The past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making. This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices. Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and explains why some were more successful than others.
Andy Alaszewski is Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent. He is a social scientist who has specialised in the study of health risk and society, and is the Founding Editor of the international journal 'Health, Risk and Society’.
Foreword: Jens ZinnPreface1. Introduction: Risk as a Key Feature of Late Modern SocietiesPart 1: Responding to the Challenges of the Pandemic2. Managing Uncertainty: Framing COVID-193. The Risks of COVID-19: Probability, Categorisation and Outcomes4. Communicating Risk: Public Health MessagingPart 2: Mitigating Risk Through Science and Technology5. ‘Following the Science’: Expertise and Risk6. Risk Work To Maintain Services During the PandemicPart 3: Risk Narratives7. Pandemic Narratives: Telling Stories About COVID-19 and Its Risks8. Contesting Risk: Conspiracy Theories9. Hindsight: Inquiries and the Blame GamePart 4: Reflections on the Pandemic and Risk10. Conclusion: Risk and the Pandemic
"The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to reassess how we understand concepts like risk, uncertainty, trust and hope. This book draws on both classic and contemporary texts to theorise how these and related themes played out." Trish Greenhalgh, University of Oxford