ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses some fundamental issues related to risk management and governance. It highlights overall principles of risk management and governance. The chapter reviews basic theory related to cost-benefit type of analysis. It examines the cautionary and precautionary principles and the related robustness and resilience-based strategies. The chapter discusses the call for a shift from risk to resilience. It describes fundamental principles for improving governmental policies on risk. Three major strategies are needed for managing or governing risk: risk-informed strategies, cautionary/precautionary/robustness/resilience strategies, and discursive strategies. Risk management is to a large extent about balancing development and protection. Discursive methods of risk governance are not a one-way transmission of information from the authorities to the public, expressing the ‘facts about risk’, as was previously common. The chapter looks at some of the basic concepts of risk governance, in particular, interpretative ambiguity, complexity, uncertainty, normative ambiguity and systemic risk.
