ABSTRACT
In 2012, six Italian seismologists were found guilty of manslaughter for failing to warn the population in L’Aquila of a disastrous earthquake. Just a few months later, a French psychologist was found guilty of manslaughter because her patient murdered an elderly man. Although the seismologists were later cleared on appeal, in each case the supporters of the convicted expressed outrage with the legal system’s treatment of professionals faced with risk and uncertainty. More generally, both cases were a reminder of the varied ways in which different governance cultures can respond to adverse events, and were further “grist to the mill” for a long-standing governance “movement” whose mission is to make governance more rational by making it “risk-based.”
