Governing Risks: (The International Library of Essays in Law and Society)

Contemporary law and government are increasingly characterized by a focus on risk. Fields such as health, psychiatry, criminal justice, vehicle safety, urban design and environmental governance all provide examples of settings in which problems are dealt with as risks. While risk has become more prominent, there have also been changes in the nature of risk techniques deployed. Whereas welfare states provided many services through socialized risk - such as social insurances covering health, employment and old age - increasing emphasis is now placed on individual risk management arrangements such as private insurance. In this environment, the positive side of risk has also been made more salient. Enterprise, innovation and risk-taking have become qualities valued, or even required, of current governance. In this volume, the most influential examinations and interpretations of this major trend have been brought together, in order to make clear the range and diversity, the spread and penetration of risk in contemporary societies.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Series preface; Introduction. Risk, Politics and Inequality: Risks and rights in the history of American governments, Theodore J. Lowi ; At risk in the welfare state, Deborah A. Stone; Liberal governance and prenatal care: risk and regulation in pregnancy, Lealle Ruhl ; The ideological effects of actuarial practices, Jonathan Simon. Risk, Private Law and Justice: Social change and the law of industrial accidents, Lawrence M. Friedman and Jack Ladinsky); Private insurance, social insurance, and tort reform: toward a new vision of compensation for illness and injury, Kenneth S. Abraham and Lance Liebman; The new legal structure of risk control, George L. Priest; Tort, insurance and ideology, Jane Stapleton. Risk, Criminal Law and Justice: Risk, power and crime prevention, Pat O'Malley; Managing the monstrous: sex offenders and the new penology, Jonathan Simon; Moral agent or actuarial subject: risk and Canadian women's imprisonment, Kelly Hannah-Moffat; Public protection, 'partnership' and risk penalty, Hazel Kemshall and Mike Maguire. Risk, Uncertainty and Economic Life: Uncertain subjects: risks liberalism and contract, Pat O'Malley; Business, state and community: 'responsible risk takers', new labour and the governance of corporate business, Gary Wilson; Calculations of risk: towards an understanding of insurance as a moral and political technology, D. Knights and T. Vurdubakis; Speculations of contract, or how contract law stopped worrying and learned to love risk, Roy Kreitner. Risk, Health and Technology: Governing risky individuals: the role of psychiatry in new regimes of control, Nikolas Rose; The biology of culpability, pathological identity and crime control in a biological culture, Nikolas Rose; The return of the crafty genius: an outline of a philosophy of precaution, François Ewald ; Name index.

About the Author :
Pat O'Malley is Canada Research Chair in Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University and is the author and editor of many books and research papers on risk.