Chapter 7 Dangerousness, prediction and risk

There is a widespread perception that we are now living in a ‘risk society’. The term, first coined by Ulrich Beck, a German sociologist, implies both that society is increasingly concerned with risk and its assessment and also that society is increasingly organised in response to risk (Beck 1992). Indeed, with the complexities of new technologies (such as genetically modified crops), he states that risk is becoming harder to assess.