ABSTRACT
Politics is foremost in the international and national debates about risks, whether they concern risk to the environment, regulation to control risk, or implementation of the laws. But in the accompanying academic discussion politics and justice have very little formal place. This is a complaint against the academics about how political issues are sometimes ignored or muffled in academic work, sometimes espoused unwittingly, and sometimes treated with no concern for objectivity. There are two cleavages within the academic field of risk analysis. First, there is a conflict about nothing less than the nature of reality. Second, at the next level, the conflict is about how the first should be studied. My purpose in writing about these conflicts in academia is to try to reconcile contrary positions.
