Sander van der Linden

Ragnar Löfstedt

Risk and Uncertainty in a Post-Truth Society

Jamie K. Wardman

This comprehensive book looks at COVID-19, along with other recent infectious disease outbreaks, with the broad aim of providing constructive lessons and critical reflections from across a wide range of perspectives and disciplinary interests within the risk analysis field. The chapters in this edited volume probe the roles of risk communication, risk perception, and risk science in helping to manage the ever-growing pandemic that was declared a public health emergency of international concern in the beginning of 2020. A few chapters in the book also include relevant content discussing past disease outbreaks, such as Zika, Ebola and MERS-CoV. This book distils past and present knowledge, appraises current responses, introduces new ideas and data, and offers key recommendations, which will help illuminate different aspects of the global health crisis. It also explores how different constructive insights offered from a ‘risk perspective’ might inform decisions on how best to proceed in response as the pandemic continues. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Risk Research.

Confronting a New World Risk

COVID-19

?A thought-provoking and invaluable book for anyone who cares about risk communication and management in the 21st century?Anna Jung, Director General, European Food Information Council?Professor Ragnar L?fstedt has once again produced a most interesting book on risk management and trust, well-based on theory and built on empirical findings?Mikael Karlsson, President, Swedish Society for Nature Conservation?Highlights the difficult balancing task facing risk regulators. Regulatory inaction against real risks can undermine public trust. However, exaggerated responses to risks can also jeopardize regulators? credibility. The diverse international case studies developed by Ragnar L?fstedt provide guidance for how regulators can navigate these and other frequently competing concerns?W. Kip Viscusi, Cogan Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard University, USA?In democracies, government policies cannot succeed without public acceptance. Yet complex risk management requires technical expertise. How to reconcile these competing needs? Ragnar L?fstedt provocatively challenges recent research claiming that risk managers must engender public trust via deliberative dialogue. He uses four cases studies to argue that the reasons for distrust vary and demand different responses; that in some cases trust can flow from technical competence without public deliberation; and that in others public deliberation can actually aggravate distrust. Trust me: L?fstedt?s book will add spice to the debate over risk, experts, the public and trust?Jonathan B. Wiener, Perkins Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Duke University, USAWe live in ?post-trust? societies, in which public confidence in governments and corporations over health, food and environmental risk is eroding rapidly. Good risk communication can help companies, governments and institutions minimize disputes, resolve issues and anticipate problems. Without such communication, the best policies can become derailed and trust can be lost. Most policy-makers still use outdated methods to communicate policies and achieve their objectives - methods developed before public trust in industry and government was affected by health scares such as BSE, genetically modified organisms and dioxins in Belgian chicken. This book provides effective methods for managing and communicating risk effectively in contemporary societies.

Ragnar Löfstedt

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