Risk society

A risk society is one in which there are hazards and insecurities induced and introduced by modernization itself. There are and always have been risks of natural disasters but modernization of society has produced risks that are the product of human activity. These two different types of risk can be referred to as external risks and manufactured risks (Giddens, 1999). A risk society is predominantly concerned with manufactured risks. The marked difference between the two is that there is a significant level of human agency operating in the production and mitigation of manufactured risks.