Better Business Regulation in a Risk Society

The article critically assesses Ulrich Beck’s body of work and its importance for contemporary sociology. It demonstrates that Beck’s elaboration of his original theory of the ‘risk society’ into a theory of the ‘world risk society’, ‘cosmopolitanism’ and ‘metamorphosis’ involved several key theoretical innovations. Firstly, Beck adjusted his notion of risk to include the threat of international terrorism in his diagnosis of the (world) risk society. Secondly, he introduced a distinction between (normative) ‘cosmopolitanism’ and (real existing) ‘cosmopolitization’ in order to capture the specificity of contemporary social change. Thirdly and most recently, Beck outlined a theory of ‘the metamorphosis of the world’ which marks an important shift of emphasis from ‘the negative side effects of goods’ to ‘the positive side effects of bads’. In conclusion, the article identifies a number of theoretical ambiguities and unresolved questions in Beck’s theory.

We are living in a world risk society where different forms of risk have become a part of daily life, such as energy crisis, financial crisis, global terrorism, and ecological crisis. Beck (World risk society, Polity Press, Cambridge, 1999) argues that knowing about ‘unawareness’ might provide another way for us to reconsider the problems of the risk society. This paper focuses on the discussions of the unawareness of the social practices of desire, because it may be the key point of the neoliberal world that has the strongest influence in this world. There are three main parts in this article. The first discusses the interlinked relationship between the risk society and desire, and the unawareness of the social practices of desire. Unawareness is identified according to three aspects: dualism, individualism, and rationalism. The second part focuses on the discussion of the possible ways to solve the three aspects of unawareness, for example, co-presence, holistic epistemology, and compassion. Finally, three suggestions are proposed for the future curriculum: reconstructing the subject-centered knowledge, the curriculum of desire, and the curriculum of love.

This paper calls attention to some basic problems and inner contradictions in the German sociologist Ulrich Beck’s theory of the ‘(world) risk society’ or reflexive (second) modernity. A main thread in the critique is that of addressing the theoretical ambiguities that seem to characterize Beck’s at the same time ‘social constructivist’ and ‘realist’ notion of risk – ambiguities that seem to be repeated on the one hand in Beck’s view on the relation between knowledge and unawareness in reflexive modernity and on the other hand in his view on the role of the mass media in the ‘(world) risk society’. Moreover, Beck’s notions of second modernity, reflexivity, rationality and critique are critically examined. With the alternative positions discussed in the paper – represented by Jeffrey C. Alexander, Niklas Luhmann and Mitchell Dean – some indications are given as to how one might fruitfully elaborate on the problem of risk. Thus, rather than a mainly technology-driven new type of social reality, the ‘(world) risk society’ could perhaps better be seen as indicating a changing cultural self-understanding of late modern society, a new ‘semantics of crisis', or the emergence of new forms of governmentality in the contemporary welfare state. In conclusion, some indications are given as to how an analysis of more specific ‘risk logics' or ‘rationalities' could be elaborated on, and a terminology that reflects this more differentiated approach to risk in late modern society is suggested.

One of the books that will greatly influence sociologists’ thinking about environment and society is Risk Society by Ulrich Beck (1992).2 It is likely to be perceived as one of the most persuasive sociological contributions in this decade to the conceptualization of environmental degradation and ecological hazards and as such a good starting point for this chapter, which reflects on the necessity of and constraints to socialization or internalization of environmental policy objectives.3 One of the key notions in Beck’s theory of the risk society is that the modernization process through its massive industrialization evoked a change from exposure to personal risks to global risks. In pre-modern society people were also confronted with risks but these were essentially individual risks. The globalization of environmental pollution which is characteristic for modern society implies the globalization of risks people are faced with. These risks are the “dark side of modernization”, the wholesale product of industrialization, and are defined as a “systematic way of dealing with hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself” (Beck, 1992, p. 21). In the 19th century the social debate focused on poverty risks or, in other words, on social class conflicts. Ecological risks that confront us in the latter part of the 20th century have brought a new dimension to risk exposure: they are no longer tied to their place of origin but by their nature threaten all forms of life on this planet. This is exactly what is meant by the process of globalization of risks: “risk society in this sense is a world risk society” (Beck, o.c., p. 21). Unlike the social and economic class-dependent risks that were characteristic of early industrial society, globalized ecological risks transcend social class and they ignore the borders of society.

A commentary on decision-making and organisational legitimacy in the Risk Society

ASIANPERSPECTIVE, Vol. 27, No. 2,2003, pp. 241-251. Commentary RISK SOCIETY COMES TO CHINA: SARS, TRANSPARENCY AND PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY Paul Thiers A Risk Society By now, it is clear that the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and its bureaucratic mismanagement is a politi­ cal, economic, and public-health nightmare for China. But the SARS crisis presents two important tests for the Chinese govern­ ment and, so far, it has failed only the first. The bureaucracy pre­ dictably botched the administration of the outbreak, leading with secrecy and denial, allowing the disease to spread further and faster than necessary, and losing any semblance of legitimacy in both the domestic and international community. The political leadership, however, has yet to indicate what lessons it will draw and what steps it will take in the long term. If it makes the right decisions, SARS could provide a context for addressing a long­ standing weakness in Chinese public administration. SARS occurs as a new leadership is attempting to consoli­ date power under a populist program, claiming to defend those left to bear the costs and risks of China's rapid growth and glob­ al integration. China's new premier, Wen Jiabao, spent Spring Festival in a Chinese coal mine, arguably the most risky occupa­ tional environment in the world. Hu Jintao, the new president, has spoken of the need to support hundreds of thousands of urban workers and poor farmers whose livelihoods are at risk from increased competition and low prices that China's acces­ 242 Paul Thiers sion to the World Trade Organization will bring in the next ten years. While it is still too early to tell, this could be a political platform, recognizing that industrialization, technology, and global market integration create risks—and that a government that fails to manage those risks, fails its own people and loses the confidence of the global community. Since these are specifi­ cally the bureaucratic failures of the SARS crisis, the long-term response will be a crucial test of the new political leadership. To understand the significance of the SARS crisis for Chinese politics, it is useful to consider German social theorist Ulrich Beck's concept of risk society.1 Examining the late 20th century social movement politics of nuclear power, environmental pol­ lution, and food safety scares such as mad cow disease, Beck argues that we have entered a new stage of modernity in which the definition, management, and allocation of risks replaces the generation and allocation of costs and benefits as the central theme of politics and science. Beck cites an emerging, world­ wide awareness that industrialization, technology, and global­ ization bring risks that nation-states, as the traditional arenas of policy making, are expected to address. But this same industrial­ ization, and particularly the new technologies and levels of global interaction that characterize it in our era, facilitate infor­ mation exchange and policy advocacy independently of nation­ state authority. Beck further argues that emerging networks of interaction below, above, and around the nation-state erode the state's monopoly on the definition and management of risk even as they increase pressure on the state to manage risk effectively. What is more, because risk is largely a function of public percep­ tion, state proclamations that a problem is under control can backfire. Non-state actors can challenge official assurances, lead­ ing to public distrust and anger toward state administrators. In democracies, risk society unravels the progressive-era model in which public administrators are seen as technical experts, insu­ lated from direct public pressure. For Beck, the only solution is to open up policy making and administration to ever greater 1. See Ulrich Beck, Risk Society: Tozvards a New Modernity, trans. M. Ritter (London: Sage, 1993), and Beck, World Risk Society (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999). Risk Society Comes to China 243 levels of public accountability. Of course, this presents the great­ est challenges for non-democratic systems that have relied on authoritarian models of science and politics to define and administer policy in risk-prone areas such as health, the envi­ ronment, and global market integration. Beck's argument has important implications for a country like China. At least since...

The regulation approach has brought powerful insights into the relationship between periods of stable accumulation and the dramatic ruptures associated with their decline. Shifts from Fordism to post-Fordism and thence financialisation have been analysed using the concepts of structural and cyclical crisis and institutional evolution advanced by the regulation approach. After the current crisis, the new challenge that the environmental threat presents suggests that 'New Green Deals' could play a major role in future regulation regimes. This special issue of Capital & Class draws on the work of new and established scholars working in traditional and new areas of the regulation approach to interrogate the nature of the current world crisis, and the viability of new forms of accumulation that may emerge from it. The issue, largely based on discussions held at a COST-funded colloquium in Paris in November 2010, 'Systemic Risk and Financial Crisis' (COST ISO 902), draws on the work of scholars and activists working from within the regulation approach tradition in the fields of economics, sociology, industrial organisation, political science and international political economy. Regulation approaches new, old and critical are brought to bear in order to explore the systemic causes of the crisis, and the consequences of these for change. The special issue begins by examining how the tensions suppressed under the previous period of growth were revealed in the explosive events of the recent financial crisis. Jessop introduces analytical tools for a better understanding of the continuous making and destruction of the institutional fabric of the economy in order to characterise the main contradictions and crisis tendencies of the successive regimes of accumulation (Fordism, knowledge-based economy [KBE] and finance-dominated capitalism). This leads to an assessment of recent proposals for a 'Green New Deal' as alternative routes out of the global crisis that brought us finance-dominated accumulation. Petit starts with an assessment of the respective properties of accumulation regimes and of modes of regulation. The intrinsic instability of finance-led regimes of accumulation hints at the difficulties of forging modes of regulation that could accommodate them. In such a perspective, the political sustainability of finance-led capitalism can only rely on some specific ties which may not fulfil the objective. The paper argues that in such conditions, the current period may still be one of transition and that the challenge to come of some major environmental threat may lead to a radical shift out of financialisation. The next two papers explore how the gap between reality and fiction was regulated in the development of 'real' and casino economies. Dannreuther examines how the invention, construction and extended deployment of the small firm as a political construct enhanced the agency of the state. Small firms did not have a stable meaning, but one that shifted by administration from legitimating a challenge to the state to becoming instruments for the delivery of public policy. The flexibility of this meaning allowed the Enterprise Act to exonerate bad lending, stimulate additional reckless lending practices and increasingly to redirect the costs of financialisation onto individuals and their homes. Palan calls attention to the inherent speculative aspect of the valuation of intangible assets under capitalism. …

For more than twenty years, Environmental Policy and Politics has kept instructors and students abreast of the challenges presented by contemporary environmental, energy, and natural resource problems in the United States. Now in its eighth edition, Michael E. Kraft has updated his definitive text to capture the changing nature of environmental problems as well as policy proposals made through 2020. Drawing from work within environmental science, policy analysis, and political science, this text continues to help readers think critically about how best to address problems through a variety of public policy tools and strategies at all levels of government. Important updates to this new edition include: • The latest information about environmental challenges and governmental responses to them, with extensive citation of key sources and websites. • Key political and policy decisions through late 2020, including presidential appointments, budgetary decisions, major legislative initiatives, and congressional actions. • New learning objectives to facilitate student understanding of key concepts and their applications, arguments advanced over environmental challenges and policies, and the goals and methods of environmental policy analysis. • Coverage of new topics that have emerged during the Trump presidency, including the Clean Power Plan repeal and reduction of environmental regulation, climate change, land conservation, changes in natural resources policies, and a comparison of the Republican and Democratic positions on climate change in 2020. • Updated summaries of scientific studies, government reports, and policy analyses. • Revised discussion questions and new suggested readings. Environmental Policy and Politics is an essential resource for upper level undergraduate and graduate students in political science and environmental studies looking for an accessible, well-researched, and up-to-date text, written with style and flair.

Modernity is the sum of the fragmented cultural systems of meaning, that are mutually influentialon each other, plus of economic and political relations continually changing and transforming –a complexity that manifests itself in the structure of the (world) risk society even on the level ofthe individual. Following the late modern turn, the phenomenon of the means and opportunitiesdetermining the ability of choice is not being shared equally, but multiplied as regards globalactors, as well as choice of identity, perceptibility of risks and facing them. The study presentsthe new inequality factors and the asymmetric power relations of the late modernity along theworks by the recently died sociologists of the globalization theory (Ulrich Beck and ZygmuntBauman). In the world risk society, each community and individual bear the risks indifferently.Accordingly, the ascertainments of the study are that the globalised economy and the subjectsof the local poverty do not possess the same degree of the freedom of maneuvering. In orderto demonstrate this and also to identify each postmodern life-strategy, the study relies on theworks on identity by the discussed sociologists. According to the latter, the study concludes, thatthe reflexivity of the risk is the most profitable for those who are in the high position of the newinequality, thus, have the power to determine conflicts generated by them and inflict them onthose excluded from the struggle of definition of risk.

Global CO2 emissions have continued to rise, although the rate of increase has begun to slow down due to environmental measures implemented at both international and national levels. Therefore, the results of empirical studies on the drivers of CO2 emissions have been crucial for design of the appropriate environmental policies. This research article explores the interaction amongst business regulations, property rights, legal system, income, urbanization, and CO2 emissions in the BRICS-T countries for the 2000–2021 duration by means of the novel causality and cointegration tests sensitive to heterogeneity and cross-section dependence. The results of the causality test reveal a mutual interplay amongst business regulations, property rights, urbanization and CO2 emissions and a unidirectional causality from income to CO2 emissions. Furthermore, the results of the long-run analysis also indicate that improvements in legal quality and property rights decrease CO2 emissions while business regulations, real GDP per capita, and urbanization increase CO2 emissions. Therefore, improvements in property rights and the legal system are vital for decreasing CO2 emissions. However, negative environmental effects of market-oriented business regulations, income, and urbanization should be balanced by stringent environmental policies.

Today, the problem of political leadership is, in fact, an actualized aspect which sets ground for identifying the changing political tendencies and realities in the contemporary world. In this given post-industrial context, to answer what the political leader and his team are, means to corroborate several vital issues in the field of political science at once: starting from the prerequisites for organizing and managing the policy, then passing to the characteristics of both the political interests and the means of political activity, communicative mechanisms for elite segmentation, and ending with the most important - the expressions illustrating the postmodern discourse in the field of political sciences. In this respect, the problemacy of the political leader is fairly favorable as long as it focuses on the key issues of contemporary political science and permits to elucidate the most characteristic features of political schism at once. The problem, which regards the political leader and his team, can be solved in two ways: The one which is traditional to political sciences, when the leader is treated as a representative of an organized political force, who is engaged in terms of the programmed doctrine and who is contingent with respect to ideological, political, and propagandist provisions; Postmodern, or (it is almost identical) communicative, standpoint, when the political leader and his team are treated unconventionally, first of all, in terms of competitive organization that renders the services of political activity. Postmodern paradigm of politics matures from communicative and informative changes in the existence of the society when the priorities of creating and practicing information resources come to prevail in the economic field, when the political activity is growingly termed by communicative structures, which inveigle virtually every social strata into the communal "turnover." In this place, we may speak of the concepts which are still quite unusual to the political ear: needs of politics, services of politics, and consumption of politics. The needs of politics can be defined as a type of public need justified by communicative structures, which manifest the political interests and activity of the consumers and mold the corresponding type of service, which can be exposed via a wide range of political behavior and action starting from classical elections and ending with the "participation" and "pressure" through the media, direct talks, contacts on telecommunicative nets, or the usual consumption of political information. With respect to this, the political activity may now on be interpreted from the position of modern theories of organization, among which the concepts of organizational communication and communication management, which have attained a universal character in relation to nearly each realm of the information society, dominate. In circumstances when almost the entire society (on state, regional, or even global scale) turns into political consumers and actors, social and ideological engagement is not the most important substance (i.e., division between left-right becomes real on the basis of values, not ideological position, alone). It comes to be countervailed by the competitiveness of the political activity itself. Nowadays, most probably, we can speak of a political consumer as a mass type, which, in fact, coincides with the consumption of mass and specific communication. Gradually, the parties evolve into administrative mechanisms, which adapt themselves to an expanded and invigorated political market. In this respect, mass media and other communicative structures and instruments become but sole means for political activity, safeguarding its inter-relationship with various social strata and interest groups. Thus, the maneuvers of a political team are increasingly identified with the practice of public relations oriented at the political needs. First of all, it should be emphasized that communicative ties fill the formal positions up, and implement them. There is a very close inter-relationship between the formal and information positions. Furthermore, the quality of the functioning of formal structures, plus, the optimization of organization depends upon the factors of information. As usual, the communicative system of the political team emerges as an outcome of some sort of competition - both, internal and external - and the rules characteristic to it. Communicative system of this sort of "competitive coexistence" sets a favorable ground for the emergence of the rules for identification of the team, as well as the system of strategic planning and preparation for substitution. Habitually, these rules alter but a little that allows, first, the maintenance of a relatively stable staff organization, and second, forges a long-term policy of ends. Within the staff, there is a communicative division of competence, which can be clear and chaotic, as well as formal and casual. It is the association of these competencies alone that make it possible to converse the team as such. Herein, in the face of concrete information relationships, where the freedom of movement is restrained by the rules and some behavioral model is expected, likewise in chess play - the pieces, we may propound a communicative legitimization of the competence. In other words, we may speak of the intersection of political and administrative behavior, the intersection which, due the fact that nowadays it has been made dependent on the technologies of information and communication, and the media pressure, becomes increasingly close and stable.

Strands of scholarly writing on corporate bankruptcy are scattered across the fields of economics, jurisprudence, political science, and policy analysis. These varied perspectives tend to share common weaknesses that point directly to adding a sociological voice to the debate. An analytic framework that emphasizes power, interorganizational ties, and the embeddedness of organizational action in a larger social structure yields new insights into “strategic bankruptcies,” such as the Chapter 11 filing of the Manville Corporation. In turn, this perspective leads to a questioning of some of the basic assumptions concerning the role and operation of bankruptcy law.

Risk society today means world risk society. Its essential features are man-made risks, which have no social, space or time limits. World risk society identifies three main global risks: transnational terrorism, financial hazards and environmental risks. Environmental issues in this framework cannot be seen as problems in the environment of society, but they have to be considered as inner world problems of society itself. The interpretational framework of world risk society can be subdivided into three levels: first, global threats cause global commonalities; the contours of a world public are emerging. Secondly, the perception of global self-hazards releases a politically tailored impulse for the revitalisation of national policy as well as for the training and design of cooperative international institutions. Thirdly, the delimitation of the political has to be researched: the perceived needs of world risk society give way to a world civil society. Henceforth, in world risk society environmental hazards can be interpreted as a driving force for cosmopolitanism, global environmental risks and their practical and discursive treatment create transnational communities.

Effective management of social and human rights risks in the oil and gas industry is crucial for maintaining positive relationships with local communities and ensuring sustainable operations. This paper explores the application of Natural Language Processing (NLP) for sentiment analysis as a tool for enhancing social risk management. By designing culturally relevant community surveys and utilizing advanced NLP techniques, such as sentiment and semantic analysis, we can accurately gauge community sentiments and respond proactively to emerging issues. Our methodology integrates traditional survey methods with cutting-edge digital technologies, providing a comprehensive approach towards understanding and managing social risks. Despite challenges, such as language and cultural differences and potential artificial intelligence (AI) model biases, NLP can offer consistent, scalable, and rapid analysis, making it a valuable addition to social risk management practices. This study highlights the potential of NLP to transform how the oil and gas industry monitors and mitigates social risks, fostering more effective community engagement and sustainable business practices.

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2021 saw a growing interest in starting own business: as per the Census Bureau's Business Formation Statistics, the number of applications to form new businesses filed in the U.S. was the highest compared to any other year on record, reaching the total of 5.4 million (Economic Innovation Group, 2022), while in the EU, after an initial downward trend recorded in the first and second quarters of 2020, the number of new business registrations grew again in the third quarter of that year, and this upward trend continued throughout 2021 (Eurostat, 2022). Of course, as a result of Russia's invasion on Ukraine and related economic crisis, a downward tendency could be observed, but business registration levels in the EU in the first quarter of 2022 were still higher than during the pre-COVID 19 pandemic period (2015–2019) (Eurostat, 2022) and online searches indicating and intent to open a business spiked by 76% from 2018 to 2022 (Search Engine Journal, 2022). This shows that despite many external impediments, people are still tempted to start their own business, and many influencers, motivational speakers and coaches, as well as various popular TV shows broadcast worldwide (like the Apprentice, Dragons’ Den, Shark Tank or Planet of the Apps) encourage them to do so. Becoming an entrepreneur has become a goal many people, especially 20-, 30- and 40-year-olds, strive to achieve. However, many of those people fail to realise that the very entry in the business register does not automatically make them entrepreneurs or their business successful. Neither does a good (or even excellent and innovative) business idea that attracts customers, as it was in Kodak’s, Blockbuster’s, or Ask Jeeves’ case. What is required, is the ability to stay attractive to existing and prospective customers, i.e., the ability to win and retain customers, and to adapt to the changing demands, trends and economic conditions. All this can be achieved thanks to a meticulously designed and regularly reviewed and updated business model.
 The aim of this paper is to present and analyse the learning process of acquiring and building competences in the area of business models with the use of different innovative tools. The results presented and discussed in this article come from surveys as well as face-to-face and on-line meetings conducted in the ProBM 2 ERASMUS+ project (Understanding and Developing Business Models in the Era of Globalisation), in which the total of 261 respondents from seven (7) European countries, i.e. Poland, Italy, Greece, Romania, Portugal, Malta, and Switzerland, took part between 2019 and 2022. From the meetings and surveys it follows that much more awareness of business models needs to be encouraged and developed, particularly as regards improving competences helping future business owners and their employees assess profitability and efficiency of their operations and ensure that the business will be a going concern.