Manufactured risk, complexity and non-traditional security: From world risk society to a networked risk model

Abstract

Within the context of non-traditional security, this chapter reflects upon Beck’s (1992, 2009) claim that we inhabit a Risk Society. With the advent of global climate change, extreme weather, transnational crime, NATECH’s (natural disaster triggered technological disasters), and terrorism, Beck’s notion of ‘manufactured risks’ resonates with the non-traditional security domain that includes: economic security, energy security, environmental security, health security and food security. This is all about complexity framing. Beck (1992) risk discourse regarding manufactured risks and effects that are both temporally and spatially displaced resonates with the complexity notion of nonlinearity. Hence the inherent interdependencies and interconnectivity that characterizes the risk space leads to a network model. The notion of hyper-risks (Helbing 2013; Masys et al. 2014) captures well the interconnectivity and complexity of the security threats. The complexity lens thereby becomes prominent in examining security. A networked risk model emerges as a construct that links Becks risk discourse to non-traditional security challenges.