WORLD AT RISK

In the current phase of reflexive or second modernization, we are witnessing a dialectics of modernity: continuity of the principles and discontinuity of basic institutions of nation-state modernity. This process is leading us from the national industrial society to the world risk society. A theory of reflexive modernization consists of theorems of individualization, cosmopolitanization, and risk society. This radicalized modernity has produced world risk society. What signifies the risk society are manufactured uncertainties which tend to be intangible to our senses. The theory of world risk society as a new Critical Theory assumes three characteristics of global risks: delocalization, uncalculability, and…