LA DISUASION NUCLEAR: CONCEPTO y CLASIFICACION

In recent decades, risk has become a topic that is hard to ignore as it has become an increasingly - important to politicians and policymakers who have sought a better understanding of risk, its application and its implications in different contexts. This interest, in turn generated multiple meanings of risk as it was applied in different contexts and disciplines. Other factors that have given a new impetus to the study of the concept of risk includes a politicization of the term arising from the globalization of security threats, new and life-threatening medical conditions, migration, genetic modification of crops, risky sports, pollution, economic speculation, among others. Unfortunately, cost-benefit analyses led to the application of the concept of risk being mainly to negative, undesirable outcomes while potentially positive and profitable outcomes are

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often ignored. Instead, negative outcomes are usually emphasized on most occasions, and subsequently, when the term risk was used in lay peoples' language, it tended to have a negative connotation associated with a negative outcome such as a threat, a hazard or other harmful effects. With time, the use of the terms risk, uncertainty and hazard were used interchangeably indicate a possibility of “deviations from the norm, misfortune and frightening events” (Lupton, 1999, 3).

Major social changes including globalization, migration, modernization and post-modernization have transformed communities and the context in which meanings were ascribed to the notion of risk. These social changes have given rise to new identities, a breakdown of (traditional) norms, traditions, the social fabric, and the formation of new social relationships. It has been suggested that this fast-evolving social milieu has brought with it greater uncertainty, complexity, ambivalence, disorder, distrust of social institutions and traditional authorities in ways that have led to a growing sense of insecurity. Social theorists Mary Douglas, Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens expounded on risk in modern sociological views about risk by illuming the link between social change, and risk. Section 3.4 of this chapter covers Douglas’ Cultural Theory of Risk in the discussion of perception of risk.

Beck's (1992) work was important in pointing out the main difference between modern ‘risks' faced in modern society and the dangers that society faced in the past. He portrayed modern risks are as a continuation of the industrial (capitalist) society by showing three main characteristics of risk in modern times. Firstly, modern risks were invisible and was located industrial/class modernity operating in the spheres of physics and chemistry industrial production processes. Secondly, the distribution of ‘risks’ is orchestrated by big corporations who use the media to structure knowledge (research and power) to perpetuate a risk modernity. Thirdly, that science and technology are out of control and threatens alienation, death and destruction as ‘risks' with the capacity to jeopardise all forms of life on earth (Caplan, 2000, 3). Beck also highlighted the advent of a new global order in the distribution of bad ‘risks' is deliberately planned to affect some people more than it does other people. He illustrated this point by singling out the practice of transferring risks associated with hazardous industrial waste away from developed countries to the Third World. He, however, pointed out that the global nature of the world environment put the whole world at risk because environmental harms have the capacity to spread worldwide indiscriminately. Beck suggested the formation of the ‘World Risk Society’ as a global, transnational, interconnected and interdependent Cosmopolitan

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Society as a global strategic collaborative network and mutually beneficial mechanism and discussion platform where representatives from both industrialised and developing countries could engage in discussions to avert a global ecological crisis. According to Beck, this impending environmental disaster was characterised by five inter-linked processes including underemployment, gender revolution, individualisation, globalization and global ‘risks' such as ecological crises and the crash of the global markets (Beck, 1992 [1986], 3). He proposed a reorganisation of power and authority as a means of addressing and mitigating risk in the World Risk Society'. He also advocated the expansion of the scope for debates on ‘risks' beyond the field of natural sciences to include social scientist as well. Wildavsky reacted to Beck’s views with optimism pointing out positive contributions that science and technology had made to humanity. Evidence presented to back this claim included economic growth, technological advances spurred on by economic growth, dramatic improvements in health, increases in longevity and a decrease in sickness" (Wildavsky, 1991).

Giddens (1991) shared Beck’s view that the world had entered a new phase of ‘late’ or ‘high modernity’ in which risk was a central scenario. Giddens saw modernity as a risk culture in which the concept of risk is fundamental to the way lay actors and specialists organise the social world. Like Beck, Giddens argued on the role of the media in increasing people’s awareness of risks. He explained that an understanding of the pivotal role of risk could illuminate the following core elements of modernity: its apocalyptic nature through which it introduces new risks that previous generations had not faced; globalised impact of local events; the paradox of a reduction in life-threatening events erstwhile, high consequence risks resulting from globalization. Giddens explained that in a shift in how risk scenarios were viewed has occurred in late modernity. Whereby, instead of contemporary life being determined by the past, the future was predicted in risk scenarios. This perception that risk is a part of normal life influences the choices people make at present, and this, in turn, influences how people make life's choices. In viewing and accepting risks as an integral feature of late modernity and choose possible future actions by anticipating outcomes (Giddens, 1991, 108).

Having discussed the evolution of risk, the different epistemological positions and the main approaches to understanding risk, the discussion will now focus on risk perception which is the approach adopted in this study. Risk perception has been regarded in multiple ways by sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists. The following section describes some of the approaches to risk perception applicable this current study.

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