The Reconfiguration of Risk in the British State

A particularly prominent feature of contemporary politics appears to be an increasing concern with how risk, science and politics collide. To some, it reveals a political order that has become risk averse. This article challenges this view and argues that we need to appreciate the impact of the New Right on the reconfiguration of risk in politics. Influenced by a conservative view of individual responsibility and a liberal distaste for state regulation of the market, the New Right argues that risk is not to be feared, but embraced, that it should be viewed in a positive light; it stimulates both innovation and creativity. Here, the role of expert advice is to sustain the view that risks are an attendant feature of day-to-day life, that what matters is how, as individuals, we make judgements about those risks. Rather than perform the task of sustaining order through responsible government, science participates in (re)constituting order through the market. It articulates the extent to which individuals are exposed to risk, or defines more clearly where no risk can be proven. And if no risk can be proven, intervention cannot be warranted.