h.c. Ortwin Renn

Sicherheit, Risiko und Vertrauen

Um das komplexe Verhaltnis von Sicherheit, Risikoempfinden und Vertrauen in Institutionen der Risikoregulierung und des Risikomanagements naher zu beleuchten, ist eine Einfuhrung in die Grundmechanismen der Risikowahrnehmung sinnvoll. Auf dieser Basis konnen auch die Rolle des Vertrauens besser abgeschatzt und offene Forschungsfragen artikuliert werden. Deshalb werden in den folgenden Abschnitten die grundlegenden Erkenntnisse der Wahrnehmungsforschung rekapituliert und auf ihre Bedeutung fur die Frage nach dem Vertrauen analysiert.

Introduction: Concept of Risk

In today’s world of globalized trade, travel and communication, an ever larger number of risk-related events have a trans-boundary impact, crossing national and regional frontiers: large–scale electricity blackouts, chemical accidents and risks related to emerging technologies have all affected various parts of the world only recently. Even these risks seem limited, however, when compared to those that can and do go global – and which, as a result of the rapid movement of people, goods and information, do so almost real–time. A highly topical example is that of the potential avian influenza epidemic; other examples include energy supply and price fluctuations and the political and psychological impacts of the 9/11 terror attacks.

Stakeholder and Public Involvement

The risk governance process, as it has been described in Chap. 4 implies decision-making processes which affect various groups of actors. On a general level, there is the distinction between the risk producers on the one hand, and those who are exposed to the risks on the other hand. It is obvious, that between these two groups, conflicting interests are to be expected. The two groups can be further divided into subgroups with distinct interests of their own, the so called stakeholder. They are defined here “as socially organised groups that are or will be affected by the outcome of the event or the activity from which the risk originates and/or by the risk management options taken to counter the risk” (IRGC 2005:49). In general risk issues affect the four main stakeholders in society. These are political, business, scientific and civil society representatives (as far as they are socially organized). Additionally, other groups that play a role in the risk governance process can be defined: the media, cultural elites and opinion leaders, and the general public, either in their role as non-organized affected public, or as the non-organized observing public (cf. IRGC 2005:50).

Adipositas im Kindes- und Jugendalter – Ein systemisches Risiko?

Ob ‚soziale Phanomene‘ als ‚Risiken‘ wahrgenommen und behandelt werden und welches Ausmas an potentiellen Schaden ihnen zugerechnet werden, hangt keineswegs nur von der Zahl potentiell Betroffener und dem erwartbaren Schadensausmas ab. Entsprechend dem ‚Social-Amplification-of-Risk“ Ansatz (vgl. Kasperson et al. 2001, Pidgeon et al. 2003) unterliegen die ‚Entstehung‘ und ‚Etablierung‘ von Risiken wirksamen Selektionsprozessen – welches aus der Vielzahl potentieller Themen, die die soziale Arena betreten (vgl. Hilgartner und Bosk 1988, Renn 1993), wird zur ‚Bearbeitung‘ ausgewahlt? – und Definitionsprozessen: Ob Menschen als normal-, ubergewichtig oder adipos gelten, variiert in erheblichem Mas mit den von Experten entwickelten Standards. In Ermangelung ‚naturalistischer‘ Grenzen eroffnen sich den Experten hierbei erhebliche Interpretations- und Handlungsspielraume. Schorb und Helmert haben in diesem Band drei verschiedenartige Klassifizierungssysteme fur das Korpergewicht von Kindern und Jugendlichen vorgestellt und kritisiert. Ob Cole (et al. 2000), Rolland-Cachera (et al. 1991) oder Kromeyer-Hauschild (2005), keines der drei Referenzsysteme fust auf physiologischen Parametern bzw. naturalistischen Schwellenwerten und kann Validitat fur sich beanspruchen. Sie reprasentieren vielmehr willkurlich gezogene Grenzen in statistischen Gewichtsverteilungskurven und produzieren teilweise erheblich abweichende Quantitaten ubergewichtiger bzw. adiposer Kinder und Jugendlicher (Weiten und Hesse 2005: 202)

Risk Governance: An Overview

The purpose of this chapter is to give a brief review and discussion of the variety of concepts of risk in different disciplines and application areas, as a basis for describing the integrated approach taken in this book.

Risk Characterization and Evaluation

Risk characterization and evaluation aims at making judgement about risk acceptability and/or tolerability. This step follows after the appraisal stage and is undertaken in order to serve two main purposes: 1.First, to reach a balanced, value-based judgement on the tolerability/acceptability of risk or to perform a trade-off analysis of a set of functional equivalents (of the product, process, or practice under consideration). 2. Second, to initiate (if deemed necessary) a management process and make preliminary suggestions for the most suitable management approach.

Case Study 3: Year-Round Petroleum Activities in the Barents Sea

In this example the decision problem is whether or not to open the Barents Sea area (including the Lofoten area) for year-round petroleum activities on the Norwegian sector. This is a decision problem that has recently been considered by the Norwegian Government. The background is a growing interest in Barents Sea exploration: The Barents Sea has a great resource potential, the area has not generally been explored much, and it is assumed that the Arctic contains a significant part of the world’s undiscovered petroleum resources. In order to give decision support for year-round petroleum activities in the Barents Sea, a number of assessments were carried out, including assessments of the consequences related to economy, the environment, safety, employment and the fisheries (OLF 2003). Since the area in the Barents Sea is considered vulnerable from an environmental point of view, special attention was given to the consequences related to the environment.

Case Study 1: Risk Governance of Nanotechnology

As explained throughout this book, the IRGC’s Risk Governance Framework offers an integrative approach that includes four consecutive stages and one continuous activity, see simplified version in Fig. 11.1. The process starts with the stage of pre-assessment and problem framing, continues with appraisal, i.e. the assessment of risks and concerns, which leads to the stage of characterization and evaluation, and, finally, to the management phase, including implementation.

Pre-assessment and Framing of Risk

A systematic review of risk-related actions needs to start with an analysis of what major societal actors, such as governments, companies, the scientific community and the general public, select as risks and what types of problems they label as risk problems (rather than opportunities or innovation potentials, etc.). In technical terms, this is called “framing”. Framing in this context encompasses the selection and interpretation of phenomena as relevant risk topics (Tversky and Kahneman 1981; van der Sluijs et al. 2003; Goodwin and Wright 2004).

Characteristics of Risks in the Modern World

A number of driving forces have been identified that are shaping our modern world and have a strong influence on the risks we face (cf. OECD 2003a:10 ff.): The demographic development, including the increase of the world population, the growing population density and visible trends towards urbanisation accompanied by significant changes in the age structure of most industrial populations have lead to more vulnerabilities and interactions among natural, technological and habitual hazards. Demographic changes are also partially responsible for the strong interventions of human beings into the natural environment. Human activities, first of all the emission of greenhouse gases, may cause global warming and, as a consequence, place growing stress on ecosystems and human settlements. In addition, the likelihood of extreme weather events increases with the rise of average world temperatures.