Anticipating Risks and Organising Risk Regulation

✍ Scribed by Bridget Hutter

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 321
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

Anticipating risks has become an obsession of the early twenty-first century. Private and public sector organizations increasingly devote resources to risk prevention and contingency planning to manage risk events should they occur. This book shows how we can organize our social, organizational and regulatory policy systems to cope better with the array of local and transnational risks we regularly encounter. Contributors from a range of disciplines - including finance, history, law, management, political science, social psychology, sociology and disaster studies - consider threats, vulnerabilities and insecurities alongside social and organizational sources of resilience and security. These issues are introduced and discussed through a fascinating and diverse set of topics, including myxomatosis, the 2012 Olympic Games, gene therapy and the recent financial crisis. This is an important book for academics and policy makers who wish to understand the dilemmas generated in the anticipation and management of risks.

✦ Table of Contents

Half-title......Page 3
Title......Page 5
Copyright......Page 6
Dedication......Page 7
Contents......Page 9
Preface......Page 15
Part I: Introduction......Page 17
1 Anticipating risk and organising risk regulation: current dilemmas......Page 19
Anticipating risk: risk as anticipation......Page 20
New threats, vulnerabilities and insecurities......Page 21
Scientific and technological risks......Page 22
Global risks......Page 23
New risks?......Page 25
Anticipating risk: social, organisational and regulatory actions and reactions......Page 27
Social and organisational aspects of anticipating risks......Page 28
Regulation and anticipation......Page 33
Conclusion......Page 36
Part II: Threat, vulnerabilities and insecurities......Page 39
Introduction......Page 41
Financial innovation: derivatives and securitisations......Page 42
Financial markets crisis since the middle of 2007......Page 48
Northern Rock, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and other casualties......Page 51
The imperfect science of risk management......Page 55
The imperfect science of regulation......Page 58
Conclusion......Page 60
Introduction: the definition of risks as contested terrain......Page 62
Managing scarcity: the internet address space and its regulatory framework......Page 65
The risk of doing nothing......Page 68
The risk of changing something......Page 73
The risk of ‘doing it badly’: the design of an address market......Page 78
Anticipating risks in light of competing definitions of the public good......Page 81
4 Changing attitudes to risk? Managing myxomatosis in twentieth-century Britain......Page 84
5 Public perceptions of risk and ‘compensation culture’ in the UK......Page 106
Interwoven concerns about public attitudes to risk and compensation......Page 108
The compensation culture debate......Page 110
How has the debate flourished? Vested interests and the appeal of ‘tort tales’......Page 111
What affects propensity to sue and decisions based on perceptions of risk?......Page 116
The place of ‘culture’ explanations......Page 121
The role of cultural attitudes to blame in explaining propensity to sue......Page 123
Conclusion......Page 127
Introduction......Page 130
Theorising risk colonisation......Page 132
Three hypotheses about the colonisation of academia by risk......Page 137
Preliminary academic risks......Page 139
Conceptualising risk management......Page 142
In search of academic risks......Page 143
The consolidation of academic risk management......Page 147
Conclusion......Page 149
Part III: Social, organisational and regulatory sources of resilience and security......Page 153
7 Regulating resilience? Regulatory work in high-risk arenas......Page 155
The structure of risk regulation......Page 157
High-risk arenas and resilience......Page 159
Regulatory work......Page 162
Formalising organisational practice......Page 163
Supervising organisational practice......Page 166
Developing organisational practice......Page 169
Regulating for resilience......Page 171
Conclusion......Page 175
8 Critical infrastructures, resilience and organisation of mega-projects: the Olympic Games......Page 177
Mega-projects, critical infrastructures and resilience......Page 178
Organising critical infrastructures......Page 183
Organising critical infrastructure for London 2012......Page 189
Olympics czars......Page 192
All in one room......Page 193
Central steering......Page 195
Wisdom of crowds......Page 197
Conclusion......Page 198
9 Creating space for engagement? Lay membership in contemporary risk governance......Page 201
Lay membership – creating new regulatory space?......Page 204
Witnessing scientific advice......Page 208
Communication......Page 209
Social grounding......Page 211
Discussion......Page 212
Lay roles II: lay members as advisors......Page 213
Complementary experts......Page 214
Challenge roles......Page 215
Tensions between ‘lay’ and ‘expert’ knowledge......Page 217
Lay representation and value neutrality......Page 218
Knowledge relations......Page 219
Conclusion......Page 221
Risk and regulation of a ‘frontier science’......Page 224
‘Gene therapy’: crises and responses......Page 227
Consent and the conventional bioethical frame......Page 234
A greater chain of being: the ethics of animal evidence......Page 240
Conclusion......Page 244
Transboundary crises: critical challenges for contemporary government......Page 247
The modern crisis: trends and challenges......Page 249
Challenges of crisis management......Page 251
Regular failures......Page 253
Principles of effective crisis management......Page 256
Formulating a crisis management vision......Page 258
Organising for crisis management......Page 259
Legal resources......Page 260
Training for crisis management......Page 261
Institutionalising international cooperation......Page 262
Conclusion: risk regulation and transboundary crises......Page 263
12 Conclusion: important themes and future research directions......Page 265
Anticipating risks......Page 266
Managing risks: a risky business......Page 267
The unanticipated consequences of risk regulation......Page 271
The illusion of a risk-free world......Page 273
Understanding better risk and expectations of the future......Page 276
What counts as ‘evidence’......Page 277
Developing different levels of understanding......Page 278
Understanding the limits of anticipating and managing risk......Page 279
References......Page 281
Author index......Page 312
Subject index......Page 317