300084 Risk Regimes (Ü) (SoSe 2006)

Among the many demands facing the political system and its capacity for collectively binding decision-making is the regulation of various kinds of risks. This concerns prominently technologically induced risks for the environment, but also risks like terrorism or dangerous dogs. One interesting feature of risk regulation is its selectivity: many possible threats are never characterised as risks and consequently never discussed in a political context. Furthermore there are important differences concerning the ways of regulating risks, e.g. the varying demands for public participation or the organizational solutions employed. The course will analyse phenomena of risk and offer theoretical explanations for diverging ways of dealing with risks. It provides an introduction to the topic of risk from the point of view of the social sciences, including major theoretical approaches and the exemplary analysis of risk regulation regimes.

Starting from the distinction between risk as objectively given fact and risk as social construction, the first part of the course will discuss three important theoretical approaches to an analysis of risk: Ulrich Beck's concept of a risk society, the main ideas of cultural theory, and the contribution of systems theory (4 sessions).
The second part of the course will focus on problems and principles involved when dealing with risk, namely (scientific) uncertainty, precaution, balancing costs and benefits of risk regulation, and public involvement. Ideas taken from the introduced theoretical approaches will help to assess these aspects of risk regulation (3 sessions).
The third part of the course will deal with examples of risk regulation. The regulation of genetically modified organisms will serve as an exemplary case to be analysed by using concepts from earlier sessions of the course. Further examples will be selected with regard to the participants¿ interests and to current topics; they may reach from catastrophic accidents to epidemics or terrorism (4 sessions).
An introductory session and a summary at the end of the term will provide the framework to understand the links between sessions and topics of the course.

As the course is taught in English, the requirements for the course take into account the special difficulties of doing coursework in a foreign language. Those who wish to write a paper, will do this in three steps. A first essay (ca. 3 pages) will take the form of an abstract summarizing one of the texts from the first part of the course. A second essay (ca 3 pages) is supposed to be a review of one text from the second part of the course. In a third essay (ca. 6 pages) students are asked to apply ideas and concepts of the course in order to give a short comparison of two cases of risk regulation. The first two essays are due during the term. Oral presentations are also possible and will primarily take place in sessions of the third part.

Literaturangaben

Beck, Ulrich (1992): Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity. London et al.: Sage
Douglas, Mary/Wildavsky, Aaron (1983): Risk and Culture. An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley et al. : University of California Press
Hood, Christopher/Rothstein, Henry/Baldwin, Robert (2004): The Government of Risk. Understanding Risk Regulation Regimes. Oxford: Oxford University Press
Luhmann, Niklas (1993): Risk: a sociological theory. Berlin/New York: de Gruyter
Sunstein, Cass R. (2002): Risk and Reason. Safety, Law, and the Environment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press