ABSTRACT
Cultural theory was first applied to risk and environmental problems in the early seventies, although it builds on a lineage that can be traced back over a century through the work of Mary Douglas and Edward Evans-Pritchard to the work of Emile Durkheim. This chapter sets the record straight by setting out a brief sketch of the much broader body of literature from which Douglas’ expeditions into the field of risk were mounted. It presents the typology in the context of this wider literature. The chapter discusses some of the contemporary applications of cultural theory to issues of trust, pluralism, democratization and risks associated with new and emerging technologies. Cultural theory argues that risks are defined, perceived, and managed according to principles that inhere in particular forms of social organization. The normative procedural recommendations emerging out of cultural theory have coalesced into the concept of ‘clumsiness’ in institutional design.
