences for large populations (a reactor failure in a nuclear power plant), can be compared to a high-probability risk, which entails lesser consequences for a large population (a car accident). Under the paradigm of cost-benefit analysis and rational choice theory, guesstimate and relationship can be made to serve as guidelines for decision-makers, national regulatory bodies and policy makers as well as individual citizens in their daily lives. The distinction between objective and subjective risk has served as a conceptual baseline for much of the research on risk within the social and behavioral sciences (Pidgeon et al. 1992). Objective risk refers to phenomena and causality in the natural world that can have harmful effects. It is the task of science to disclose and assess sources of potential harm, identify measurable correlations and assess the probabilities of harm. Subjective risk recognizes that people’s beliefs and opinions often deviate from such scientific assessments. People understand and judge risks in terms of emic, locally defined, values and concerns (Stoffle et al. 1991,612). Studies within psychology have shown that assessments of risk are not based purely on a calculation of the product of the estimated statistical probability and the estimated effect. The psychometric model of risk perception involves dimensions such as a knowledge, degree of novelty and familiarity, degree of personal control and catastrophic potential (Slovic 2000). To categorize something as a ‘risk’ implies values. The concept of risk, therefore, by definition, integrates descriptive/factual and normative components and is therefore (intrinsically) open to negotiation and contestation (Shrader-Frechette 1991). Statistical probability is a mathematical concept that quantifies the chances of an event or occurrence, and it has limited relevance for explaining how people think and act in situations where there is an element of uncertainty. People do not always make rational decisions about risks from a point of view of scientific risk assessment definitions of rationality (Renn et al. 2000). They do not assess objective probabilities and effects so that they arrive at the optimal value prescribed by the rational actor paradigm of decision theory. Rational choice theory presupposes that people make decisions in an idealized, isolated context where every new piece of information will be undisturbed by associations with contradictory knowledge. But people do not exist in a social and cultural blankness. Decisions about risk and management of risk are socially embedded, shaped by culturally based notions about the state of the world, what the world consists of and how it works (Douglas & Wildavsky 1982,72). Cultural notions tell us intuitively what is potentially dangerous and harmful and what is not, provide us with explanatory models that tell us why things behave as they do, and moral guidelines regarding why certain things or actions are good or right while others are bad or evil (Douglas 1992). A Conundrum of Risk and Culture During the last twenty-five years of research on risk perception a considerable number of cross-national studies have been conducted. Beside explorative aims to probe people’s risk perceptions in various countries and across continents, a strong objective for creating comparative cross-national studies has been to test current theories, such as the psychometric model and cultural theory. One lesson from cross-national research is that perception of risks is both uniform and variable; we find similarities as well as differences. Cross-national results contain ‘mixed bags’ of similarities and differences (Kleinhesselink & Rosa 1991,22). Some reported differences could be accounted for by the presence or absence of actual risks due to the specific conditions of living in different countries. Poor drinking water, environmental pollution, terrorist attacks or heavy and dangerous road traffic is simply more prominent threats to some populations than to others. Other findings are, however, more puzzling and less easy to relate to the actual conditions under which people live. Analyses Social anthropologist Mary Douglas and political scientist Aaron Wildavsky published their often-cited book Risk and Culture, arguing that ‘risk’ is created within culture. The meanings of risks, their ontological qualities and moral implications are said to be socially and culturally constructed by means of collectively shared representations. This relativistic theory claims that ‘risks’ should be viewed as culturally and historically embedded. There is no single rationality with regard to knowledge of risks and the ways in which they should be managed. The relativism of cultural theory is however not boundless. It is limited to a typology of four basic sociological forms as defined by grid-group theory (egalitarianism, individualism, fatalism and hierarchism) (Douglas 1978). Within this risk study, cultural theory has been implicated as a paradigmatic break with methodological individualism in that the theory is not based on assumptions about an individually based rationality of maximization of utility (Tansey & O’Riordan 1999). Cultural theory states that it aims to explain risk not from the thoughts, intentions and strategies of individuals but as a phenomenon shaped by social and cultural processes. The theory has been highly influential in some work by social scientists (mainly psychologists and sociologists) engaged in studies of how, paradoxically, individuals estimate risks, dangers or hazards (Dake 1991,61). Under the chapter heading ’Risks are selected’ Douglas and Wildavsky (1982:29) lift up the question here that how the past generations before the advent of modern technology regarded risks and dangers. In contrast to cultural theory recognizes no disparity in principal among the models to explain misfortune in modern and traditional societies (Beck 1992). Clarifications in terms of ‘risk’ in modern society are understood to fulfill the same social function as explanations in terms of destiny, supernatural agency or broken taboo in traditional societies. Such clarifications all have the same function in that they serve to maintain classificatory separations between individuals and between groups. The observable fact in traditional societies that has been particularly observed within cultural theory is taboo. In many traditional societies there are (as every undergraduate student in social anthropology is aware of) strong beliefs that certain actions or objects in combination with others will produce catastrophic consequences. An example discussed by Douglas & Wildavsky (1982) and often cited by advocates of cultural theory to prove the point that ‘risks are culturally selected’ refers to ethnography of Hima (Elam 1973). Hima is a subgroup of Nkole, a Bantu-speaking people who occupy the area of southwestern Uganda. The Nkole were traditionally divided into two quite distinct social groups: the pastoral Hima, who made up about one-tenth of the population, and the agricultural Iru who constituted the remainder. Hima subsistence depends on cattle produce such as beef, milk and butter. This diet is complemented by millet bought from their agricultural neighbours, who do not keep cattle. Hima cosmology revolves around a set of clear-cut pollution beliefs. A fundamental organizing principle of their cosmology is that women should be strictly separated from cattle. Any contact between women and cattle is believed to cause sickness and death among the cattle. There is also a strict dietary prohibition stating that plant food and milk produce must never ever be mixed since this will cause sickness and death. According to Douglas and Wildavsky (1982:47), Hima polluting ideas are instruments of social control, and constitute a way of resisting changes. This analytical perception on risk (Rosa 1998, 15) as referring to a domain of uncertainty about values and assets, and a fundamental experiential realm of human existence, for both individuals and collective, should serve as a starting point for any theory aspiring to account for the social and cultural dimensions of risk. From such a definition one should ask how people identify, recognize and manage uncertainty in terms of knowledge of consequences and probabilities of events. It should also be noted that what the risks are ‘in themselves’, and how they are defined by the scientific community, can certainly be highly relevant, but there is no simple translation from the way in which experts define and estimate risks in terms of a calculus of probability and effects to ‘situated risk’, that is to say, risks as they are actually understood and conceptualised by people in social settings. Among the Hima we can note that according to their beliefs, to break a taboo has known catastrophic consequences. It is not that the Hima believe that there is a possibility that the cattle will be harmed by the presence of a woman in their pen. That women inflict disastrous harm on cattle is a matter of certitude. Does any one really get ill by eating vegetables with milk? Would life be more prosperous if agriculture were to be practiced together with animal husbandry? As Douglas and Wildavsky note (1982,42), the Hima do not raise such questions. In fact, one could argue that their culture does not even allow such questions to be formulated. If a person falls ill, or if a cow dies, such events post facto start a series of questioning in order to establish what taboo has been broken and by whom. To respect a taboo therefore has little in common with risk management as a set of strategies to reduce uncertainty. Taboo in traditional societies expresses fate, that is to say, certainty, while risk in modern societies deals with (more or less) calculated uncertainty. Precisely because risk stands for calculated uncertainty, a risk can be practically managed, reduced or increased; it could be taken or avoided, depending on one’s own and others actions and motives. Rather than belonging to the same generic category, then, risk and taboo are analytical counterparts. The certainty of a taboo spelling out that a cow dies if a woman comes into contact with it is essentially different from a scientific statement that women are bearers of a contagious infection and that there is a 5 % probability that the cow will catch the infection and die. In nations with developed welfare states, schools were meant to act in a limited capacity to transform social relations in the name of egalitarianism, whilst still contributing to the promotion of economic growth through the certification of each new generation. Neoliberalism destabilized this (albeit always problematic) agenda by emphasizing new concepts of standards, vocationalism and individualism. As a result egalitarianism has been transformed by the reworking of the concept of individual rights into the notion of individualized difference and diversity. Schools, in the future, are likely to feel pressure to take account of differentiations within not just between subordinated and powerful groups. The traditional categories of educational achievement and under-achievement such as race, class and gender could be replaced by individual educational careers and the tailoring of courses to personal choices. Thus schools will be expected to meet the demands of flexibilisation of learning, which will be represented as a new form of egalitarianism. Race, class and gender issues have taken major role in creating societal risk even in schools (Arnot et al., 1999). Coping with Uncertainty Uncertainty has to do with what is unpredicted in life, the odd possibilities and irregular occurrences. When uncertainty has a positive flavor we speak of ‘luck’ or good ‘fortune’ and when uncertainty is tainted by dismal or catastrophic expectations we speak of ‘risk’. Uncertainty concerns the future, which might be a future that an individual can expect to experience personally during the lifetime, or a more distant one to be experienced by coming generations or by other living creatures in times to come. Uncertainty implies recognition of change and awareness that states of affairs are not static; they can alter drastically, for better or for worse. Risk analysis focus on how future state can be calculated as outcome of cause-effect correlations: What is the probability of getting cancer as a result of exposure to a certain chemical, what are the chances of a reactor breakdown of a nuclear plant, or of being killed in a car accident? Framed as ‘risk’, a hazard is appraised and a possible negative outcome is determined. By using risk as a conceptual framework, modern science can compare hazards to arrive at conclusions such as that there is a greater risk of death or injury when traveling by motorcycle than by train. This dimension of calculated risk can then be incorporated in societal risk management strategies and in individual decision-making. This abstracted dimension of conceiving risk makes it possible for us to compare the hazard of traveling by aeroplane, car, boat or train. Risk assessments might even be significant in our choice of means of transport. The concept of risk can be implicit as a framing device, which conceptually translates uncertainty from being an open-ended field of unpredicted possibilities into a bounded set of possible consequences. We could say that uncertainty is a fundamental dimension of risk and without uncertainty there is no risk. Uncertainty has an impact since if people feel that their livelihood, their health or well-being is threatened they will organize various coping strategies, political, religious or economic mobilization or combinations of such activities (Bloch 1998). In real life situations, the boundary between certitude and uncertainty is of course seldom razor-sharp, and vagueness and ambiguity tend to be the rule rather than the exception. The dynamic shifts between certitude and uncertainty make up the basis of the issue of any cultural conceptualization of risk. Conclusion Douglas and Wildavsky have highlighted the everyday experience takes place in the spheres of common life. Information is dispersed through small talk about health, personal circumstances and local matters, through comments on events near and far not infrequently related in the media, and gossip regarding mutually known ‘others’. According Douglas and Wildavsky everyday experience covers risk-related issues concerning food, transportation, safety matters relating to the home and its equipment, children, the neighbourhood, traffic, and various risk factors in the local environment. Knowledge of risks has personal relevance in this mode; risks are situated — socially, and in time and space — and clearly context dependent. Risks are not dealt with as isolated ‘things’ but as matters that threaten taken-for- granted interpersonally negotiated states of safety (Zonabend 1993). The September 11 wtc attack, the outbreak of foot and mouth disease in the UK and the like — are predominantly communicated through news media. Such narratives invite comments by experts who transmit scientific information as well as opinion makers such as Green peace and other ngo’s often introducing contradictory scientific evidence or alternative priorities. For the media the narrative dramaturgical structure is crucial: there must be a story to be told about intentions and motives, victims, villains and heroes, all staged in a specific setting. Further Douglas and Wildavsky explained that consequences are spelled out and so are meanings and emotions. Issues of blame, responsibility and trust are topical and are intermingled with questions about causation and speculations on plausible effects. Some episodes even develop a force to structure the interpretation of new events. They become epitomes that can be used to label other events, which thereby are subsumed under an interpretative frame of the labeling event. Social relationships, power relations and hierarchies, cultural beliefs, trust in institutions and science, knowledge, experience, discourses, practices and collective memories all shape notions about risk or safety. ‘Risk’ is not an intrinsic property of things. It is a relational term that emerges out of contexts depending on shared conventionally established meanings, that is to say, ‘culture’ (Rappaport 1996). Works cited ARNOT, M., DAVID, M. & WEINER, G. (1999) Closing the Gender Gap: postwar education and social change (Cambridge, Polity Press). Beck, Ulrich. 1992. Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity. London: Sage. 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