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Risk

This note is about the concept and the examples of risk.

Cf.

Existential Risks

Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

Long-term Risks

  • AI
  • locked-in injustice

Risk and Uncertainty

Risk and uncertainty name different kinds of not-knowing.

Risk refers to situations where analysts know the main outcomes and can assign probabilities with enough confidence to support calculation.12

Uncertainty includes cases where analysts cannot specify probabilities clearly, cannot complete the causal model, must work across multiple relevant futures, or cannot fully define the set of possible outcomes in advance.314

A useful way to state the relation is: risk sits within uncertainty.14 Not every uncertain situation becomes a risk problem, because many situations do not have stable probabilities or a settled model.

Working distinction:

  • Risk means uncertain outcomes with usable odds.12
  • Uncertainty means that analysts cannot fully settle the odds, model, relevant futures, or problem framing.54
  • Deep uncertainty means that even well-informed analysts cannot justify a single probabilistic representation of the future.3
  • Ignorance and indeterminacy name deeper limits where important surprises, open causal chains, or unrecognized conditions remain in play.42
  • Relational uncertainty highlights that not-knowing can also arise from differences between knowers, institutions, and worlds, not only from missing data.6
  • Cultural risk framing highlights that what counts as risk is shaped by social selection, institutions, and values.78
  • Lived uncertainty highlights action within unstable conditions where responsiveness may matter more than prediction.9

References

Lupton, Deborah. Risk. London: Routledge, 1999.

Lupton, Deborah, ed. Risk and Sociocultural Theory: New Directions and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.

Notes

Footnotes

  1. Dequech, David. “Uncertainty: A Typology and Refinements of Existing Concepts.” Journal of Economic Issues 45, no. 3 (2011): 621–40. https://doi.org/10.2753/JEI0021-3624450306.˄

  2. Wynne, Brian. “Uncertainty and Environmental Learning: Reconceiving Science and Policy in the Preventive Paradigm.” Global Environmental Change 2, no. 2 (1992): 111–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/0959-3780(92)90017-2.˄

  3. Aven, Terje. “On How to Deal with Deep Uncertainties in a Risk Assessment and Management Context.” Risk Analysis 33, no. 12 (2013): 2082–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/risa.12067.˄

  4. Walker, Warren E., Poul Harremoës, Jan Rotmans, Jeroen P. van der Sluijs, Marjolein B. A. van Asselt, Peter P. M. Janssen, and Martin P. Krayer von Krauss. “Defining Uncertainty: A Conceptual Basis for Uncertainty Management in Model-Based Decision Support.” Integrated Assessment 4, no. 1 (2003): 5–17. https://doi.org/10.1076/iaij.4.1.5.16466.˄

  5. Dewulf, Art, and Robbert Biesbroek. “Nine Lives of Uncertainty in Decision-Making: Strategies for Dealing with Uncertainty in Environmental Governance.” Policy and Society 37, no. 4 (2018): 441–58. https://doi.org/10.1080/14494035.2018.1504484.˄

  6. Brugnach, Marcela, Art Dewulf, Claudia Pahl-Wostl, and Tharsi Taillieu. “Toward a Relational Concept of Uncertainty: About Knowing Too Little, Knowing Too Differently, and Accepting Not to Know.” Ecology and Society 13, no. 2 (2008): art30. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-02616-130230.˄

  7. Douglas, Mary, and Aaron Wildavsky. Risk and Culture: An Essay on the Selection of Technological and Environmental Dangers. Berkeley: Sage, 1983.˄

  8. Rappaport, Roy A. “Toward Postmodern Risk Analysis.” Risk Analysis 8, no. 2 (1988): 189–91. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.1988.tb01169.x.˄

  9. Ulturgasheva, Olga, and Mally Stelmaszyk. “Embracing Uncertainty: Porous and Actionable Responses to Climate Change at the Borders of Indigenous and Scientific Expertise(s) in Siberia.” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 31, no. 1 (2025): 63–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.14163.˄

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