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Ewald, F. (2002). The return of Descartes’s malicious demon: An outline of a philosophy of precaution. Embracing risk: The changing culture of insurance and responsibility, 273-301.

Abstract:

The new paradigm of security calls forth a new economy of rights and duties. While the language of risk, against a background of scientific expertise, used to be sufficient to describe all types of insecurity, the new paradigm sees uncertainty reappear in the light of even newer science. It bears witness to a deeply disturbed relationship with a science that is consulted less for the knowledge it offers than for the doubt it insinuates. Moral obligations are swallowed up in public ethics, and the principle of responsibility is seen as a reflection of a brand-new notion of precaution. The paradigm of responsibility is a paradigm of insurance—it assumes the logic of loss compensation. The paradigm of solidarity is also a paradigm of insurance, of universal and indeterminate insurance, of social and compulsory insurance. It is not so much concerned with voluntary and contractual forms of compensation as with the institution of pools of all kinds. The paradigm linked to the precautionary principle will undoubtedly remain a paradigm of insurance, but in a new shape that will have to integrate new cultural boundary conditions.

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Ewold, F. (1991). Insurance and risk. The Foucault effect: Studies in governmentality, 197-210.‏‏

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Kaufman, S. R. (1994). Old age, disease, and the discourse on risk: Geriatric assessment in US health care. Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 8(4), 430-447.

Abstract:

This article explores one way in which medical practice confronts old age, disease, and conceptions of risk through an examination of geriatric assessment, a recently created health care modality in the United States. The process of geriatric assessment is shown to extend medicine's gaze to all aspects of bodily, mental, and social existence, thereby contributing to widespread cultural confusion about the equation of old age with disease. Geriatric medicine's representation of old age and disease is embedded in a risk discourse permeating contemporary society. An analysis of geriatric assessment conferences suggests that the old become the field on which the imperative to reduce risk by behavior modification and supervision competes with the deeply held value of autonomy. Medicine is assumed to be the appropriate institution for managing both the risks associated with aging and disease and the conflict between surveillance and care on the one hand, and freedom and neglect on the other.

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Kittelsen, S. (2009). Conceptualizing biorisk: Dread risk and the threat of bioterrorism in Europe. Security Dialogue, 40(1), 51-71.

Abstract:

The significance of the threat of bioterrorism lies in the fear that it generates, `threat' in this context constituting not just a physical manifestation of impending danger but also a reflection of a subjective vulnerability derived from a fear of an eventuality that cannot be predicted, identified or controlled. It is a threat that plays upon our perceived biological vulnerabilities in a contemporary environment where biotechnological innovation has reconfigured European relations to biological threat and where security is increasingly informed by risk. Confronting the threat of bioterrorism in Europe, then, necessarily requires engaging with the fear associated with it. This article argues that it is by conceptualizing bioterrorism through the notion of `dread risk' that this can best be accomplished. In so doing, it elucidates the manners in which perceptions of threat interact with articulations of security to inform a cyclical threat—defense dynamic, enabling a more explicit engagement with the ways in which Europe is not only subject to biological insecurity but also a facilitator of it.

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Lobo-Guerrero, L. (2010). Insuring security: biopolitics, security and risk. Routledge.

Abstract:

Insurance is the world's largest economic industry, providing a form of security that more than triples global defence expenditure. However, little is known about the form of security insurance provides. This book offers a genealogical interrogation of the relationship between security and risk through its materialization in insurance.

This work seeks to argue that insurance practices ascribe value to life and in so doing produce a form of security central to the understanding of contemporary liberal governance and security. Lobo-Guerrero theorizes insurance as a biopolitical effect that results from the continuous interaction of an 'entrepreneurial form of power', and traditional forms of sovereign security. Through rich empirical cases and a unique theorization, the book breaks apart the traditional division between security studies, political economy and political theory. The author explores this theory in relation to specific issues such as the use of life insurance in the molecular age, the use of insurance to securitize against environmental catastrophic risk, specialist products such as kidnap and ransom insurance, as well as the use of insurance to counter maritime piracy in the twenty-first century.

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Lupton, D. (Ed.). (1999). Risk and sociocultural theory: New directions and perspectives. Cambridge University Press.‏

Abstract:

Since 1981, AIDS has had an enormous impact upon the popular imagination. Few other diseases this century have been greeted with quite the same fear, loathing, and prejudice against those who develop it. The mass media, and in particular, the news media, have played a vital part in "making sense" of AIDS. This volume takes an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cultural studies, history of medicine, and contemporary social theory to examine AIDS reporting. There have been three major themes dominating coverage: the "gay-plague" dominant in the early 1980s, panic-stricken visions of the end of the world as AIDS was said to pose a threat to everyone, in the late 1980s; and a growing routinizing of coverage in the 1990s. This book lays bare the sub-textual ideologies giving meaning to AIDS news reports, including anxieties about pollution and contagion, deviance, bodily control, the moral meanings of risk, the valorization of drugs and medical science. Drawing together the work of cultural and political theorists, sociologists and historians who have written about medicine, disease and the body, as well as that of theorists in Europe and the USA who have focused their attention specifically on AIDS, this book explores the wide theoretical debate about the importance of language in the social construction of illness and disease. This text offers insights into the sociocultural context in which attitudes towards people with HIV or AIDS and people's perceptions of risk from HIV infection are developed and the responses of governments to the AIDS epidemic are formulated.

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Lupton, D. (2013). Moral threats and dangerous desires: AIDS in the news media. Routledge.

Abstract:

Since 1981, AIDS has had an enormous impact upon the popular imagination. Few other diseases this century have been greeted with quite the same fear, loathing, and prejudice against those who develop it. The mass media, and in particular, the news media, have played a vital part in "making sense" of AIDS. This volume takes an interdisciplinary perspective, combining cultural studies, history of medicine, and contemporary social theory to examine AIDS reporting. There have been three major themes dominating coverage: the "gay-plague" dominant in the early 1980s, panic-stricken visions of the end of the world as AIDS was said to pose a threat to everyone, in the late 1980s; and a growing routinizing of coverage in the 1990s. This book lays bare the sub-textual ideologies giving meaning to AIDS news reports, including anxieties about pollution and contagion, deviance, bodily control, the moral meanings of risk, the valorization of drugs and medical science. Drawing together the work of cultural and political theorists, sociologists and historians who have written about medicine, disease and the body, as well as that of theorists in Europe and the USA who have focused their attention specifically on AIDS, this book explores the wide theoretical debate about the importance of language in the social construction of illness and disease. This text offers insights into the sociocultural context in which attitudes towards people with HIV or AIDS and people's perceptions of risk from HIV infection are developed and the responses of governments to the AIDS epidemic are formulated.

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O'Malley, P. (1992). Risk, power and crime prevention. Economy and society, 21(3), 252-275.‏

Abstract:

This paper addresses the development of post-disciplinary ‘actuarial’ or risk-based technologies of power. Arguing against models which focus on increased efficiency as an evolutionary criterion for emerging technologies of power, it suggests that such technologies' place and form are largely determined by the nature and fortunes of political programs with which they are aligned. Thus the rise of neo-conservatism and related programs have extensively modified and curtailed programs based on risk models, and expanded those based on punishment and discipline. The paper examines the nature of situational crime prevention in the light of these ideas, and moves on to consider certain broader theoretical implications.

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O’Malley, P. (2004). Risk, uncertainty and governance. Glasshouse, London.‏

Abstract:

"Both risk and uncertainly are neo-liberal concepts, which can be viewed as complementary techniques for governing diverse aspects of life, rather than natural states of things. This new book examines the way these constructs govern the production of wealth through 'uncertain' speculation and 'calculable' investment formulae. The way in which risk and uncertainty govern the minimization of harms through insurance and through the uncertain practices of 'reasonable foresight' is also discussed."

"This governance of the future has a past, which is equally the concern of this book. It looks at the way these same techniques were historically forged out of moral and social beliefs about how to govern properly. Also analyzed is how, during this process, ideas such as 'contract' and distinctions between insurance and gambling were invented to order to 'properly' govern the risky and uncertain future."--Jacket.

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Power, M. (2007). Organized uncertainty: Designing a world of risk management. Oxford University Press on Demand.‏

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Since the mid-1990s risk management has undergone a dramatic expansion in its reach and significance, being transformed from an aspect of management control to become a benchmark of good governance for banks, hospitals, schools, charities, and many other organizations. Numerous standards for risk management practice have been produced by a variety of transnational organizations. While these many designs and blueprints are accompanied by ideals of enterprise, value production, and good governance, it is argued that the rise of risk management has also coincided with an intensification of auditing and control processes. The legalization and bureaucratization of organizational life has increased because risk management has created new demands for proof and evidence of action. In turn, these demands have generated new risks to reputation. In short, this important book traces the rise of the managerial concept of risk and the different logics and values which underpin it, showing that it has much less to do with real dangers and opportunities than might be thought, and more to do with organizational accountability and legitimacy.

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