The institutional origins of risk: A new agenda for risk research

Abstract

The emergence of risk as an organizing concept for regulation and governance has been the subject of considerable comment and debate, most notably in relation to Ulrich Beck's Risk Society thesis. This editorial, however, argues that contemporary preoccupations with risk are driven less by a changing distribution of real, or imagined, ills in society, than by a changing distribution of ills in governance. It argues that the inevitable difficulty of managing threats to society (societal risks) creates threats to organizations managing those risks (institutional risks). The potential for failure has always been part of governance, but contemporary pressures towards greater coherence, transparency and accountability have amplified institutional risks by exposing the practical limits of governance. Framing the objects of governance in terms of risk, however, provides a way of reflexively managing the associated institutional threats by explicitly anticipating the practical limits of governance within probabilistic calculations of success and failure. This editorial outlines how the institutional dynamics of contemporary governance can lead to a phenomenon of ‘risk colonization’, whereby risk increasingly comes to define the object, methods and rationale of governance. It then goes on to consider some of the possible positive and negative consequences of risk colonization and concludes by suggesting ways in which the study of institutional risk can help us understand the relationship between risk and governance.

Keywords:

• Societal and institutional risk
• risk-based regulation
• governance
• risk colonization

Acknowledgements

This Editorial draws on joint work with Michael Huber and George Gaskell, to whom the author is heavily indebted. This editorial also draws on Rothstein, H. (2006) Colonised by risk. Risk and Regulation, 11, 16 – 17. I would like to thank the editor, of the Risk and Regulation, the magazine of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation (CARR), for permission to draw on this material.

The support of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) is gratefully acknowledged. The work was part of the programme of the ESRC Centre for Analysis of Risk and Regulation.