Democracy, Risk, and Community: Technological Hazards and the Evolution of LiberalismThis book presents a novel and compelling thesis about technological risk, liberalism, and policy making in liberal societies. Opposed to most theories of risk that focus on individual decision makers and models or rational choice, this book argues that risks must be seen as intrinsically both emergent and political phenomena. As such, risks resist reduction to individual actors, events, or decisions. To fully understand and make policy for risk, then, it is necessary to recognize that risks call attention to the connections between individuals and events, to the power being exercised in the determination and distribution of risks, and to how the failure to see risks as political, emergent phenomena results in policy failure, as in instances of "Not in My Backyard" (NIMBY) controversies. Liberal societies have particular difficulty in coping with risk, due to the excessively individualistic political theory and epistemology that undergirds liberalism. Thus, seeing risks as emergent has dramatic impact on the fundamental political concepts that make up liberal political theory and operate within liberal societies. The book treats especially the concepts of consent, community, authority, rights, responsibility, identity, and political participation. The meaning of each of these ideas has been altered by modern technological risks, and coping with risk will require that liberal societies redefine what these most basic concepts of political principles are to mean in political practice and policy making. |
Contents
3 | |
Risk and the Redefinition of Politics | 9 |
Risk Consent and Communal Identity | 33 |
Risk and the Authority of Ends | 57 |
Risk Selfinterest and the New Technology of Rights | 83 |
Risk and Responsibility | 108 |
Democratic Politics and Participatory Risks | 132 |
Notes | 159 |
183 | |
193 | |
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Common terms and phrases
acceptance action Alasdair MacIntyre approach Arendt argues argument authority of ends autonomy Baruch Fischhoff causal chapter Chauncey Starr choice citizenship collective responsibility communitarian concepts Connolly Constitution contemporary context culture defined definition democracy democratic discourse emergent nature emergent risks eral essential ethics example exercise explore expressed consent Feinberg Flathman Goodin groups harm human idea identity identity politics impact individual interests Joseph Raz legitimate liberal citizens liberal democracies liberal politics liberal society liberal theory liberalism's liberty litical lives Locke Locke's means modern risks modern technology moral community moral obligation moral responsibility moral theory NIMBY nology notion nuclear ontological participation Paul Slovic persons philosophical political obligation political theory politics of risk presumes radioactive waste realm recognize requires revealed preference risk decisions risk policy risky Ronald Dworkin scientific sense shared social sponsibility tacit consent tech technological risk theorists tion University Press waste