ABSTRACT

Each of the seven areas of debate reviewed in the preceding chapters raises serious issues for risk management, which recur across different specialisms and areas of policy, albeit with differences in precise terminology and emphasis. It is not claimed that the seven opposing positions are either necessarily mutually exclusive or collectively exhaustive. For example, the issue of whether to adopt a “statist” or “non-interventionist” approach to risk management underlies many of the debates in the field and might well be identified as a further separate dimension. But the seven dimensions that have been described do cover many areas of the contemporary debate and it seems likely that, in many areas of risk management, an approach that leaves any of the positions out of account is likely to be inadequate.