Author: Simon Bennett, editor
ISBN No: 978-1-4094-119
Review date: 16/12/2025
No of pages: 277
Publisher: Gower
Publisher URL:
http://www.gowerpublishing.com/default.aspx?page=641&calcTitle=1&pageSubject=295&title_id=10045&edition_id=13497
Year of publication: 11/09/2012
Brief:
Risk is an enduring theme of modern life. It permeates the political, economic and environmental domains. Some risks are unavoidable. Others are not. Innovative Thinking in Risk, Crisis, and Disaster Management provides ideas for risk, crisis, and disaster management in a risk society, based on late-modern approaches such as technological citizenship; delegated authority; and exploitation of 'lay' knowledge.
Written with technical terms defined and explained, it offers thinking that will be of interest to academics, students, and commentators. Primarily though, it will be of value to practitioners in the emergency services, industry and commerce, and to planners and policy makers at national and local government level.
The book deals with issues of civil safety and security. It covers management of socio-technical risks and hazards; environmental risk; social and economic impacts of ICT; and risk perception. In addition it touches upon terrorism; public order; emergency responding; high risk technologies; energy supply; climate change; natural disasters; and employment-related issues-all within a social context that prioritises risk reduction. The problems we face in the twenty-first century are not intractable. All we need is a little less dogma and a little more imagination.
Contents: Introduction, Simon Bennett; Empowering emergency responders, Roger Miles; Terrorism and the risk society, David Waddington and Kerry McSeveny; The emergent nature of risk as a product of ‘heterogeneous engineering’: a relational analysis of oil and gas industry safety culture, Anthony J. Masys; The inhuman: risk and the social impact of information and communication technologies, David Alford; Risk as workers’ remembered utility in the late-modern economy, Clive Smallman and Andrew M. Robinson; Aviation and corporate social responsibility, Simon Bennett; Investigating resilience through ‘before and after’ perspectives on residual risk, Hugh Deeming, Rebecca Whittle and Will Medd; Managing risks in a climatically dynamic environment: how global climate change presents risks, challenges and opportunities, Todd Higgins; A future for late-modern social formations in Detroit?, Simon Bennett; Conclusion, Simon Bennett; Index.
About the Editor: Dr Simon Bennett is the Director of the Civil Safety and Security Unit at the University of Leicester, UK. After ten years in IT management, Simon obtained a PhD in the sociology of scientific knowledge. He also has a BA in Public Administration and an MA in Communications and Technology. Simon has worked as a consultant to both the aviation and rail industries and sits on the Editorial Board for the journal Risk Management. He edits the Vaughan College (University of Leicester) series of monographs and is the author of A Sociology of Commercial Flight Crew. His latest publication, The Pilot Lifestyle: A Sociological Study of the Commercial Pilot’s Work and Home Life, is the product of a six-month research contract for the British Air Line Pilots’ Association.
This title is also available as an ebook, ISBN 978-1-4094-1195-6
