The future of risk in social science theory and research

This issue involves a change in the usual format of Health, Risk & Society with the inclusion of two articles that debate the continuing utility of risk for sociological research. In this editorial I reflect on this debate on the future of sociological research on risk. The two protagonists, Judith Green and Jens Zinn, agree that risk has been a fruitful area of sociological research. It is a key focus of several contemporary macro theories of society. Risk Society Theory postulates that both the nature of and responses to risk differentiate late modern societies from earlier social formations and risk creates both individual and collective challenges. Cultural Theorists argue that the dominant economic approach to risk based on the assumption that 'all individuals are similarly rational, or self-interested' cannot explain why individuals and social groups vary in the way they identify and respond to risks. Such systematic variations are the product of different cultural preferences which are themselves the product of different social formations. Governmentality focuses on the ways in which disciplinary institutions such as public health create knowledge about risks and the ways they should be collectively and individually managed. Green argues that these theories have generated important insights but she suggests as they have developed their focus has shifted from risk to other issues. Zinn argues that Green misrepresents the nature and role of macro theory within sociology and that such theories remain relevant and advocates a broad approach to risk that do not restrict it to a study of narrow rationalist approaches. Green argues that risk research is in a methodological trap. She notes that if research is framed in terms of risk then the participants in such research will be forced to frame their concerns in terms of risk creating a circularity. Risk researchers find what they are looking for ( risk) and therefore disregard other ways in which individuals may deal with problems such as misfortune. Zinn acknowledges such methodological problems but does not see them as a fatal flaw in risk research. Indeed he argues that such challenges exist in all sociological research as: 'Every strategy to "observe'' social reality is part of constructing exactly this social reality'.