Ulrich Beck: E-Special Introduction

Absorbing the World in Motion: Ulrich Beck’s Odyssey

Visionary. Schriftsteller. Polymath. Querdenker. Intellectual bricoleur. Pioneer: These are but some of the monikers that have been used to describe the late German sociologist Ulrich Beck. Indubitably, each speaks its own truth and each captures something of the quality and character of the man. As fitting as these ready identifiers are, perhaps the most apposite pen portrait of Ulrich was conjured up by Stuart Jeffries, a British journalist, reflecting on a first meeting with him over coffee in London. Jeffries (2006: 7) described Beck as ‘a disarmingly avuncular, duffle-coated bear of a man – two parts Paddington to three parts tough-minded critical theorist’. While one might wish to quibble about the respective portions attributed to the mythical mammal from Peru relative to the determined and resolute scholar, anyone who has spent time in Ulrich Beck’s company will appreciate just how apt this depiction is. Notwithstanding the doughtiness with which he pursued his vocation, Ulrich Beck was the warmest and most affable of human beings. Aside from possessing a razor sharp intellect, it was his way of being and his capacity to appreciate the lives of others which distinguished him. While the primary purpose of this e-special of Theory, Culture & Society is to promote further dialogue about Ulrich Beck’s work and to consider the lasting impact of his theoretical footprint, I wish also to convey at least a smidgeon of the humanist aura that was vital in propelling his ideas.

Described by his colleague Anthony Giddens (2015) as ‘the greatest sociologist of his generation’, Beck’s contribution to social theory is extraordinarily diverse and thematically broad. The topics he engaged with range from the individualization of religion and the changing nature of work through to the decline of formal politics and the deleterious environmental effects of climate change. In addition to emphasizing the breadth of his academic impression, in this special issue I wish to highlight Beck’s catalytic role in the development of modern social theory. The pieces gathered together here are intended to allow us to retrospectively reflect back on what was a remarkable contribution, but also to cast forward to consider what Ulrich Beck’s legacy promises for future theoretical lines of flight. The task of drilling down to include just over 30 pieces has been onerous. Apologies are doubtless due in advance to several authors who might have otherwise expected to appear in this compendium. My rationale in selecting this particular ensemble has been governed by a desire to provide a sense of both the latitude and the depth of Beck’s work. I have endeavoured to include all of the single and co-authored papers written by and with him which have appeared in the journal over the last three decades. Alongside these offerings, this collection gathers together an assortment of commentary pieces, reviews, critical articles and interviews.

While singularly these pieces may constitute but fragments of the jigsaw, combined they form a rich picture in vivid shades. Regrettably, but perhaps inevitably, significant aspects of Ulrich Beck’s intellectual mission have escaped the net. With his life partner Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim he wrote extensively – outside the pages of the journal – about the effects of incremental nudges toward sexual equality in the West on interpersonal relationships and family life (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995 2002, 2013). Not only has this work achieved international critical acclaim, but it has proved pivotal in propelling forward debates around the impacts of individualization on gender relations, familial structure and modern notions of love. There are other substantive areas of activity that regrettably evade this venture, including Beck’s significant contribution to debates about the future of the European Union, the changing nature of religious practices and the reconfiguration of employment relations. These omissions serve only as an additional reminder of the extraordinary breadth of his labour.

This special collection is organized around a loose framework, designed to represent different stages in Ulrich Beck’s thought. Although not rigidly temporal, this structure enables pause for thought on particular moments of conceptual progression, whilst allowing an appreciation of the evolution of his ideas over time. In Section I, an assortment of writings which define the contours of the risk society appear. These pieces illumine the parameters of the risk society perspective, bringing into view the impact of epoch-shaping processes of individualization, globalization, reflexivity and risk. These articles – penned by Beck and others motivated by his work – chart the epochal shift from ‘industrial’ to ‘risk’ society and enable an appreciation of the dynamics of the process of reflexive modernization. Section II is devoted to the period of development that followed on from the ripples created by the risk society thesis. While retaining the conceptual anchors of risk and individualization, at this juncture Beck was motivated to further examine the ways in which this was impacting on social structures and human experience (Beck, 2000a). During this phase, along with colleagues (Beck and Grande, 2007, 2010; Boyne, 2001; Featherstone, 2002), he became bound up with pursuing the ways in which society was becoming ‘cosmopolitanized’. Despite frequent misinterpretation, his theory of cosmopolitanism was not geared toward unpacking the transnational lifestyles cultivated by the jet-set classes. Rather, Beck (2006) was motivated to illumine the ways in which everyday life was becoming increasingly shaped by the global-local nexus, what he referred to as ‘banal cosmopolitanization’. As the articles in this section demonstrate, his ambition here was twofold. First, to encourage awareness of the limits to nationally focused structures and ways of understanding the world, and, second, to explore the ways in which underlying global transformations held the potential to catalyse the formation of more inclusive cosmopolitan ways of existing and acting in the world (see Beck and Levy, 2013; Sørenson and Christiansen, 2014).

The shorter penultimate section of the special collection revolves around the theory of metamorphosis, which was, sadly, to prove Ulrich’s last academic act. In marshalling the metamorphosis metaphor, he was able to explore with genuine hope and conviction the emancipatory potential of the crises and ruptures impacting contemporary society (see Levy, 2016; Sznaider, 2015). While he possessed boundless enthusiasm for his work in toto, as the interview with Mythen (2018b) shows, Beck had a firm sense that metamorphosis was the master concept which proselytized his thinking (see also Han, 2016: 254). In bringing together the various strands of risk, reflexivity, individualization and cosmopolitization developed previously, metamorphosis gave Beck’s academic project a sense of completeness. Although the sands of time dictated that the trilogy of books he had planned would never come to pass, there are sufficient pointers and clues in his final offering, The Metamorphosis of the World (Beck, 2016a), to enable those with whom he was working to pursue the multiple lines of inquiry opened up.

The final section of the special collection is given over to an assemblage of conversations and interviews which offer vital insights into Ulrich Beck’s method, his mode of theorizing and political trajectory. Aside from providing flesh to the theoretical bones of preceding articles, these interventions give a firm sense of the métier of the man himself. In order to set the stage, I will comment further on some of the specific contributions that populate the four sections of the special issue. However, prior to this, it seems fitting to first say a little bit more about the life and times of Ulrich Beck.

Ulrich Beck: Man and Method

Ulrich Beck was born on 15 May 1944 in the Pomeranian town of Stolp, then part of the German Reich and now Słupsk, Poland. His early family life was not atypical given the political and cultural context in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Ulrich’s father, a high-ranking naval officer, believed strongly in the superiority of the Aryan race. His mother, who was a trained nurse, resigned her profession upon marrying in order to raise the family of five children, of whom Ulrich was the youngest. Following four elder sisters, he was an eagerly awaited son and heir. Yet, despite his upbringing and the prevailing climate in Germany, from early on in his life Beck rallied against the ideologies of racism and nationalism. He enjoyed debating from an early age and, after leaving school, chose to read Philosophy at Ludwig-Maximilian University, Munich. His period of study here from 1967 to 1972 was to shape his intellectual destiny. Having engaged with the traditions of German idealism, enthused by seminars led by Karl Martin Bolte, Ulrich elected to alter the trajectory of his studies from philosophy to sociology. It was at Munich – and under Bolte’s tutelage – that he became acquainted with his wife to be, the now renowned sociologist, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim. Beck went on to complete a PhD focused on the so-called ‘value dispute’ between American and German sociology (see Wilkinson, 2011: 479). Having completed his habilitation in 1979, he took up post as a university lecturer at the University of Munster, before settling at Bamberg from 1981 to 1992. During this time his research was oriented toward industrial relations and he later melded this to analyses of the sociology of gender and family life. The seeds of his later work on individualization, conducted largely with his life partner, Elisabeth, were sown during this period. These research interests, allied to his involvement in the environmental movement, were to provide fuel for what was to prove his magnum opus, Risikogesellschaft: Auf Dem Weg in Eine Andere Moderne (1986). Following on from the ‘seismic impact’ of the book (Lash and Wynne, 1992: preface), in 1992 he returned to his alma mater, taking up a Professorship in Sociology at Ludwig-Maximilian University. Here he became Director of the Institute for Sociology and, subsequently, founder of the Institute for Cosmopolitanism.

From July 1999 – for a period of a decade – Beck successfully directed the Centre for Reflexive Modernisation from Munich, supported by funding from the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft). This inter-disciplinary and inter-institutional centre brought together sociological, social-psychological, political-scientific, historical and philosophical researchers. The galvanizing question broached by colleagues affiliated with the centre was whether contemporary and future societies could be fully understood with extant social science concepts and methods. Various projects were commissioned within the Centre for Modernisation focused around key themes of uncertainty and knowledge, politics, ambiguity and identity and the political economy of uncertainty. Beck also held several international posts as a visiting professor, including a Chair at the London School of Economics, where he travelled each year to teach, mentor and deliver public lectures.

While feted foremostly as a theoretician, it is worth highlighting Ulrich Beck’s material ambitions and his practical political purpose (see Blok, 2015; Kaldor and Selchow, 2015). He was committed to his role as a public intellectual and actively intervened in debates about the European Union, climate change, migration and nuclear power. He contributed regularly to a range of media outlets and was appointed as a member of the Kommission für Zukunftsfragen der Freistaaten Bayern und Sachsen, a committee tasked with identifying and evaluating future hazards. Beck was proud to be European and acted as an arch critic of what he saw as the self-serving policies of the current German Chancellor, whom he dubbed ‘Merkiavelli’ (see Kaldor and Selchow, 2015). An ardent supporter of the Spinelli Group, he campaigned for a post-national Europe and the reinvigoration of federalism, underpinned by the values of unity and diversity.

At the time of his passing, he was engrossed in leading a group of international researchers in what was to be a five-year project reconnoitring the explanatory potential of methodological cosmopolitanism. The project involved transnational research sites at which his methods and ideas were being explored through the prism of climate change. As the articles in this ensemble attest, Beck’s work had cross-continental reach, stretching from Europe across to Asia, South America and beyond (see Abe, 2016; Martins, 2015; Blok, 2016; Han et al., 2016; Tyfield, 2016).

While the capsule account above provides some biographical details of note, the two features that were perhaps most remarkable about Ulrich Beck were his immense presence and his generosity of spirit. Despite being festooned with invitations to speak around the globe, routinely cajoled into providing interviews and harried to write countless newspaper articles, he remained munificent with his time and was an attentive listener. Although frequently stretched by incessant demands, he always kept sufficient bandwidth to tune in to the opinions of younger scholars. He had a voracious appetite for reading and was perpetually seeking to finesse his theoretical perspective. Aside from being without ego or pretence, the hallmarks of his academic approach were receptiveness to ideas and willingness to adapt his position when persuaded otherwise. He remained detached from – and looked amusedly on at – the pomposity and grandeur exhibited by some of his contemporaries.

The polar opposite of an ivory tower scholar, Beck absorbed criticism of his work with grace. Indeed, I was one of several would-be critics to whom he wrote impromptu personal letters, offering thanks for engaging with his work and suggesting new angles of inquiry. Such acts of liberated collegiality typified Ulrich Beck. While pride dictates that the in-built tendency of most scholars is to eschew, ignore or dispel criticism, Beck actively encouraged it. For him, the production of knowledge was a collective rather than a singular pursuit (see Sznaider, 2015). As one of several junior researchers whom he took under his wing, I am fortunate to have many abiding memories, all of which speak of his humility and grounded nature. Ulrich drove around in a well worn-in Mercedes with creaking doors, the back seats randomly scattered with a mixture of academic papers and muddied walking boots. He would invariably park in spaces and at angles that would test the patience of the most forgiving of traffic wardens.

While bestowed with countless awards, perhaps the achievement of which he was most proud was his role in campaigning to change the name of the square in Haidhausen where the Munich U-Bahn intersects along the U4 and U5 lines. Formerly named after a local politician, Max Weber, Ulrich successfully lobbied the mayor of the city to change the name of the square to Max Weber und Max Weber Platz, dually honouring the pioneering sociologist. He found the writing of the latter inspirational and would often take visiting scholars to see the house that Weber inhabited during his time in Munich.

As reflected in the items that comprise this collection, Beck was bold and daring in his thinking. Although motivated primarily to reveal the incongruity between capitalism’s aggressive drive for profit and sustaining an inhabitable environment, he also made it his business to unsettle established ways of thinking within the academy. Predictably, his questioning of the nature and purpose of the social sciences made him unpopular with more moderate thinkers. Most controversially, he ruffled the feathers of many a sociologist by describing the discipline’s stock units of analysis – such as class, the nation-state and the nuclear family – as ‘zombie categories’ (see Beck, 2000b; Beck in Boyne, 2001: 57; Featherstone, 2002: 4). Causing commotion on occasion was but Beck’s way of disrupting the settled status quo of knowledge production. He challenged social scientists to develop fresh concepts and theories capable of grappling with a world in perpetual motion. In a similar vein to Zygmunt Bauman, Beck sought to illuminate the most pressing troubles of the epoch (see Campbell et al., 2018). What arguably rendered his writing unique was a capacity to entice the reader into seeing society with fresh eyes. He had an uncanny gift for identifying what might be called the ‘normal absurd’. In shining a light on taken-for-granted processes and practices that make sense but are simultaneously dysfunctional, his writing was as persuasive as it was compelling. Beck had a priceless knack of bringing into view and questioning routine ways of existing. As if inspired by the mantra of the French writer Jules Renard – ‘look for the ridiculous in everything and you will find it’ – he used his effervescent mind and acerbic wit to good effect, exposing capitalism’s palpable yet partially concealed contradictions. In his writing, what began as wry observations often developed into more meaty concepts.

Just one example of his facility to highlight the ‘normal absurd’ is Beck’s (1995, 2009) exposition of the process of ‘organized irresponsibility’. Explaining how contemporary structures simultaneously function and fail, organized irresponsibility elucidates the incapability of institutions to manage systemic risks and the attendant tendency to engage in acts of ineffectual stage management. Although first coined over two decades ago, this remains a prevalent tendency in modern institutions – and one which resounds amidst the fudge of formal democratic politics today. In elaborating the concept, Beck elucidated how through strategies of absorption, symbolic neutralization and obfuscation, agencies responsible for limiting risks tend instead to exacerbate them. Beck was unremitting in his quest to press the audience to reflect critically on the global implications of ostensibly mundane aspects of existence, such as personal relationships, employment and consumption. He was hopeful that, in so doing, the shackles of self-seeking and self-maintaining forms of privatism previously documented by his counterpart Jürgen Habermas (1981a, 1981b) might be loosened.

Beck urged the audience to see the world and its problems anew and promoted the development of new exploratory concepts and frameworks. His dare was to invite readers to remove the spectacles of the first modernity and to see the world instead through the lens of the second modernity, which, for him, had enveloped society. While his approach rubbed some scholars up the wrong way, he was absolutely dedicated to sociology. I remember Ulrich recalling in conversation a jocular exchange he had had with a colleague who had migrated out of academia. The friend had – undoubtedly with the making of mischief in mind – inquired whether he was ‘still a sociologist’. While the joke would not have been lost on Ulrich, I suspect he would not have felt his leg being pulled too forcibly by such chiding. As Anthony Giddens (2015) notes in his obituary tribute, Beck was unfailingly wedded to sociology, which he saw as his vocation and his destiny.

Consistently motivated by the quest for relevance, he rallied against conservatism and complacency, being keen to avoid, in his words, ‘becoming a museum piece’ (Beck, 2005a). As Sznaider (2015) observes, from Risikogesellschaft (1986) through his writing on cosmopolitanism to the last work on metamorphosis, Beck’s quest to lay bare the ‘emergent properties’ of the age was relentless. As the pieces in this collection show, the acuity and scope of his writing was extraordinary. In over 60 books, scores of journal articles and an assortment of thought pieces, he confronted the essence of the modern human condition, writing about profound issues, ranging from love, identity and childbirth, to security, fear and freedom.

Defining the Contours of the Risk Society

The first section of articles included in this special collection serve to sketch out the parameters and principles of Beck’s risk society thesis. In two early papers published in Theory, Culture & Society, Beck (1992b, 1992c) announced the arrival of the risk society, elaborating the distinctiveness of the contemporary epoch relative to preceding periods. As the first of these articles illustrates, his major contention was that the world was entering into a second phase of modernization during which the unanticipated and unintended consequences of a first phase of modernization were manifesting themselves, producing widespread shocks to the system. Accenting the significance and inevitability of ‘ecological conflict’, Beck’s (1992b) purpose was to elucidate the fault lines between industrial modernity and the risk society. Commentating on the work of Anthony Giddens, in the second review article, Beck (1992c) is at pains to emphasize the unique qualities of the risk society, unpacking the wide-ranging effects of the process of ‘reflexive modernization’ on politics, culture and society. As these pieces show, although Beck’s academic anchor was indubitably risk, his work was consciously disconnected from extant applied branches of technical hazard analysis which had evolved within science, engineering and medicine (see Mythen, 2018c). By contrast, his approach was firmly rooted in sociological theory and geared toward advancing a macro level framework which married fundamental social transformations to the pervasive and unbridled power of risk (see Beck, 1996; Pellizzoni, 1999; Mythen, 2014).

Without doubt, Risikogesellschaft (1986) proved to be Ulrich Beck’s eureka moment. This was the tome that cemented his reputation as a bold and enterprising social theorist. The ‘meteoric impact’ (qua Lash and Wynne, 1992: preface) of the book can be evidenced in all manner of ways, from record book sales and astronomical citation levels, to influencing political discourse and shaping public policy (see Franklin, 1998; Holzer and Sørenson, 2003; Gane, 2004). As recounted in the interview with Mythen (2018b), whilst prepared for the storm that the book would generate, Beck remained convinced that he had created a novel and progressive framework for understanding the nascent drivers of societal transformation. Utilizing risk as an epochal metaphor, he was able to identify flux and rupture across a range of domains, including class, gender, the environment and politics. In a world which has become so saturated with the language of risk – in terms of the environment, the economy, personal wellbeing, relationships, job security and media discourse – it is easy to forget that it wasn’t always thus.

To fully grasp the impact of risk society theory it is necessary to take a step back in time in order to appreciate the socio-economic as well as the academic context out of which it was born. In many respects, the risk society thesis emerged in a world that was primed and ready for its arrival. Aside from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the mid to late 1980s in the West were characterized by social, economic and cultural turbulence. Long-established formal structures and institutional ways of working which had steadily unravelled since the early 1970s manifested themselves with force in a phase of pervasive instability. At a structural level, the ideational bedrocks of the mid-20th century West – the nuclear family, mass production, full employment, economic growth and political democracy – fell into question and the certainties associated with predictable educational, employment and familial transitions become palpably interrupted. Specific global incidents – such as Bhopal, Chernobyl, the Vila Parisi disaster and the BSE crisis – provided further grist to support Beck’s assertions that the destructive power of endogenous risks was reshaping social institutions, interpersonal relations and the lived environment. These incidents bought to the surface serious doubts about the capacity of social institutions to ensure the safety of citizens, feeding into a broader trend of declining trust relations between the public and expert systems.

It was against this historical backdrop that Beck (1992a, 1992b, 1992c) posited that a rapidly fading first modernity (industrial society) was being superseded by a reflexive second modernity (risk society). While Beck’s predecessors Marx and Weber were preoccupied with the need to establish a fair distribution of socially produced goods, Beck instead drew attention to the social bads resulting from what he dubbed the ‘victory crisis’ of modernization (Beck, 1994: 2). His belief was that economic and techno-scientific development had stretched capitalism beyond its limits, leaving the constitutional institutions of the nation-state – law, formal democratic politics, welfare systems – powerless to mitigate against the scale and magnitude of global manufactured uncertainties. In this mutable and febrile climate, the threats were high consequence and universal in scope. For Beck (1992b: 101), the haunting hallmark of risk society – or the ‘second modernity’ – was the threat of ‘worst imaginable accidents’ which transcend nation-state boundaries, evade institutional attempts at regulation and endanger all citizens, regardless of status or privilege. As Rasborg (2018: 159) observes, Beck’s controversial contention was that such risks are ‘often invisible, classless (egalitarian) and global’. In addition to being oblique and universal, Beck posited that the latent ‘side effects’ (nebenfolgen) produced by capitalist modernization and techno-scientific development were routine and systemic.

To support his thesis, he utilized key examples – such as global warming, chemical pollution and nuclear leaks – to illustrate the volatility and unmanageability of ‘bads’. At the same time as the system was being undermined by its own logic of mass production and unfettered growth, patterns of mobility quickened by globalization were destabilizing and disrupting the dynamics of capitalism. Beck asserted that individualization, disembedding and indeterminacy were altering the nature and structure of social life in ways not expected nor predicted by social scientists. As Scott Lash (2003: 51) suggests in his commentary piece, ‘the individual of the first modernity is reflective, while that of the second modernity is reflexive’. Working in unison with Lash and Giddens, Beck explored the consequences of the processes of reflexive modernization, fleshing out the impacts of receding social structures of the risk society’s self-confrontational dynamic on individuals, culture, communities and institutions (Beck et al., 1994).

In an article published in Theory, Culture & Society – written with colleagues Wolfgang Bonss and Christoph Lau – he purposively set out the framework of a research agenda oriented around reflexive modernization (Beck et al., 2003). For Beck (1994: 2) and his followers, the possibility of ‘creative (self) destruction of an entire epoch’ required that social scientists ask a fundamentally different set of questions about society and develop alternative modes of analysis to wrestle with the contradictions and dilemmas of a rapidly transforming world. What Beck identified was essentially both a crucial blind-spot in the social sciences and an opportunity to see the world through an alternative theoretical prism. John Urry’s (2014: 5) reflections below sagely capture the sociological shift which he facilitated:

Every now and then a new way of thinking about the social world appears. And once that happens it is difficult to imagine how sociology had managed without that new way of thinking. It simply seems so obvious. Further, it is often difficult to see why it had taken so long to get to that new way of thinking; once discovered, it is hard to imagine what all the fuss was about.

The risk society thesis was to become one of the most frequently discussed social science theories at the cusp of the millennium, generating a heady cocktail of approval, consternation, misinterpretation and critique (see Elliott, 2002; Mythen, 2004; Woodman et al., 2015). A number of class theorists publically took exception to Beck’s (1992a: 36) view of the equalizing potential of manufactured risks, criticizing his ‘poverty is hierarchic, smog is democratic’ maxim. As Alan Scott (2000: 36) retorted, injecting an indubitably strong dose of realism: ‘smog is just as hierarchical as poverty, so long as some places are less smoggy than others’. Of course, in speculating about upcoming ‘mega-hazards’ and ‘worst imaginable accidents’, Beck was deploying creative licence. Rather than being wedded to empirical accuracy in the present, his aim was to deploy rhetoric to catch the world at its tilt. While seeking to peer behind the door, he also wished to disrupt the reproduction of ideas which he considered to be outmoded. He did not shy away from dispute as and when it arrived, perceiving contest as a valuable opportunity to engage in dialogue through which he might refine his thinking (see Levy, 2016).

Whilst many a critic erroneously equated Beck’s use of the term ‘risk’ with ‘harm’, he was fundamentally preoccupied with the systemic reproduction of uncertainty and the effects of societal anticipation of catastrophe (see Beck, 2009; Lash, 2018). The world risk society was thus not so much a climate immediately imperilled by extinction, but one in which decisions and choices in the now were increasingly vital to future well-being and security. Further, such decisions and choices had, for Beck (1999: 8), to be made in conditions of ‘radical indeterminacy’ where knowledge is partial, contingent or ambiguous. As Bruno Latour (2003: 37) observed: ‘put quite simply, second modernity is first modernity plus its externalities: everything that had been externalized as irrelevant or impossible to calculate is back in – with a vengeance’.

Given his desire to place one foot in the present and the other in the future, those seeking to take Beck to task on empirical grounds were always likely to score misguided if easy ‘wins’. The risk society perspective was not intended as a static picture of society and Beck rarely sought to justify his argument with recourse to contemporary data. Rather, the purpose of his brand of conjecturalist theory was to develop an optic that had the capacity to catch sight of society in flow – a point often missed or glossed over by critics (see Alexander and Smith, 1996; Bergkamp, 2017). Of course, the polemical, roaming style that he adopted made him prone to over-reach and hyperbole. On occasion his positivity and belief in the capacity of humans to challenge the global capitalist system perhaps got the better of him. At the risk of adopting an unhealthy mix of Marxian reductionism and cultural pessimism, the process of translating risk consciousness into radical political action remains, all too often, subservient to the ‘dull compulsion of the economic’ (Marx, 1867) and is, in any event, frequently interrupted for most by the need to tend to the realm of necessity.

Toward a Cosmopolitan Vision: Publics, Politics and Practice

While the risk society thesis became one of the most discussed perspectives in sociology in the 1990s, Beck was busy developing fresh ideas to stretch sociological thinking in new directions. He was not content with providing a diagnosis of contemporary society and wished to pursue the epistemological and methodological challenge embodied in Risikogesellschaft (1986). From the mid-1990s into the early years of the new millennium, Beck (1995, 1997, 1999, 2002) sought to refine and extend his original thesis. During this period he was busy cogitating on the cogency and completeness of the initial framework (see Mythen, 2004; Rasborg, 2018; Wilkinson, 2011: 485). Far from reversing from his original position, he instead accelerated, positing that the definitional power of the forces of risk, individualization and reflexivity he identified in the mid-1980s had been given further momentum by the mobility dynamic of globalization. In this phase, Beck (1995, 1998, 1999) embellished his theory, heralding the emergence of a ‘world risk society’. As the article published by him in the journal in 2002 illustrates, additions to the primary architecture were made during this time – in this instance factoring in global terrorism as a principal axis of the risk society (see Rasborg, 2018).

At the same time, Beck was also pushing forward debates about global interconnectedness, as the articles convened in the second section of this special collection illustrate. He published a series of articles and three books in quick succession, setting out the ways in which the progressive dimensions of reflexive modernity might be harnessed through the development of a cosmopolitan vision in Europe and beyond (Beck, 2005b, 2006; Beck and Grande, 2007). Expanding the environmental and political angles of his work announced in Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk (1995) and The Reinvention of Politics (1996), at this point Beck concentrated his attention on the emancipatory capability of ‘non-instititutionalized’ political action conducted outside of the formal democratic arena (see Holzer and Sørenson, 2003: 81). Exploring the potential of alliances between NGOs and global social movements, he was bound up at this juncture with sketching out the dimensions of a progressive emancipatory politics. Aligning his trajectory with the environmental movement and human rights groups, Beck campaigned vociferously for the transformation of politics consistent with cosmopolitan principles.

In considering his ventures in cosmopolitanism, it is important to underscore that Beck was not seeking to describe the proclivities of the mobile jet-setting middle classes. This was a common – but somewhat baffling – misinterpretation of his argument. Rather than becoming overly ensconced in the normative dimensions of cosmopolitanism, Beck was primarily motivated to explore the effects of the dynamic between macro social processes of globalization and the micro level actions of individuals. While entering into discussion about the nature and consequences of cosmopolitanism, Beck simultaneously extended the design of his classical risk society argument. Having previously argued that the risk society was a ‘catastrophe society’, he had, by this point, modified his position. Rather than being determined by the material impact of catastrophe, the ‘world risk society’ became primarily defined by the anticipation of catastrophe. As Rasborg (2018: 161) notes, we can thus detect a shift in focus from emphasizing immanent deleterious consequences to analysing the impacts of manufactured uncertainties in terms of their capacity to generate fear, anxiety and insecurity. Whether this constituted a change in direction or a re-clarification remains a moot point.

As both Latour (2003) and Mythen (2018a) note, Beck’s work was prone to being ‘lost in translation’. Indeed, this was one of the factors which motivated him to write his last book directly in English. Whatever the linguistic fineries, what is certain is that – in this phase of writing – Beck was convinced that the pervasive force of globalization which propelled world risk society was engendering not only new uncertainties and fears, but also new forms of structure and sociality. For him, this was a sign of hope, signalling that the conditions were ripe for the emergence of a cosmopolitan society. Picking up on a red thread in the risk society thesis, what is critical here is the political implications of the incapacity of institutions founded within singular nations to manage or control fundamental problems, such as global warming, systemic financial crisis, forced migration and terrorism. For Beck (2006, 2007), growing recognition of the reach of such world problems necessitated not only transnational interventions, but also recognition of the shared fate of humanity. Criticizing default political ideologies and narrow institutional approaches that he claimed were wedded to ‘methodological nationalism’, Beck urged a motion from a nationaler blick (national perspective) to a kosmopolitischer blick (cosmopolitan perspective). In explaining, ‘why methodological nationalism fails’ (Beck, 2007), he pressed home the need for transnational co-operation. In his work on cosmopolitanism he sought to stress the value of developing and protecting common principles of human rights, security, democracy and justice, founded on acceptance of diversity and the embracing of ‘others’.

While there were thus clear ethical and moral dimensions to his argument, he was at pains to point out that ‘cosmopolitization’ was materially in train. In as much as ‘cosmopolitanism’ is expressive of an ideal, the process of ‘cosmopolitization’ was, for Beck, pervasively manifesting itself in everyday choices, actions and practices. Advancing the ‘cosmopolitan turn’ (Beck and Grande, 2010), he continued to move along the methodological tracks, promoting new modes of inquiry and urging international interdisciplinary co-operation between academics (see Guivant, 2016; Wieviorka, 2016). As explicated in the article by Beck published in the journal in 2016, he was curious to both plot and explore ‘varieties of modernity’ in different parts of the globe.

Metamorphosis: Tracing the Lines of the Future Present

During the last phase of his work, Beck continued to develop theories that would enable him to articulate the deep-seated nature of societal transformations. In order to press forward, he chose to cease using the phrase ‘social change’ and busied himself in assembling a fresh analytical framework revolving around the process of transfiguration (see Beck, 2015; Blok, 2015). To this end, as the articles in the third section illumine, his previous work on risk, reflexivity, individualization and cosmopolitanism became aggregated in the theory of metamorphosis (verwandlung). Transporting the metaphor deployed in Franz Kafka’s (1915) classic novella, in The Metamorphosis of the World (2016a) Beck marked out the political and cultural effects of major transformations that were upturning and remaking social life. While returning to grapple with the impact of the ‘shock of the new’ on institutions, Beck was primarily motivated to explore the extent to which defining social forces were presenting systemic political challenges that, in turn, incited revised moral codes and fostered unique modes of sociality (see Blok, 2016; Mythen, 2018a). Given his ambition to develop metamorphosis as a unit of sociological analysis, it is a travesty that he was unable to complete a planned trilogy of books. Indeed, his untimely passing meant that the draft manuscript of the first book was to be completed posthumously by Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim, John Thompson and Albert Gröber, working in consultation with collaborators on the last international research project which Ulrich led. Consistent with his iterative modus operandi (see Levy, 2016: 291), it is fair to say that he was still reconnoitring the explanatory potential of the theory as he wrote each page of The Metamorphosis of the World (Beck, 2016a).

In as much as a sizeable school of scholars within sociology have remained bound up with finding explanations for social reproduction, the theory of metamorphosis travels in the polar opposite direction. Rather than being oriented toward explaining continuities, Beck’s final book instead sounds a clarion call for deeper theoretical analyses of disjunctures and ruptures. It serves, in his words, as an attempt to ‘try to understand and explain why we no longer understand the world’ (Beck, 2016a: preface). Consistent with earlier work, the theory of metamorphosis issues a challenge to the sociological orthodoxy, with Beck stressing the imperative for social scientists to experiment with fresh diagnostical methods and advance new concepts. As pointed out in conversation with Mythen (2018b), Beck was keen to distinguish metamorphosis from historical precursors. For him, metamorphosis was neither evolution nor revolution, but something more potent and disruptive (Beck, 2016a: 3). Critically, rather than simply acting as a mechanism for mapping current and upcoming undulations, he envisioned metamorphosis to be a galvanizing political force. It was ‘a mode of changing the mode of change’ (Beck, 2015: 78). In as much as social change infers transitions in form, metamorphosis involves transfiguration, as in the mutation from caterpillar to butterfly. Mirroring the pupation phase from caterpillar to butterfly, Beck posited that we are living in a cocoon state. Sweeping transformations are occurring as a result of financial crisis, the environmental emergency, global conflicts and the unregulated expansion of genetic technologies, but we remain oblivious to the macro level impacts of these happenings (see Curto, 2016).

Vitalizing this metaphor, Beck developed his eschewal of social science models of development predicated on transitions, creating a framework capable of capturing the dynamism of the contemporary world. In order to comprehend the metamorphosis of the world, he asserted that it is necessary to investigate nascent but distinct developments and processes that serve as harbingers of the future. Here the cocoon simile functions to signify a state of unawareness of impending metamorphosis, and the idea of transfiguration – rather than change – is embedded in grounded examples, from IVF treatment and genetic cloning to climate change and the global financial crisis. Working around these cases, the incertitude surrounding the manufactured risks that humans have created is emphasized. In utilizing the metamorphosis metaphor Beck picks up on his forays in cosmopolitanism (2015, 2016b), underscoring the limits of ‘methodological nationalism’ as a mechanism for providing national state-based solutions to what are inherently global problems. Extending his argument, he avers that the combustible dynamics of risk and globalization do not so much destabilize as demoralize expert systems, meaning that attempts by governments of nation-states to prop up ailing institutions are futile. Metamorphosis involves a process of dramatic upheaval which liquefies traditional structures, creating space for new modes of living and alternative institutional formations.

As both Rasborg (2018) and Mythen (2018a) note in their respective commentaries, the key advance in Beck’s thought at this time rests in establishing a revised understanding of the impacts of social bads. Whereas the original risk society thesis accentuated the deleterious environmental and social consequences of social bads, The Metamorphosis of the World (2016a) investigates their positive potential. The ‘anthropological shock’ (Beck, 1987; 2016a: 123) caused by environmental disasters such as Hurricane Katrina – coupled to the looming spectre of the climate emergency – are examples of moral violations, which cause pervasive disquiet and compel individuals to act. The proposition ventured by Beck is that bads have the capacity to stimulate new normative horizons based around principles of common goods. Describing a process of ‘emancipatory catastrophism’, bads are thus imbued with the progressive potential to galvanize an environmentally progressive cosmopolitan politics (Beck, 2016a: 35). Returning to the Marxian notion of creative destruction writ large in Risk Society (1992), Beck contends that the (pre)mediation of the impact of global processes – such as the ‘perfect storm’ of environmental disaster, economic crisis, malnutrition and forced migration – disrupts settled worldviews and facilitates changes in risk consciousness (Beck, 2015: 80). Riffing on the maxim that in crisis lies opportunity, Beck argues that bads cause shocks to the system that generate a pervasive sense of moral violation that, in turn, has the capacity to reset normative outlooks. Soldering together the theoretical concepts previously nurtured (2015, 2016a), the primary worked example of metamorphosis is climate change. Revisiting the notion of ‘banal cosmopolitanism’ in this context, he considers the underlying and wide-ranging impacts of environmental crisis on ideas, behaviour and practices: ‘climate change is not climate change; it is at once much more and something very different. It is a reformation of modes of thought, of lifestyles and consumer habits, of law, economy, science and politics’ (Beck, 2015: 79).

Having previously been criticized for understating the role of the media in influencing risk consciousness (see Cottle, 1998; Mythen, 2004), the theory of metamorphosis foregrounds the role of media technologies in drawing attention to the plight of those directly affected by bads, exploring the networked solidaristic bonds made between ‘global risk communities’. In his view, greater appreciation of the shared plight of the human race progressed by mediated interactions about the climate emergency can foster tolerant political perspectives oriented toward social justice and the protection of human rights. While the chords of optimism are pronounced, Beck’s thesis is pitched at the level of potentiality. Far from charting a linear course, embracing the ambiguity of metamorphosis, a series of future scenarios are thought out aloud. Distinct from forms of revolution that have concrete direction and adhere to an ‘either-or’ logic, metamorphosis sets a ‘both-and’ trail: it is open-ended and without destination (see Beck, 2015: 77, Mythen, 2018b). Whilst his appreciation of ambiguity and consideration of conflicting futures opened him up to charges of theoretical inconsistency, such sideswipes largely missed the point. Like his contemporary Zygmunt Bauman, Beck cannot be accurately remembered as either an optimist, or a pessimist (see Campbell et al., 2018). Indubitably, his sanguine manner powered pulsating strands of hope that animated his work, but he was, at heart, very much a pragmatist. While driven to be upbeat about the contours of the future, he was well aware of the height of the hurdles that needed to be jumped in order to build a just and equal world. As Sznaider (2015: 3) observes, Beck never sought to predict ‘progress or apocalypse’. Rather than providing a definitive blueprint for political action, his work instead invites us to reflect on a continuum of futures, contingent on human agency and institutional reflexivity.

In many senses, the theory of metamorphosis constitutes the final piece in Ulrich Beck’s theoretical jigsaw. Firstly, it enabled him to distinguish between ‘normal’ forms of social change indexed to transitional historical models and what he saw as the forceful jolts that were reconfiguring contemporary society. Second, metamorphosis served as an articulation point at which the concepts he had previously developed – of risk, reflexivity individualization and cosmopolitanism – articulated. Third, it provided him with a mechanism through which to understand the distinct experiences of young people destined to have to deal with the precarious state of the world created for them by their elders. For Beck, young people habitually developed novel ways of thinking about and communicating in the world, being engaged in distinct political practices that provide seeds of hope for the future. Whilst critical fingers had previously been pointed toward a lack of attention to the significance of place and the diversity of cultural conditions, Beck was at pains to stress that the process of metamorphosis is non-uniform and variegated (Rasborg, 2018: 165 ). In contrast to the general projection of the risk society perspective, as the pieces by Abe (2015), Han, Shim and Park (2016), Martins (2015) and Tyefield (2016) all show, Beck was keen to chart the assorted impacts of risk, globalization and cosmopolitization in different contexts around the globe.

The Legacy of Ulrich Beck: Reflections, Remembrance and Prospects

Having considered the evolution and maturation of Ulrich Beck’s thought, the final section of the e-special is given over to pieces which reflect on his contribution to social theory and the aspects of his legacy that might profitably be advanced by others. In reading these pieces, both the scale and magnitude of his academic exertions become readily apparent. In the introduction to a special section on Ulrich Beck, Scott Lash (2018: 117 ) explores the presence of indeterminacy in his account of reflexive modernity, offering a re-specified reading of Beck’s ‘vision of global cosmopolitanism’. David Le Breton also reflects on the centrality of uncertainty and ambivalence in Beck’s thinking and the conundrums produced by his conjecturalist method. As he muses: ‘only the future knows the answer. It is not present in the moment of the decision, but is conditioned by it’ (Le Breton, 2018: 146). Aside from cogitating on the dilemmas of nichtwissen and the omnipresence of risk in everyday life, Le Breton underlines the positive potential of risk-taking as a means of self-fulfilment, reasoning that Beck’s work invites further research on the progressive existential impacts of high-risk physical activities and deeper philosophical focus on the ‘jubilations of risk’ (Le Breton, 2018: 147). Reflecting on the commemorative event held in Munich to honour Ulrich Beck in 2015, Homi Bhabha (2018) ruminates on the translative potential of Beck’s work, exploring the connections between memory and history that his writing enables us to forge. In an intellectual tribute, Bhabha (2018: 132) considers the ‘afterlife’ of Beck’s opus, restating the power of his cosmopolitan perspective for understanding the world. For his part, in contemplating ‘some ideas for tomorrow’, Michael Wieviorka (2016) ruminates on the specific areas in which the conceptual tools which Beck bequeathed the social sciences might be profitably put to work in the future.

While the term has become hackneyed by overuse, Beck was a bona fide thought leader (see Mythen, 2014; Selchow, 2016; Sierakowski, 2015). As discussed in conversation with Roy Boyne (2001: 54), his ‘methodological utopianism’ was geared toward the development of projective social theory, rather than adherence to the strictures of assiduous empiricism. Throughout his career he challenged social scientists to reflect on what we ‘know’ about the world, how we go about acquiring such ‘knowledge’ and what the effects of academic knowledge production might be. Urging ‘the need to realize and conceptualize a whole new space of sociological imagination’ (Beck in Boyne, 2001: 56), his method was pioneering, inspiring others to experiment with conjecturalist social theory. While some of the conundrums and dilemmas illuminated by Beck have been bottomed out, others remain. Given the combustible mix of economic, environmental and political instability that characterizes the contemporary world, the provocation issued by Beck is one which social scientists should strive to respond to (see Mythen et al., 2018d). In many respects, the challenge articulated in Risikogesellschaft (1986) over three decades ago has increased in prescience rather than receded: ‘more than ever, we need ideas and theories that will allow us to conceive of the new which is rolling over us in a new way, and allow us to live and act within it’ (Beck, 1992a: 12).

The pieces in this e-special of the journal chart the evolution of Beck’s social theory, from his original risk society thesis through his work on cosmopolitanism and, finally, into his last theoretical sortie on metamorphosis. In bringing together key articles written by Beck – and those that he stirred – with critical commentaries and interviews, a light can be shone on both continuities and developments in his thinking. To this end, the signifying image of this e-special is polysemic. At a surface level, it mirrors the image used on the cover of Ulrich’s last book, designed to represent the transformative dimensions of metamorphosis. In this sense, the butterfly denotes the coming together and flourishing of Beck’s theoretical contribution. Yet, it also serves as a signifier of intellectual inquisitiveness. Ulrich was forever exploring the curiosities of his milieu, flitting from idea to idea in a restless quest to absorb his habitat. The creativity and liveliness of his mind meant that he always had more ideas to share than he was ever able to convey. Aside from the technicolour hues of his thought, Beck’s commitment to alighting on different areas of analysis promoted the pollination and cross-fertilization of ideas. A canonical figure in contemporary social theory, his quest to understand the social world and, moreover, to transform it for the better, was ceaseless and unwavering.

In conclusion – and at the risk of introducing unnecessary flounce – Beck’s oeuvre bears comparison with the creative ambitions of the poet and artist William Blake. A kindred romantic visionary, Blake’s ‘prophetic books’ caused controversy and consternation. His expressive approach to art and his desire to flirt with the future invoked a curious mixture of wonder and ire. Undaunted by his detractors, Blake pursued his artistic prophecy with courage and ardour. It is rumoured that shortly before his death he spent his last shilling on a pencil, in order to continue sketching to the last. Referring to Blake as a ‘glorious luminary’, the 19th-century scholar William Michael Rossetti (1890: 13) described him as ‘a man not forestalled by predecessors, nor to be classed with contemporaries, nor to be replaced by known or readily surmisable successors’. The comparison need not be laboured any further.