"The information and risk society poses a new challenge for the law in all its fragments. Modern media communication and technologies increase people's prosperity while stating new risks with not uncommonly devastating crisis-potential: The banking crisis, the safety net for the euro zone and the nuclear incident in Fukushima are only the latest forms of those specific modern common dangers which the law is facing--in many cases due to it's domestically limited validity--not or not sufficiently prepared. In order to promote the international dialog within the jurisprudence there was a conference in October 2010 held by the faculty of law of the Georg-August-Universität, supported by the chair of GAU, together with the faculty of Seoul National University School of Law discussing main issues of law in a modern information and risk society. With this volume the results of this convention shall be made accessible to everybody interested"--Page 4 of cover.
`The book is a unique combination of criminology, politics and philosophy which can be recommended′ - Network, Newsletter of the British Sociological Association `Hudson′s Justice in the Risk Society is stunning in the depth and breadth of its scholarship. In examining the challenges the risk society presents for established conceptions of justice she compels a profound rethinking of what justice does, and can, mean. Her analysis will frame and inspire future debate′ - Clifford Shearing, Professor, Law Program, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University `Remarkably comprehensive, ambitious in its scope and morally compelling. Barbara Hudson draws skilfully from a wide range of frameworks... She asks fundamental questions about the nature of justice and argues for a radical rethink of liberalism. She explores complex subject matter in a clear and accessible fashion. This excellent book will surely reinvigorate theoretical thinking on the nature of punishment for years to come′ - Kieran McEvoy, Professor of Law and Transitional Justice, School of Law, Queen′s University Belfast ′The book makes an important contribution to the development of new perspectives on justice and provides a rigorous analysis of political and ethical theories that will be highly relevant to criminology and penology students, academics, criminal justice practitioners and policy makers′ - SOCLAG Legal Journal How much of a threat does society′s preoccupation with `risk′ pose to the ideal of `justice′? Innovations in control and in penal policy are increasingly dominated by the theme of public protection, motivated by the aim of controlling risk rather than the aim of enhancing social justice. In Justice in the Risk Society, Barbara Hudson outlines traditional liberal perspectives on justice, risk and security, as well as addressing some key concerns, including: · the challenges to justice: the politics of risk and safety · communitarian and feminist political and ethical theories · how to use current theories and perspectives such as Habermas′s discourse ethics and postmodern perspectives on justice · how to develop new methods of re-affirming and reconstructing theories and institutions of justice The book concludes with analysis of two of the most important elements of justice for late-modernity: discursiveness and human rights. Justice in the Risk Society provides theoretical analysis with a discussion of policies, and arguments are illustrated by cases and examples. The book reviews political and ethical theories in a way that is highly relevant and accessible to criminology and penology students, practitioners and academics, as well as making an original contribution to the development of new perspectives on justice.
The focus of this book is the policing of modern society and the risks involved. It explores various issues and factors effecting policing communities, particularly communication and police organization.
An analysis of the condition of Western societies that will take its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial, and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern
Risk society and beyond traces the evolution of Ulrich Beck's ideas as expressed in Risk Society (1992) and expands into previously unforeseen risk areas, such as genetics and cyberspace.
This panoramic analysis of the condition of Western societies has been hailed as a classic. This first English edition has taken its place as a core text of contemporary sociology alongside earlier typifications of society as postindustrial and current debates about the social dimensions of the postmodern. Underpinning the analysis is the notion of the `risk society'. The changing nature of society's relation to production and distribution is related to the environmental impact as a totalizing, globalizing economy based on scientific and technical knowledge becomes more central to social organization and social conflict.
This book presents Ulrich Beck, one of the world’s leading sociologists and social thinkers, as a Pioneer in Cosmopolitan Sociology and Risk Society. His world risk society theory has been confirmed by recent disasters – events that have shaken modern society to the core, signaling the end of an era in which comprehensive insurance could keep us safe. Due to its own successes, modern society now faces failure: while in the past experiments were conducted in a lab, now the whole world is a test bed. Whether nuclear plants, genetically modified organisms, nanotechnology – if any of these experiments went wrong, the consequences would have a global impact and would be irreversible. Beck recommends ignoring the mathematical morality of expert opinions, which seek to identify the level of a given risk by calculating the probability of its occurrence. Instead, man’s fear of collapse should offer an opportunity for international cooperation and a cosmopolitan turn in the social sciences.
Criminology is a broad-ranging and stimulating introduction that is ideal for undergraduates approaching the subject for the first time. Each chapter is written by an expert in their field and includes a range of learning features designed to help students engage with the material covered.
Twenty years ago Ulrich Beck published Risk Society, a book that called our attention to the dangers of environmental catastrophes and changed the way we think about contemporary societies. During the last two decades, the dangers highlighted by Beck have taken on new forms and assumed ever greater significance. Terrorism has shifted to a global arena, financial crises have produced worldwide consequences that are difficult to control and politicians have been forced to accept that climate change is not idle speculation. In short, we have come to see that today we live in a world at risk. A new feature of our world risk society is that risk is produced for political gain. This political use of risk means that fear creeps into modern life. A need for security encroaches on our liberty and our view of equality. However, Beck is anything but an alarmist and believes that the anticipation of catastrophe can fundamentally change global politics. We have the opportunity today to reconfigure power in terms of what Beck calls a 'cosmopolitan material politics’. World at Risk is a timely and far-reaching analysis of the structural dynamics of the modern world, the global nature of risk and the future of global politics by one of the most original and exciting social thinkers writing today.
Beck examines the politics of the risk society. He starts from the assumption that the ecological issue, considered politically and sociologically, is a systematic, legalized violation of fundamental civil rights and, from this position, adduces that the ecological conflict, politically speaking, is the successor to the industrial conflict. One of his central concerns is to illustrate just how the establishment, but expressing as much concern over the environmental issues as the radical groups who first raised them, has endeavored to take over the debate and then effectively stifled it. Beck argues that the vested interests have developed a strategy of avoiding discussion of accountability by bringing mega-risks to the foreground so that containable risks are hidden in their shadow. He concludes by arguing that only by bringing the discussion back to the accountability issue as informed by social sciences can the political initiative be wrested back from the vested interests.
