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Surveillance, of both public spaces
and private communications, has
grown in the Western world in
response to the real and perceived
dangers posed by terrorist violence.
Fears about acid rain and global
warming led to the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change. Formed in
1988, it reviewed the state of knowledge
of the science of climate change.the growth of interdependency that
undermines the influence and
power of nation-states—produces
its own negative consequences.
These include financial risks
and terrorism risks. With the global
growth of hedge funds, futures
markets, derivatives trading, debt
securitization, and credit default
swaps, no country can hide behind
its borders from the consequences
of something going wrong. Acts
of terrorist violence, planned and
carried out by ideological groups,
permeate the boundaries between
states by striking at the heart of
global cities such as New York
and London. Interestingly, Beck
observes that global terrorism
is one of the few risks that
governments are happy to draw
attention to for political purposes.
While Beck’s overriding focus
on risk seems bleak, he also
highlights what he sees as the
positive possibilities inherent in
the growth of risk. He points to
the development of what he terms
“cosmopolitanism,” a concept
comprising several components.
First, the existence of global
risks calls for a global response:
catastrophic risks affect humanity
as a whole and must be responded
to collectively, beyond the confines
of national borders. Second, the
level of media attention devoted
to risks and catastrophes has the
effect of giving more attention to
how disasters impact most heavily
upon the poor; the media coverage
of Hurricane Katrina in the US in
2005, for example, demonstrated
to a global audience how poverty
worsens the experience of
catastrophe. Third, public
experience and awareness of risk
today draws groups into dialogue
with one another; for example, Beck
notes how environmental groups
and businesses have joined forces
to protest at the US government’s
lack of responsiveness to the
problem of climate change.Risk and reward
Beck’s work has been read widely
beyond the world of sociology,
because it deals in an all-
encompassing way with many of
the key changes and concerns of
recent decades. First published in
German in 1986, at a time of new
environmental concerns about
acid rain and ozone layer depletion,
his original concept of the
risk society encapsulated and
anticipated a number of high-profileenvironmental issues and
accidents, such as the 1984 Bhopal
disaster in India—where a gas leak
from a chemical plant caused
widespread poisoning—and the
1986 Chernobyl nuclear plant
explosion in Ukraine. More recently,
Beck’s analysis has been applied to
issues of global terrorism and the
near-collapse of the financial
system in 2008; it has been taken
on board by others as a way of
making sense of a diverse array
of issues, including international
relations, crime control, human
health, food safety, social policy,
and social work.
Ultimately, a positive strain runs
through Beck’s work. He argues
that the experience of responding
to global risk can lead to innovative
solutions and constructive
social changes. It is only in new
encounters with the possibility of
catastrophe that collective welfare
and common interests can prevail
over narrow, selfish concerns and
our modern institutions can be
reconfigured accordingly. ■LIVING IN A GLOBAL WORLD