RISK SOCIETY AND ECOLOGICAL MODERNIZATION - ALTERNATIVE VISIONS FOR POSTINDUSTRIAL NATIONS

Two prominent social theories have been shaping the discourse of envir onmental politics during recent years. Ulrich Beck's risk society theo ry contends that conventional definitions of social class are losing t heir significance in advanced nations due to the success of the welfar e state in reducing economic scarcity. As societies transition toward late modernity new social cleavages based on the distribution of envir onmental and technological risks are gaining salience. Standing in con trast is the theory of ecological modernisation originally advanced by Joseph Huber outlining a hyper-rational strategy for correcting the e cological flaws of contemporary production and consumption practices. This paper introduces a typology that joins the two theories into a un ified framework and suggests that the direction toward which a particu lar society progresses will be conditioned by its predisposition to sc ientific rationality. Due to increasing public endorsement of alternat ive epistemologies, most countries will likely encounter great difficu lty achieving ecological modernisation. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.