A commentary on decision-making and organisational legitimacy in the Risk Society

Abstract

Key concepts of Risk Society as elaborated by Ulrich Beck and others (Beck, U., 1992 (trans. Mark Ritter). The Risk Society. Sage Publications, London. Beck, U., 1995, Ecological Politics in the Age of Risk. Polity Press, Cambridge. Beck, U., 1999, World Risk Society. Polity Press, Cambridge. Giddens, A., 1994, Beyond Left and Right. Polity Press, Oxford. Beck, U., Giddens, A. and Lash, S., 1994, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order. Stanford University Press, Stanford. Beck, U., Bonss, W. and Lau, C., 2003, Theory, Culture & Society 2003, Sage, London, 20(2), pp. 1–33.) are illuminated though a case study of managed environmental risk, namely the hexachlorobenzene (HCB) controversy at Botany, a southeast suburb of Sydney. We observe the way multiple stakeholder decision-making plays out a number of Risk Society themes, including the emergence of ‘unbounded risk’ and of highly ‘individualised’ and ‘reflexive’ risk communities. Across several decades, the events of the HCB story support Risk Society predictions of legitimacy problems faced by corporations as they harness technoscientific support for innovation in their products and industrial processes without due recognition of social and environmental risk. Tensions involving identity, trust and access to expert knowledge advance our understanding of democratic ‘sub-political’ decision-making and ways of distributing environmental risk.

Introduction

For more than two decades, a number of European sociologists have explicated the relationship between society and the natural environment through the lens of Risk Society theory (Beck, 1992, Beck, 1995, Beck, 1999, Giddens, 1994, Beck et al., 1994, Beck et al., 2003; and others). This paper comments on how key concepts of Risk Society theory are inflected through stakeholder management of environmental risk associated with the management of over 10,000 tonnes of hexachlorobenze (HCB) stored at the Orica chemicals plant in southeastern Sydney. The paper is best read in conjunction with other contributions in this special issue.

Risk Society theory has been highly influential on current perceptions of the relationship between nature and social life and organisation. Rather than relegating the natural environment to the natural sciences, Risk Society takes a conceptual leap by linking social awareness of environmental issues to a diminishing trust in the leading institutions of modernity. In Risk Society as elaborated by Beck and others (Beck, 1992, Beck, 1995, Beck, 1999, Giddens, 1994, Beck et al., 1994, Beck et al., 2003), preoccupations and perceptions of risk are very different to those of early periods of modernity and pre-modernity. In pre-modernity, risks took the form of unavoidable natural hazards, while in classical industrial societies risks are seen as contingent on the actions of individuals and wider social forces (Goldblatt, 1996). By placing responsibility for risks in the hands of institutions, industrial society creates a system of rules to manage the impact of these risks.

According to Risk Society theorists, contemporary risks that result from scientific and technological advances differ markedly from what is characterised in Beck's recent writings as ‘simple or first modern society’ (Beck et al., 2003: 28). As environmental risks are irreversible and cumulative they are seen to be more catastrophic than previous eras. Often they are imperceptible to human senses, are global in scale, and can act far from their origins (Beck, 1992). Attributing causality becomes problematic as the cause/effect relationship is uncertain and contested. According to Beck (1992), once blame cannot be attributed, institutions become less important as the mechanism to cope with and mitigate risks. As a result, the role of modern institutions is increasingly challenged, with challenge eventually shifting to conflict between sections of society concerning environmental risks (Benn, 2004).

Meanwhile risk decisions are opened up to a wider array of participants, outside of the traditional experts and regulators, to include individual citizens and has been opened up to a wider array of participants, outside of the traditional experts and regulators, to include outsider stakeholders, individual citizens and organisations, associations and movements (Beck, 1992, Matten, 2004). Shifts both in the themes and participants in the risk discourse indicate the transition from ‘first modern society’ to the ‘Risk Society’.

Beck et al. (2003) argue that as well as changes to social structures (in large measure making them work for citizens, rather than above citizens) there is a revolution concerning the very notions of change itself. This revolution is due to the processes of reflexive modernisation. According to Beck:

What is meant by that is not reflection on modernisation but ‘reflexivity’ in the sense of the unintentional, often unseen, calling into question, changing and cancellation of modernisation by itself (Beck, 1998: 132).

Reflexive modernisation is creating a distinct ‘second wave’ of modernisation associated with increasing awareness that control over contemporary versions of risk is impossible. In the ‘second wave’, attitudes towards problem-solving and the responses of institutions to risks and hazards reveal the inadequacy of current systems in terms of managing these new forms of risk. The unquestioned assumptions that formed the foundations of modernity are now being examined in terms of their rationality; it is this second-order rationalisation or reflexivity where practical knowledge is constantly revisable that is the hallmark of reflexive modernisation. It is the process that is driving the shift to the Risk Society.

Beck (1995) draws these concepts together to classify the Risk Society into stages. In its first stage, society attempts to implement controls or eliminate the risks through traditional institutional or economic means; in the second stage, confronted by a mounting institutional crisis, there is an attempt to implement more transformative change (Adams, 2001). The emergence of these ‘manufactured’ uncertainties (Giddens, 1994) is forcing society to rethink political and organisational structures and behaviour in order to better deal with these risks (Beck, 1992, Beck, 1997, Beck, 1999). As a result of the processes of reflexive modernisation, it is argued, modernity itself is challenged.

Recently Beck and colleagues have analysed the ‘meta-changes’ in theory and institutions of the Risk Society through the lens of boundaries: between scientific and unscientific forms of knowledge, between the social and the natural and between social spheres in general (Beck et al., 2003). In their words, this period can be characterised in terms of the following features concerning boundaries:

• ‘Boundaries cease to be given and instead become choices. Drawing boundaries becomes optional.

• Simultaneous with that, there is a multiplication of the plausible ways in which boundaries can be drawn, as well as ways they can be drawn into doubt.

• The existence of multiple boundaries changes not only the collectivity defined by them but the nature of the boundaries themselves’ (2003: 19).

Rather than the postmodern conception of dissolved boundaries, in this period traditional boundaries multiply and dissolve, but are replaced by pragmatically determined, temporary boundaries that are socially selected and optional.

In this more recently developed concept of the ‘fictive’ boundary, Beck builds on his earlier characterisation of ‘sub-political’ decision-making arrangements. His understanding of ‘sub-politics’ refers to the temporary, multiple stakeholder decentralised and flexible arrangements and networks that he argues are increasingly taking over decision-making and are sites of legitimation and action in the Risk Society (Beck, 1997, Little, 2000). Examples are task forces, consultative committees and other such forms operating outside the traditional representative arena. Other writers (such as Dryzek, 1995, Dryzek, 1997; and Giddens, 1994) also see democratic potential in these arrangements. It is the boundaries of such forms that presumably Beck conceives of as fictive, boundaries that reflect choice rather than imposition.

Risk Society theory makes broad claims concerning the delegitimation of the traditional leading institutions of modernity, such as corporation, state and the law, as a result of their perceived inability to deal with modernisation threats. In a reflexive, constantly shifting and multiple stakeholder arena, individuals and individual organisations are now returned to power in what Beck (1997: 98) has termed the ‘non-institutional renaissance of politics’. The devaluation of modern institutions capability to manage the new themes of the risk discourse and expert knowledge has also impacted on the role of the individual. The increased access to knowledge on risk and the heightened degree of choice have imposed upon us what Boyne considers to be a ‘new burden of risk assessment’ (2003: 101), whereby individuals are engaging in the social construction of counter-expertise. This is what Beck (1999) terms ‘individualization’ and what Giddens (1994) refers to as the disembedding of social institutions.

The notion of individualization is conceptualised as the other side of the coin of reflexivity. As traditional norms and expectations, the power of modern institutions and knowledge of experts are called into question by reflexive modernisation, individuals are adopting the responsibility of seeking and inventing new certainties for themselves (Tulloch and Lupton, 2003, Goldblatt, 1996). Self-transformation occurs through the impact of both individualization and globalisation – the result is a loss of legitimacy for traditional institutions (Beck, 1999).

But this important concept of individualization, argued by Bauman (1993) to be Beck's most profound insight, is controversial and has been little examined empirically. Some scholars, for instance, argue that awareness raising through individualization of responsibility does not necessarily translate into empowered action. While the public is given a voice in decision-making processes in the new risk discourse and thus the opportunity to provide counter-expertise (Boyne, 2003), this voice may mean little if the public is not granted the power to enforce their opinions. The micro level actors may provide input in the decision-making process to treat the situation but unless there is collaboration between them, may not have the capacity to address the situation directly.

Risk Society theory has generated useful insights in a number of discourses: the sociology of risk (Irwin, 2001, Wynne, 1996), ‘ecocentric’ business models (Shrivastava, 1995), and changing forms of business communication, corporate responsibility and citizen participation (Demetrious, 2002, Livesey, 2001, Tsoukas, 1999). But while reflexive modernisation, Risk Society and individualization theories offer persuasive insights into the growing public concern for the effects of industrialisation on human health and that of the natural environment (Irwin, 2001, Wynne, 1996), they have been given little detailed empirical examination and a number of scholars have requested more evidence (e.g. Parkin, 1998). As Schlosberg (1999), a leading writer on environmental justice, puts it, Beck has paid little attention to finding real world case studies that demonstrate his theories. Having said that, Risk Society and its linked theories of individualization and reflexive modernity are highly complex concepts. In the case analysis in the following sections of the paper, we have therefore selected those aspects of these theories that can best explain the events of the case.