ABSTRACT
The concept of risk is as long as a piece of string. It is as elastic as a Bungee rope. We use the term in everyday life in a wide range of contexts. We speak of taking risks, being at risk, risky enterprises or situations, and so on. There is a vocabulary that develops around this – gambling, taking chances, hazards, accidents, crises and much more. When things go wrong we want to ask why. Sometimes we talk in terms of bad luck, chance, fate or act of God. Sometimes we want to attribute causes, or impute motives, to acount both for the how and the why of the occurrence. When things look as though they are out of control, we start to speak (or the press may write) in terms of scares or panics. Moreover, it is common to move into a moral dimension. Thus it has become part of our language to speak of moral panics. Concerns for explanation can interweave with ethical questions relating to blame, responsibility and accountability. And, from the standpoint of sociological analysis, we now speak of risk not only in particular spheres of social activity but as a description of modern societies themselves. They are exemplars of Risk Society (Beck, 1992).
