World Risk Society and Manufactured Uncertainties

The dominance of the modern concept of risk and calculability is challenged by and has to be distinguished from “manufactured uncertainties.” Typically today, conflict and controversy flare up around this particular type of new manufactured risk. Neither natural disasters – threats – coming from the outside and thus attributable to God or nature have this effect any longer. Nor do the specific calculable uncertainties – “risks” – which are determinable with actuarial precision interms of a probability calculus backed up by insurance and monetary compensation fall in this category. At the centre of attention today, by contrast, are “manufactured uncertainties.” They are distinguished by the fact that they are dependent on human decisions, created by society itself, immanent to society and thus non-externalizable, collectively imposed and thus individually unavoidable.