Abstract
COVID-19 powerfully exemplifies the increasing global character of risks that Beck identifies in his theory of ‘world risk society’. A global phenomenon whose transmission has been enabled by modern technologies and forms of life, world risk society powerfully portends a transition from the politics of distribution of goods to the politics of the distribution of risks. Two of the most controversial aspects of Beck’s analysis of the transformations emerging from the world risk society are his claims of the increasing inadequacy of insurance and the declining importance of the nation-state in the face of global risks. This chapter critically engages with both of Beck’s claims. In the chapter I argue that while Beck’s specific claim about the declining importance of the state fails to capture existing transformations, his focus on how globally produced risks overwhelm existing forms of social and economic protection can help illuminate how global risks are increasingly pushing the state towards ex post and often ad hoc forms of intervention. This claim is substantiated through an examination of the massive and unprecedented intervention to support financial markets in the face of the economic impacts of COVID-19.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
See Tooze (2020) amongst others for this claim.
- 2.
That is, the argument here is for the general productiveness of Beck’s model of risk society, not for all of his specific theses about the risk society (for the argument that risk society should be understood as a paradigm or model rather than as a specific thesis, see Curran (2016a)). That Beck’s work continues to be highly relevant to new areas of study can be taken as either a further corroboration of the usefulness of his work, given its ability to identify key elements of processes that Beck was not aware of, or even envisioned when he developed the theory (see Lakatos, 1970). On the other hand, detractors may argue, following Popper (2002), that the plasticity of the risk society theory is a testament to its ability to avoid being falsified, and that this is an epistemic limitation, not strength. Following the dictum that models are neither true nor false—only useful or not, this chapter utilizes risk society as a useful model to identify and discover more general theories about contemporary configurations of risk. As is seen below, the paradigm of risk society is useful to think with, even when many of its empirical claims fail (see Curran, 2018a). A similar analogy could be used for Hobbes’ political theory, which is rarely, if ever, true in any of its empirical claims, despite it being incredibly productive as a paradigm for political thought for centuries following the publication of Leviathan (1651) (see Macpherson, 1962 for one example).
- 3.
At one point, it was estimated that over half of the world’s population was under social distancing curbs (BBC, 2020).
- 4.
This change is tied, for Beck, to the defeat of the logic of the instrumental rationality due to its success in increasing its power over nature (Beck, 1992: 22, 1996: 32). This analysis has important affinities to Horkheimer and Adorno’s (1979 [1944]) analysis of the ‘dialectic of enlightenment’ (see Beck, 1996: 38). For a discussion of the dialectic of controllability and uncontrollability in Beck, see Curran (2016a).
- 5.
Though it should be noted that in his later work, he increasingly shifted towards emphasizing greater uncertainty and growth of non-knowledge within society, thus potentially acknowledging greater contingencies in any social predictions (Beck, 2009).
- 6.
Why Beck has been wrong so far about the transformations of society to end excessive risk production is an interesting question, which is worthy of further investigation—though it cannot be tackled here. For an initial analysis of some of the relevant gaps, including Beck’s neglect of how some groups can continue to systematically benefit from excessive risk production, as well as Beck’s continued reliance of a Marxian model of historical transformation, see Curran (2016a, 2016b).
- 7.
This is an example of the ambiguity of Beck’s analysis regarding his constant shift between future as it is and future as we should make it. In some cases, it is not fully clear if Beck is arguing that the nation-state will become, or should become, less important and shift many of its decision-making powers to international organizations.
- 8.
- 9.
Though, Beck did often neglect the specificities of capitalism as an economic system (see also Benton, 1997).
- 10.
For an early discussion of how the state is increasingly serving as ‘risk manager’ and in fact insurer of last resort, see Moss (2004).
- 11.
The S&P 500 is a market capitalization weighted index of the 500 large companies of stock exchanges listed in the United States.
- 12.
The STOXX Europe 600 is stock index of European stocks from 17 European countries, including the UK.
- 13.
The FTSE 100 is a share index of the 100 largest companies by market capitalization based in the UK.
References
Amaro, S. (2020). European Central Bank takes its pandemic bond buying to 1.35 trillion euros to try to prop up economy. CNBC News, June 4. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/06/04/european-central-bank-ramps-up-its-pandemic-bond-buying-to-1point35-trillion-euros.html
Atkinson, W. (2007). Beck, individualization and the death of class: A critique. British Journal of Sociology, 58(3), 349–366.
Banerji, G. (2020). Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad? Wall Street Journal, May 8. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-is-the-stock-market-rallying-when-the-economy-is-so-bad-11588974327
BBC News. (2020). Live reporting, April 18. https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-52336209
Beck, U. (1992). Risk society: Towards a new modernity. Sage.
Beck, U. (1995). Ecological politics in an age of risk. Polity Press.
Beck, U. (1996). Risk society and the provident state. In B. Szerszinski, S. Lash, & B. Wynne (Eds.), Risk, environment and modernity: Towards a new ecology (pp. 27–43). Sage.
Beck, U. (1998). Politics of risk society. In J. Franklin (Ed.), The politics of risk society. Polity.
Beck, U. (1999). World risk society. Polity.
Beck, U. (2000). The cosmopolitan perspective: Sociology of the second age of modernity. British Journal of Sociology, 51(1), 79–105.
Beck, U. (2002). The terrorist threat: World risk society revisited. Theory, Culture & Society, 19(4), 39–55.
Beck, U. (2005). Power in the global age: A new global political economy. Polity.
Beck, U. (2007). Beyond class and nation: Reframing social inequalities in a globalizing world. British Journal of Sociology, 58(4), 679–705.
Beck, U. (2009). World at Risk. Polity.
Beck, U. (2010). Remapping social inequalities in an age of climate change. Global Networks, 10(2), 165–181.
Beck, U. (2011a). We do not live in an age of cosmopolitanism but in the age of cosmopolitanisation: The ‘global other’ is in our midst. Irish Journal of Sociology, 19(1), 16–34.
Beck, U. (2011b). Cosmopolitanism as imagined communities of global risk. American Behavioral Scientist, 55(10), 1346–1361.
Beck, U. (2013). Why “class” is too soft a category to capture the explosiveness of social inequality at the beginning of the 21st century. British Journal of Sociology, 64(1), 63–74.
Belz, S., Cheng, J., Wessel, D., Gros, D., & Capolongo, A. (2020). What’s the ECB doing in response to the COVID-19 crisis? Brookings Report, June 4. https://www.brookings.edu/research/whats-the-ecb-doing-in-response-to-the-covid-19-crisis/
Benton, T. (1997). Beyond left and right: Ecological politics, capitalism, and modernity. Political Quarterly, 68(B), 34–46.
Campbell, S., & Currie, G. (2006). Against Beck: In defence of risk analysis. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 36(2), 149–172.
Chernilo, D. (2006). Social theory’s methodological nationalism: Myth and reality. European Journal of Social Theory, 9(1), 5–22.
Curran, D. (2013). Risk society and the distribution of bads: Theorizing class in the risk society. British Journal of Sociology, 64(1), 44–62.
Curran, D. (2016a). Risk, power, and inequality in the 21st century. Palgrave Macmillan.
Curran, D. (2016b). Risk society and Marxism: Beyond simple antagonism. Journal of Classical Sociology, 16(3), 280–296.
Curran, D. (2018a). Beck’s creative challenge to class analysis: From the rejection of class to the discovery of risk-class. Journal of Risk Research, 21(1), 29–40.
Economist. (2020). Governments must beware the lure of free money. Economist, July 23. https://www.economist.com/leaders/2020/07/23/governments-must-beware-the-lure-of-free-money
Elliott, A. (2002). Beck’s sociology of risk: A critical assessment. Sociology, 36(2), 293–315.
Giddens, A. (1971). Capitalism and modern social theory: An analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge University Press.
Giddens, A. (1990). Consequences of Modernity. Stanford University Press.
Giles, C. (2020). IFS warns of tax rise ‘reckoning’ to cover bill for pandemic. Financial Times, p. 3.
Giritli Nygren, K., & Olofsson, A. (2020). Managing the Covid-19 pandemic through individual responsibility: The consequences of a world risk society and enhanced ethopolitics. Journal of Risk Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1756382
Goldin, I., & Mariathasan, M. (2014). Butterfly defect: How globalization creates systemic risks, and what to do about it. Princeton University Press.
Habermas, J. (1975). Legitimation crisis. Beacon Press.
Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1979 [1944]). Dialectic of enlightenment. Verso.
Hudson, M. (2020). How an “Act of God” pandemic is destroying the west. August 31. https://michael-hudson.com/2020/08/how-an-act-of-god-pandemic-is-destroying-the-west/
Jessop, B. (2002). Future of the capitalist state. Polity.
Kuper, S. (2020). Post-Covid politics: A long way to fall. FT Magazine, September 19/20, p. 5.
Lakatos, I. (1970). Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In I. Lakatos & A. Musgrave (Eds.), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (pp. 91–196). Cambridge University Press.
Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The political theory of possessive individualism: Hobbes to Locke. Oxford University Press.
Mejdrich, K. (2020). U.S. deficit triples in 2020 to highest percentage of GDP since WWII. Politico, September 2. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/02/us-deficit-triples-2020-407798
Moss, D. A. (2004). When all else fails: Government as the ultimate risk manager. Harvard University Press.
Mythen, G. (2005). From goods to bads? Revisiting the political economy of risk. Sociological Research Online, 10(3) www.socresonline.org.uk/10/3/mythen.html
Olofsson, A., Zinn, J. O., Griffin, G., Giritli Nygren, K., Cebulla, A., & Hannah-Moffat, K. (2014). The mutual constitution of risk and inequalities: Intersectional risk theory. Health, Risk & Society, 16(5), 417–430.
Popper, K. (2002). Conjectures and refutations: The growth of scientific knowledge. Routledge.
Rasborg, K. (2012). “(World) risk society” or “new rationalities of risk”? A critical discussion of Ulrich Beck’s theory of reflexive modernity. Thesis Eleven, 108(1), 3–25.
Savage, M. (2009). Contemporary sociology and the challenge of descriptive assemblage. European Journal of Social Theory, 12(1), 155–174.
Scott, A. (2000). Risk society or angst society? Two views of risk, consciousness and community. In B. Adam, U. Beck, & J. van Loon (Eds.), The risk society and beyond: Critical issues for social theory. Sage.
Strauss, D. (2020). Pandemic knocks tenth off incomes of workers worldwide. Financial Times, September 24, p. 8.
Tett, G. (2020). Equity investors should cheer low rates. Financial Times, September 17, p. 23.
Timiraos, N. (2020a). Fed ramps up bond buying, indicating much larger purchases are likely. Wall Street Journal, March 19. https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-establishes-currency-swap-lines-with-nine-more-countries-11584623004
Timiraos, N. (2020b). Federal reserve ramps up deliberations on asset purchases, rate guidance. Wall Street Journal, May 29. https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-ramps-up-deliberations-on-asset-purchases-rate-guidance-11590744601
Timiraos, N. (2020c). Why growth in the fed’s asset portfolio has paused. Wall Street Journal, July 26. https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-growth-in-the-feds-asset-portfolio-has-paused-11595772001?cx_testId=3&cx_testVariant=cx_2&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s
Timiraos, N. (2020d). Fed unveils major expansion of market intervention. Wall Street Journal, March 23. https://www.wsj.com/articles/federal-reserve-announces-major-expansion-of-market-supports-11584964844
Tooze, A. (2018). Crashed: How a decade of financial crises changed the world. Viking.
Tooze, A. (2020). The sociologist who could save us from coronavirus. Foreign Policy, August 1. https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/01/the-sociologist-who-could-save-us-from-coronavirus/
Waldmeir, P. (2020). Pandemic ushers in new era of hunger in the US. Financial Times, September 22, p. 20.
Ward, K. (2020). Don’t fight the Fed but don’t rely on it either. Financial Times, July 7, p. 12.
WSJ. (2020a). S&P 500 Index. Wall Street Journal Markets. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/SPX/historical-prices
WSJ. (2020b). STOXX Europe 600 Index. Wall Street Journal Markets. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/XX/SXXP
WSJ. (2020c). FTSE 100 Index. Wall Street Journal Markets. https://www.wsj.com/market-data/quotes/index/UK/UKX/historical-prices
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Curran, D. (2022). COVID-19, World Risk Society, and the Transformation of the State. In: Brown, P.R., Zinn, J.O. (eds) Covid-19 and the Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty . Critical Studies in Risk and Uncertainty. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95167-2_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-95167-2_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-95166-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-95167-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)