Democracy, Risk, and Community: Technological Hazards and the Evolution of Liberalism (Environmental Ethics and Science Policy Series) - Hardcover

Hiskes, Richard P.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195120086 ISBN 13: 9780195120080

Publisher: OUP USA, 1998

Synopsis

This controversial book explores the connection between technological risk and basic concepts of liberal political theory and practice. Arguing that modern risks are emergent and therefore not reducible to individual actors or events, Hiskes demonstrates how risks challenge the most basic concepts of liberal political theory and democratic politics, including the ideas of consent, authority, rights, and moral responsibility. He argues forcefully that successful policy for risk depends on understanding the dynamic between risk and liberal concepts.

About this title

Review

Richard Hiskes is as erudite in the language of risk as he is in his first language of political theory. Accordingly, and as the title of this book indicates, the reader of Democracy, Risk, and Community is treated to a sophisticated and intellectually stimulating piece of work that traces the ontological development of the three concepts. (Journal of Risk Research)

Much of the value of this book for risk researchers is to be found in Hiskes' comprehensive analyses of the central political concepts of consent, community, authority, rights, responsibility, identity and political participation and their relation to risk. (Journal of Risk Research)

Hiskes' fluency in both the languages of risk and political theory encourages enlarged thinking beyond both cognitive horizons, and ensures that important shared ontological histories and interconnections are not overlooked. Hiskes does not shy away from encounters with the messiness and complexities of the real world of risk decision making and provides a wealth of institutional and policy critique based upon the unfulfilled demands that technological developments place upon the politics of risk. (Journal of Risk Research)

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP USA
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0195120086
• ISBN 13: 9780195120080
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 208