Risk, Hazards, and Crises in Research: What Risks Get Researched, Where, and How?

Abstract

This review article maps the shifts and trends in the risk literature regarding particular risk types across the past 30+ years. Not only does it address which hazards and risks receive scholarly attention, but also from which perspective. A similar review on crisis literature (Kuipers & Welsh,) reported that on average only 14 percent of the articles in three crisis and disaster journals pertained explicitly to risk research. Does risk research perhaps pay more attention to crises than the other way around? Our multivariate regression analysis of the different types and themes reveals how some risk types are researched and discussed almost exclusively from a particular angle. Also, the large majority of articles from some perspectives only take a limited variety of risks into account. Mapping risk research indicates not only which topics and themes have received increasing or structural attention but also which ones, or which combination of risk types and perspectives, perhaps deserve more study than they currently receive.