ABSTRACT
In his seminal work on risk society, Ulrich Beck writes, “In advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically accompanied by the social production of risk” (Beck 1992: 19).While Beck’s proposition accurately describes risk relations in advanced modernity, a compelling question arises: how should we characterize the social production of risk in less advanced modernity in which the majority of the world’s population lives? Does Beck’s statement imply that less advanced modernity faces less risk? To modify Beck, I argue that in less advanced modernity the social production of wealth is systematically surpassed by the social production of risk.To put this differently, as the result of structural factors, the introduction of complex technologies in the global south leads risk to grow faster than wealth in that part of the world. Exploring technology and society in the non-western world, this chapter focuses on risk
and modernity, a recurring theme in science and technology studies (STS) and sociological scholarship. As researchers have shown in myriad of case studies (for example, Jasanoff 1986, Wynne 1989, Kleinman et al. 2005), risk is deeply embedded in the foundation of modernity in which technology constitutes the preeminent causal agent of risk production and distribution. Most studies of the interplay between technology and risk, however, are situated in technologically advanced societies.There is a relative paucity of discussion of how technological risk looms especially large in less advanced modernity, countries marked by vulnerable institutions and weakly enforced regulations. This chapter is intended to fill this lacuna by giving an account of peculiar circumstance where less advanced modernity poses greater risk. In advanced modernity, as noted by sociologists (for example, Douglas andWildavsky 1983,
Luhmann 1993, Giddens 1990), risk emanates primarily from the material constitution of a cornucopia of advanced technological products.The predicament is rooted in high degrees of uncertainty in which the inability to predict and to the control side effects of modern technological systems inevitably entails rampant production of risk (Power 2007, Callon et al. 2001). This is a paradox of scientific knowledge: it has severe limits while playing a key role in wealth generation (Wallerstein 2004, Bijker et al. 2009). As a result, the problem of risk is always regarded as a problem of knowledge, because it is in this domain where uncertainty lurks
behind fascinating advancements of technology. Thus, modern societies are constantly faced with the challenge of overcoming uncertainties that characterize technological culture (Van Loon 2002). In less advanced modernity, the picture is likely to be very different.Technology-related risk
is an equally problematic issue, but greater risk emerges from another source. Although the uncertainty of technological knowledge remains a critical source of risk, the potential hazard from the utilization of high technology is prompted less by the limits of knowledge than by precariousness, incompetence, and fragility with regard to the institutional (in)capacity that plagues multiple layers of institutions in less advanced modern societies. To understand this requires taking modernity as a cultural system built not only on materiality that defines how one society achieves techno-economic progress, but more importantly on the arrangement of social and political institutions that govern everyday life. Hence, the underlying factor that renders a modernity advanced or less advanced rests on the institutional structure and culture that underpins social stability and order in contemporary society. It is through this particular lens that this chapter aims to illuminate how technological risks
tend to accrue in less advanced modernity as a result of institutional predicaments.Toward this end, I focus on a controversy surrounding the interaction between nuclear power and society in which the institutions of less advanced modern society appears to be the primary agent of risk production. Since the early twenty-first century, nuclear power has arisen as a potential alternative to fossil fuel; it has been touted as one of the best sources of climate friendly energy for humankind. Despite the Fukushima nuclear meltdown in 2011, the global obsession with nuclear power has not substantially diminished (Ramana 2013). In less advanced societies of the developing world, the controversy over nuclear risk voiced
by global anti-nuclear movements did not render nuclear power less attractive. Commitment to nuclear power production has remained firm, in particular among emerging economies that are obsessed with the superiority of nuclear power and desperately need to secure energy supply. Situating nuclear power in less advanced modernity thus requires an examination of the nexus between risk, technology, and institutions, for the three are inextricably interwoven in the formation of modernity. My argument is that the state is the central institution that escalates risk production in less
advanced societies. These countries are typically governed by what I term “risk states.” The structure and culture of risk states – or more specifically, the discrepancy between state capacity and the nature of risk embedded in high technology – create a situation in which these states are prone to augment the likelihood of hazards.To delineate how the interplay between the state and technological risk unfolds, the empirical setting of risk state in this chapter is situated in Indonesia, the fourth most populous country in the world. Like many developing states, Indonesia is strongly tempted to have nuclear power capacity in order to provide sufficient energy for industrial and economic growth.While the effort to produce nuclear power has been halted by strong resistance from the grassroots groups in the country, the Indonesian state remains unflinchingly adamant about introducing nuclear power to the nation. I elucidate the socio-political implications of such an ambitious venture, underlining what I call “institutionalized ignorance” as a puzzling trait of a risk state in coping with uncertainty and complexity of high technology.
