Risk and Reason: Safety, Law, and the Environment

Days after of the accident in once station (situated in Buenos Aires, Argentina) that left 51 fatal victims and more than 700 casualties, the book Risk and Reason authored by Cass Sunstein allows the profound examination respecting to two issues, why is people living under an unabated atmosphere of fear? and why the policies of State are inefficient to revert such a sentiment? To respond these questions, Sunstein describe the sniper in Washington, DC who randomly killed more than ten passerbies in 2002. Under some circumstances, the sentiment of fear widespread to society can generate major undesirable effects. Generally, the events or news our eye captivates are spectacularly exaggerated by our own emotions or fabricated by mass‐media. Ranging from terrorism to strange lethal flues, the public opinion often misjudges with clarity the correct probabilities for apocalyptic disasters. However, less attention is given to other more important aspects that kill thousand of citizens annually such as traffic accidents, strokes, and protein‐poor diets. This seems exactly to be the primary issue of study in Sunstein's project, case by case discussed throughout this book.

As the previous argument given, Sunstein realizes that there are two social mechanisms to magnify the risk perception:

• 1.

  the availability heuristic; and

• 2.

  probability neglect.

While the former refers to the mental disposition for reminding similarly events that remains lower probabilities of concretion. When this happens, the social imaginary overestimates the danger running a state of alarmism to the rest of society. These irrational behaviours lead people to a sentient of panic that prevents a rational orchestration of policies. Rather, the latter one is enabled when citizens, more sensible by the effects of disasters, neglect the probabilities. Of course, the combination of both mechanisms not only may create a generalized state of despair, but also these groundless fears are often captivated, processed and re‐channelled by some economic actors following the interests of status quo. If the citizenry asks for more security, the state will undoubtedly falls in a quandary. On one hand, the state will employ populist discourses to reduce the dissonance of security in the mind of citizens but these policies will be inefficient aggravating the problem and generating new risks, likely more dangerous. Dorner's experiment, precisely, demonstrates how lay people and even experts make daily decisions that virtually lead to extreme and irreversible states of emergencies. Decision making process seems not to be circumscribed to rationale neither an all‐encompassed view. For example, in 2002 Hatfield city (in England) was witness of a shocking rail accident with many victims and causalities. To reduce the sentiment of fear, lay‐people opted to take bus and vehicles to replace trains, but this generated serious accidents and crashes. This aspect shows how important is for government to find the real causes of disasters and work on it. States, in view of this evidence, should unheard the irrational citizen's demand. For doing so, it is important the state legislates by introduction of exceptions reserving the faculty to intervene only in particular cases.

On the introductory chapters, Sunstein examines the paradox of risk and complexity whenever the State echoes automatically the citizenship claims. In this token, Sunstein clarifies the approach to cost/benefit method allows experts and officials to determine what are the risks that should be focused and under what conditions the state should intervene. This assumption is strictly based on an old belief where social agents behave following the irrational dictate of feelings. As a result of this, people often think taking the short cut to facilitate their previous assumptions, but generating new risks. This valuable text is structured in ten chapters where the author deals with the problem of global warming and ecology. From many perspectives, Sunstein aspires to set forward a new model to help practitioners and policy‐makers in disaster issues to make the correct decisions. If the law is strong, the state and jurisprudence should follow only those claims that represent more benefits than costs. A clear and deep evaluation of cost and benefits is more than important for an efficient administration. Of course, much criticism has been widely exerted against this book.

To a greater or lesser degree, Sunstein acknowledges that the magnitude of costs sometimes is not clearly defined or is at least very hard to see. Second, this model trivializes the role of social patrimony and can be misunderstood as an effort to install a new dictatorship based on expertise and rationale knowledge. To these critiques, Sunstein argues that state should protect their citizens making good decisions and evaluating with rational instruments the alternatives. To overcome the current climate of populism that characterizes the modern world is one of the challenges any state should face.

To be honest, this book has two significant limitations which will be reconsidered but presents as an excellent academic research, based on years of experience. Sunstein's approach is persistently aimed at exploring two aspects of risk, the perception and its effects focusing on the role played by trust abridging alternatives to forecast those potential risks. A correct evaluation of risks allows experts and officials to make correct decisions to deter a much shocking catastrophe.

As already noted, nonetheless, his stance is developed under two errors. At a first glance, sunstein tries to describe a problem from a one‐sided gaze. Risk, calculation and democracy are social constructions that facilitated the expansion of capitalism. The cost/benefit model will generate more risks than supposed because it ignores the real nature of risk. Basically, the risk is not a result of citizen's ignorance, but a gradual process that allowed the replication of capital. Second, the USA and its deliberative function should not be considered as an ideal democracy because in many senses the form of organization is not an enough category to determine the democratic life. If in ancient Greece, the democracy allowed citizen to reject an arbitrary law, in modern society this faculty is impossible. The concept of democracy is strictly applied on the autonomy between powers and popular voting.

Furthermore, Anglo‐democracy, historically speaking, resulted from two important social forces: mass consumption and freedom. The medieval institution of charity was a serious obstacle for industrialism. This last movement encouraged a scripted sentiment of liberty in order for the citizen can sell its productivity displacing long distances if necessary. The Old Catholic institution of charity that protected people set the pace to paid work. As a result of this, the social bondages started to experience a gradual but strong fragmentation. This restructuration was accelerated by the combination of other secondary factors such as industrialization, mobility, the dissociation between time and space, and democracy. At some extent, the money worked as a mediator connecting people that had nothing to do or lacked of previous familiarity. With the introduction of risk in modern life, the insurances corporations, originally created to absorb risks, employed the interest rate to increase the volume of capital. The dangers travellers should face to carry goods from one to another point of the globe (from eighteenth century onwards) determines the final transaction price. Under this viewpoint, the risk was functional to the expansion of mercantilism and after capitalism. Besides, each society develops particular forms of living democracy according to a sentiment of autonomy that alternates between efficiency and institutionalism. For example, Latin American societies have constructed a shared meaning of democracy prioritizing particular questions of personal well being than the autonomy of institution as in England or the USA. What is noteworthy to mention here is that democracies in these countries are circumscribed to a high degree of political conflict and instability while the Anglo world remains more stable forms of organizations based on the hegemony of few corporations. This does not mean one types is preferable or better than others or that the USA is the only democracy other countries should aspire to reach. Unfortunately, Sunstein is unable to break with a widespread sentiment of Democra‐centrism.

Last but not least, anthropology revealed from long time ago, the function of taboos was to protect some part of local economies. Like risk, taboo works as an economic mechanism that facilitates the trade in one direction banning the commercialization of some goods in another. Risk, thus, operates by the introduction of a discourse, mediated and disseminated by religion, journalism and experts, where some practices or goods are strictly prohibited. Comparatively, risk confers to some groups the monopoly of using certain goods to gain more legitimacy or to dissuade others. While some properties may be widely exchanged depreciating their value, others are banned but strongly requested. The value of the latter goods is so exorbitant that becomes in inalienable possessions. Furthermore, those actors that monopolize the possession of these taboo‐goods enhance their prestige and gain further legitimacy than others. This generates an economic asymmetry between the involving citizens. To set a clear example, terrorism was defined as the main risk for America and West for the twenty‐first century. As a social construe, the narrative of terrorism facilitates certain goods to be consumed and reserves others. The rates of insurances for airplanes have arisen from 9/11 onwards whereas the gun‐trade has been reduced in US soil. As a result of aristocracy's pressure, the demand of sacred‐taboo goods slumps down. At the same time, these privileged groups reserve for them the usage and application of the taboo‐goods to their discretion. To put this in bluntly, risk cuts social interaction in one point and allows a redirection in the opposite to the extent to discipline the citizens. From this perspective, risk not only appears to be functional to the existent economy but also for the reduction of legal ambiguities. What Sunstein ignores is that the proliferation of risk cannot be mitigated by means of calculation, rationally or democracy simply because they are part of the problem, not the solution. Quite aside from these points, Risk and reason provides readers with a reasonable argument to expand the understanding of this troublesome issue. A master‐work highly recommendable not only for social scientists but also policy makers and experts dedicated to the mitigation and study of disasters.