Defining risk

Risk is the focal topic in the management of many activities and technologies. For that management to be successful, an explicit and accepted definition of the term risk is essential. Creation of that definition is a political act, expressing the definers' values regarding the relative importance of different possible adverse consequences for a particular decision. Those values, and with them the definition of risk, can change with changes in the decisionmaker, the technologies considered, or the decision problem. After a review of the sources of controversy in defining risk, a general framework is developed, showing how these value issues can be systematically addressed. As an example, the approach is applied to characterizing the risks of six competing energy technologies, the relative riskeness of which depends upon the particular definition used.     

High-temperature superconductivity research: an indicator of national science-and-technologypolicy responsiveness

High-temperature superconductivity has been used as a probe for evaluating science and technology policy-making in various countries. Differences in response time and behavior have been detected among the three main actors: The US, Japan, and EEC. While the US had by far the highest response rate, national research laboratories and the universities with extensive government grants responded significantly slower than did corporate research laboratories and universities with less government support. The study suggests that dependency on large governement contracts dampen the ability to make quick decisions and change policy direction mid-stream. In Europe, the response process has been slow and indicates a need to re-evaluate science policy to increase responsiveness to major events.     

Celebrity Politicians as Health-Promoting Role Models in the Media: the Cases of Vladimir Putin,Donald Trump,and Benjamin Netanyahu

International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society - In recent years, scholars have increasingly revealed the importance of celebrities in society, among them celebrity politicians. These...     

The political monetary business cycle: Political reality and economic theory

This paper addresses the issue of expectations incorporated into political business cycle models. Rational agents anticipate Democratic efforts to stimulate the economy via monetary policy, discounting money supply from the calculations for determining output variance, so that output under Democrats is wholly unaffected by changes in the money supply. Rational agents appear to be naive about Republicans, incorporating money supply into the calculations for determining output variance, so that output under Republicans is significantly related to money supply.     

Cost benefit analysis and the art of motorcycle maintenance

Partially as the result of consumer and environmentalist pressure, proposals for large-scale government and private projects are increasingly coming under the scrutiny of cost-benefit analysis, decision analysis, risk assessment and related approaches. This paper presents a critical overview of such analyses. It discusses (a) their rationale; (b) their acceptability as guides to decision making; (c) the problems such analyses encounter; (d) how they may be misused; and (e) what steps are needed to increase their contribution to society. The discussion is illustrated with a variety of examples, drawn, in particular, from the evaluation of new technologies.Whatever their flaws, such analyses appear to have a critical role in guiding social decision making. It is important, however, for both the analyst and the nonexpert consumer of such analyses to understand the errors to which they are prone in order to maintain a critical perspective. Indeed, the institutionalization of such criticism is essential.Additional research is needed to clarify psychological (subjective) aspects of the analytic process in order to (a) reduce the errors and omissions made by analysts and (b) help policy makers and the public understand the results and the assumptions under which they were reached.This research was supported by the University of California, Los Angeles, Subcontract No. KS59081-0 to Oregon Research Institute.This paper was stimulated by my participation in Risk Benefit Methodology and Application, a conference held September 21–26, 1975, in Pacific Grove, California, and chaired by Dr. D. Okrent. Many of the ideas expressed could be attributed either directly or indirectly to a variety of conference participants. I would like to particularly thank Philip Bereano, Joseph Coates, Barbara Combs, Ward Edwards, Lewis Goldberg, Paul Hoffman, Jack Hirshleifer, Robert Kates, Sarah Lichtenstein, Joanne Linnerooth, David Okrent, Leon Rappoport, Peggy Roecker and Paul Slovic for help in stimulating and clarifying my thinking. The title is borrowed in part fromZen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig (New York: Bantam, 1974) where some related lines of thought are developed.