Suzanne Schneider in the International Review of Applied Economics:
Though routinely invoked in far-ranging contexts – from national security and healthcare to insurance, banking, and the climate crisis – risk is a remarkably slippery term. We perceive risk as carrying at least three, often overlapping, meanings. The most common definition remains exposure to potential harm or reward – though the latter association is notably muted today outside of the world of finance. For most segments of the booming risk management industry, risk connotes doom and gloom, not opportunity. Second, risk in the twenty-first century is a style of governance that surveils, measures, and manages both humans and nature with an eye on predictability and control. Risk in this sense has become an epistemic framework and associated set of institutions that normalize – and indeed create – a tendency to see the world through the lens of vigilance. Finally, risk is an affective phenomenon. Whether we look at risk appetite or the sense of anxiety induced by a terrorist attack, risk is a ‘political emotion’, to borrow from philosopher Martha Nussbaum. Across the globe we find that invocations of safety, danger, and security do heavy ideological and political lifting – shaping perceptions of risk along the way.
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