Risk Management in Post-Trust Societies (PDF)

RAGNAR E. LÖFSTEDT is Professor and Director of the King's Centre for Risk Management, King's College London and Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon, Harvard and Gothenburg Universities. He is the editor and chief of the Journal of Risk Research and he has published/edited nine books and more than forty peer-reviewed articles. In December 2000 he was the first non-American awarded the Chauncey Starr award for exceptional contributions to the field of risk analysis for someone under the age of 40, by the Society for Risk Analysis.

'Risk Management in Post-Trust Societies highlights the difficult balancing task facing risk regulators. Regulatory inaction against real risks can undermine public trust. However, exaggerated responses to risks can also jeopardize regulators' credibility. The diverse international case studies developed by Ragnar Lofstedt provide guidance for how regulators can navigate these and other frequently competing concerns.' - W. Kip Viscusi, Cogan Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University, USA

'In democracies, government policies cannot succeed without public acceptance. Yet complex risk management requires technical expertise. How to reconcile these competing needs? Ragnar Lofstedt provocatively challenges recent research claiming that risk managers must engender public trust via deliberative dialogue. He uses four case studies to argue that the reasons for distrust vary and demand different responses; that in some cases trust can flow from technical competence without public deliberation; and that in others public deliberation can actually aggravate distrust. Trust me: Lofstedt's book will add spice to the debate over risk, experts, the public, and trust.' - Jonathan B. Wiener, Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Duke University, USA

'Professor Ragnar Löfstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management and trust, well-based in theory and build on empirical findings. Löfstedt presents a number of important and thought-provoking conclusions on how to integrate trust into risk management, conclusions that once implemented might not only contribute to restored trust in society, but also to decreased risk.' - Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation

'This is a thought provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication and management in the 21st century. Professor Löfstedt, via a number of case studies and the latest theoretical analysis, offers new