La incuestionabilidad del riesgo

Con anterioridad a la década de 1980, la literatura especializada en análisis y gestión del riesgo estaba dominada por la llamada visión tecnocrática o dominante. Esta visión establecía que los desastres naturales eran sucesos físicos extremos, producidos por una naturaleza caprichosa, externos a lo social y que requerían soluciones tecnológicas y de gestión por parte de expertos. Este artículo se centra en desarrollar una nueva explicación para entender la persistencia hegemónica de la visión tecnocrática basada en el concepto de incuestionabilidad del riesgo. Esta propuesta conceptual hace referencia a la incapacidad y desidia de los expertos, científicos y tomadores de decisiones en general (claimmakers) de identificar y actuar sobre las causas profundas de la producción del riesgo ya que ello conllevaría a cuestionar los imperativos normativos, las necesidades de las elites y los estilos de vida del actual sistema socioeconómico globalizado.Before de 1980s, the natural hazard analysis and management specialized literature was dominated by the so called "dominant" or "technocratic" view. Such perspective had established that natural disasters are extreme physical events caused by a whimsical nature and that these events are external to society. These events required technological and management solutions developed by experts. The current article aims at addressing a new explanatory component in the hegemonic persistence of the technocratic view. Such assumption was based on the "unquestionability of the risk" concept. It is stated that the "unquestionability of the risk" is the overall incapacity and neglect of experts, scientists and decision makers to identify and act over the deep causes of risk production, since it would make them question the normative imperatives and the demands from the elite as well as the life style in nowadays globalized socio-economic system

Criminal redress in cases of environmental victimisation: a defence

In recent years growing concern has been voiced in the environmental justice literature regarding the ability of criminal justice mechanisms to adequately address environmental harms, especially when such harms are perpetrated by large corporations. Commentators argue that criminal justice processes are often ill-suited to the particular features of environmental cases, where the chain of causation between wrongful actions/omissions and environmentally harmful consequence can be very complex and extend over the course of many years. As an alternative, many such commentators now favour the adoption of more administrative resolutions when corporate bodies breach their environmental obligations (which may or may not amount to ‘crimes’). Others favour the use of civil sanction regimes, which is now the preferred approach of the UK Environment Agency. In this paper I will argue that the debate on how best to respond to environmental harm has so far neglected to factor in the perspective of the victims of those harms and, in particular, their need for redress. I will argue that by incorporating such a perspective, as opposed to focusing largely on questions of efficiency and cost-effectiveness, the criminal justice route still has much to recommended it, especially in relation to the provision of meaningful redress and/or compensation to the victims of environmental harm. Consequently, this paper will provide a victimological defence of the criminal justice process, and of criminal penalties, in their application to cases of environmental harms

Environmental harm and environmental victims: scoping out a ‘green victimology'

In this paper I intend to discuss the adaptability of victimological study to the question of ‘environmental victimisation’. The impact on those affected by environment crime, or other environmentally damaging activities, is one that has received scarce attention in the mainstream victimological literature (see Williams, 1996). The role or position of such victims in criminal justice and/or other processes has likewise rarely been topic of academic debate. I have recently expanded upon various aspects of this subject and surrounding issues at greater length (Hall, 2013) but for the purposes of this article I wish to expand specifically on what a so-called ‘green victimology’ might look like, together with some of the particular questions and challenges it will face

Constructing a climate change logic: An institutional perspective on the "tragedy of the commons"

Despite increasing interest in transnational fields, transnational commons have received little attention. In contrast to economic models of commons, which argue that commons occur naturally and are prone to collective inaction and tragedy, we introduce a social constructionist account of commons. Specifically, we show that actor-level frame changes can eventually lead to the emergence of an overarching, hybrid "commons logic" at the field level. These frame shifts enable actors with different logics to reach a working consensus and avoid "tragedies of the commons." Using a longitudinal analysis of key actors' logics and frames, we tracked the evolution of the global climate change field over 40 years. We bracketed time periods demarcated by key field-configuring events, documented the different frame shifts in each time period, and identified five mechanisms (collective theorizing, issue linkage, active learning, legitimacy seeking, and catalytic amplification) that underpin how and why actors changed their frames at various points in time-enabling them to move toward greater consensus around a transnational commons logic. In conclusion, the emergence of a commons logic in a transnational field is a nonlinear process and involves satisfying three conditions: (1) key actors view their fates as being interconnected with respect to a problem issue, (2) these actors perceive their own behavior as contributing to the problem, and (3) they take collective action to address the problem. Our findings provide insights for multinational companies, nation-states, nongovernmental organizations, and other stakeholders in both conventional and unconventional commons