ABSTRACT
Over the past decades the notion of risk has been firmly put on the political agenda and, consequently, on the research agenda of the behavioral and social sciences. In the 1980s and 1990s technological disasters such as the Chernobyl accident in the Ukraine, the Brent Spar incident in the Atlantic, and the Bophal chemical accident in India received considerable attention from the media and caused a growing discrepancy between the public’s experienced levels of risk and their desired level of risk. More recently, public attention to technological risk increased again due to a variety of foodrelated health issues such as the BSE crisis (in Europe), and the production of genetically modified food.
