Risk Society and the Hybris of Modern Japanese State/Society

2013 ◽  
pp. 176-189
Author(s):  
Mika Markus Merviö
Keyword(s):  
Social Participation ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Nuclear Plants ◽  
Risk Discourse

This article analyses the risk society discourse in the context of Japanese society and the triple shock of the earthquake, tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear plants catastrophe. Social risk discourse has found its way to Japan but the reception has been rather selective. The policy examples in this article illustrate the obstacles that exist to promote greater social participation and social reforms in Japan.

Risk Society and the Hybris of Modern Japanese State/Society

2011 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 14-26
Author(s):  
Mika Markus Merviö
Keyword(s):  
Social Participation ◽  
Japanese Society ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Social Reforms ◽  
Nuclear Plants ◽  
Risk Discourse

This article analyses the risk society discourse in the context of Japanese society and the triple shock of the earthquake, tsunami, and the Fukushima nuclear plants catastrophe. Social risk discourse has found its way to Japan but the reception has been rather selective. The policy examples in this article illustrate the obstacles that exist to promote greater social participation and social reforms in Japan.

Social Risk Discourse and Japan

2020 ◽  
pp. 242-264
Author(s):  
Mika Markus Merviö
Keyword(s):  
Social Institutions ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Security Risks ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Family Based ◽  
New Research ◽  
Risk Discourse

In terms of risk society, Japan is following the rest of its peers in entering the world risk society, but in a selective way of ignoring some parts of the discourse. This chapter will show how long of a process it was for the concepts of risk society, reflexivity, and individualization to enter Japanese social and political discourses. As a result, the public policies in many areas have lacked in direction and coordination. In Japan, the risk discourses have often failed to go much beyond the security risks and natural hazards. However, there has also been new research on social risks, such as on so-called new risks-associated individualization and with family and work. The common theme is that traditional social institutions are eroding while both individualization and traditional (family-based) values coexist. However, the enormous significance of environmental risks for the future has, unfortunately, not been taken seriously enough in social and political discourses in Japan and, consequently, the public policy responses reflect these weaknesses.

Food Safety and Social Risk in Contemporary China

2012 ◽  
Vol 71 (3) ◽  
pp. 705-729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yunxiang Yan
Keyword(s):  
Food Safety ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social Trust ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Rapid Decline ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Chinese People ◽  
And Control ◽  
Contemporary Chinese

Food-safety problems constitute a new, urgent, and multifaceted challenge to Chinese people, society, and the state, involving a number of social, political, and ethical issues beyond those of food safety, nutrition, and health. In light of Ulrich Beck's theory of risk society, this article examines food-safety problems in contemporary Chinese society at the levels of food hygiene, unsafe food, and poisonous foods and argues that food-safety problems not only affect the lives of Chinese people in harmful ways but also pose a number of manufactured risks that are difficult to calculate and control. More importantly, food-safety problems in China have contributed to a rapid decline of social trust, thus posing a risk of distrust that has far-reaching social and political ramifications. In this sense, a risk society has already arrived in China but it comes with certain local characteristics and poses some new theoretical questions.

Science in the World Risk Society: Risk, the Novel, and Global Climate Change

2016 ◽  
Vol 64 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Mayer
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Scientific Uncertainty ◽  
Scientific Authority ◽  
The World ◽  
Reflexive Modernity ◽  
Risk Discourse

AbstractAnthropogenic climate change constitutes one of the major global risks of our time. In spite of widespread scientific consensus, however, climate change discourse is still characterized by controversy. This controversy reflects both a variety of conflicting interests that frame the perception of climate change and a fundamental trend in our age of reflexive modernity: an increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and a loss of trust in scientific authority. It also defines our current cultural moment as paradoxical: societies worldwide are simultaneously characterized by such increased awareness of scientific uncertainty and by reliance on scientific knowledge to a historically unprecedented degree. According to Ulrich Beck, this paradox in part defines what he conceived of as a new manifestation of modern society, the ‘world risk society.’ This essay addresses the fictional contribution to the risk discourse of global climate change. After introducing the role of science in the world risk society and the climate change novel as a fictional risk narrative, it discusses how Susan M. Gaines’

scholarly journals Sustainable development: a narcissistic strategy to cope with the environmental crisis?

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Kasiorowski de Araujo ◽  
Gabriela Marques Di Giulio
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Interdisciplinary Approach ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Environmental Crisis ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Reflexive Modernization ◽  
Human Conduct ◽  
Symbolic Structure

Abstract This article analyzes the institutionalization of the discourse of sustainable development (SD) for more than three decades and its development as a symbolic structure that influences subjectivity and social practices in this century. Embracing an interdisciplinary approach, it focuses on a debate between psychoanalysis, attentive to the ways in wich discontent is manifested, and the ideas of risk society and reflexive modernization, from social risk theory. The analysis of the SD discourse allows to frame it as a narcissistic strategy to cope with the environmental crisis. Such a strategy structures itself in the very preservation of existence at the same time that it disputes a constant process of defining which way of life populations should live and how human conduct should be guided. As a discourse that denies finitude, supported by the need for efficiency and technological development in order to avoid the end of resources, this narcissistic strategy may ultimately lay the foundation of human and environmental exhaustion.

SOCIAL IDENTIFICATION OF RISKS IN INFORMATION-TELECOMMUNICATION NETWORK INTERNET: THE COMBINATION OF MODERN TECHNOLOGY AND TRADITIONAL METHODS

2019 ◽  
pp. 130-138
Author(s):  
M.V. Kibakin
Keyword(s):  
Information Search ◽  
Telecommunication Network ◽  
Social Identification ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Diagnostic Methods ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Sociological Research ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Traditional Methods

The article reveals the features of social diagnostic studies of risks in the virtual space. The characteristics of various modern technologies of search, classification, transformation, analysis and presentation of information contained in the Internet, in relation to the solution of problems of applied sociological research of risks in various spheres of society. Practical examples show the role and place of traditional methods of collecting primary sociological information in the study of phenomena and processes on the Internet using search technologies, research and analytical services. The analysis of the source base on the problem of information search in the Internet and its interpretation in the conditions of «risk society» and «complex society» is made. The article substantiates the ways of more active and effective use of modern Internet search technologies in social risk diagnosis, as well as the adaptation of traditional sociological methods of collection and analysis of primary sociological data for these purposes. Assumptions about the development of sociological diagnostic methods and technologies for the study of risks in the Internet are also presented.

scholarly journals Interpreting banks’ sustainability initiatives as reputational risk management and mechanisms for coping, re-embedding and rebuilding societal trust

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Saeudy ◽  
Jill Atkins ◽  
Elisabetta A.V. Barone
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Risk Management ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Reputational Risk ◽  
Systemic Factors ◽  
Equator Principles ◽  
Sustainability Initiatives ◽  
Risk Discourse

Purpose This paper aims to contribute to a growing literature in sustainable and green banking by exploring the views of senior banking representatives towards the implementation of sustainability initiatives through extensive interview research. The authors explore the extent to which such initiatives are embedded within the banking industry, whether they represent risk management mechanisms and whether they are imbued with reputational risk management rather than a genuine response to ethical societal concerns. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with UK bank managers. The interviewees’ utterances are interpreted through a sociological theoretical lens derived from the study of Giddens and Beck, allowing us to conclude that external initiatives such as the Equator Principles seem to be adopted as re-embedding mechanisms that can rebuild societal trust, as well as representing mechanisms of reputational risk management. Findings The analysis suggested that internal sustainability initiatives were interpreted as coping mechanisms whereby bank employees can recreate their protective cocoon, reinstating their ontological security in response to the high consequence risks of climate change and other related systemic factors that create overwhelming feelings of engulfment. Originality/value Using Beck’s risk society theory as a theoretical lens through which to interpret the interview data allows a number of concluding comments and suggestions to be made. The findings resonate with earlier research into institutional investors’ attitudes towards climate change that found their engagement and dialogue with companies around climate change issues to be imbued with a risk discourse: their initiatives and actions were dominated by risk management motivations.

scholarly journals SOCIAL RISKS IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INNOVATIVE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES IN THE COLLEGE

2019 ◽  
pp. 180-183
Author(s):  
D. Smolyakova
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Vocational Education ◽  
Educational Environment ◽  
Learning Technologies ◽  
Risk Society ◽  
Social Risk ◽  
Innovative Technologies ◽  
Secondary Vocational Education ◽  
Social Risks ◽  
Innovative Learning

Social risks in the implementation of innovative technologies of training in college have been considered. The main directions of development of innovative changes in education have been adduced. Based on the data of sociological content analysis on this subject, the key trends of technological achievements in the educational environment of institutions of the secondary vocational education have been revealed. The concept of social risk has been given. As factors of perception of social risks its interacting components have been allocated. Based on the theory of risk society, it has been substantiated, that the risks in education are the risks of society, they are the same for the whole society and the whole Institute of education.

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