• Korean Security Journal
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• no.57
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• pp.277-301
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• 2018

Korean society is a mixed risk society in terms of risk and distrust. This is because the risks and disasters of the farming and industrial societies, the modern and the information society, exist simultaneously in the present time. Ulrich Beck's point that the endless development of science and technology to acquire economic wealth is simultaneously entering a risk society is providing us with many implications. In this paper, we reviewed the Ulrich Beck's "reflexive modernization" theory in the late 20th century, pointing to the rise of a risk society as a result of the evolution of new modernization. This is because the "reflexive modernization" can be a direction in which we can reflect our wrong past from a human-centered perspective and design a desirable future. In this sense, it is important to present ways to overcome the dangerous society through the reinterpretation of Ulrich Beck, who advocated the modernization of reflectively. In order to overcome the future risks that the fourth industrial revolution will bring, we must provide direction for the government's security policies and public security consciousness.

• Journal of the Korean Geographical Society
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• v.51 no.2
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• pp.283-303
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• 2016

The concept of a risk society, which was originally suggested by German sociologist Ulrich Beck, is insufficient to reveal how a certain risk materially and discursively unfolds on the ground and how its various dynamics are recognised by diverse actors because of the concept's spatial insensitivity. As an alternative approach, this paper introduces the concept of the riskscape, which was suggested by German geographer Detlef $M{\ddot{u}}ller$-Mahn, and analyses this concept in the context of the East Asian developmental state. It is meaningful that the East Asian developmental state thesis has strongly promoted the role of the state in stimulating national economic development in underdeveloped countries. However, it should also be noted that an active state role in encouraging modernisation and economic growth within a very short time produces consequences of what Beck calls 'manufactured risks', such as nuclear power plants. Therefore, it is essential to analyse the state in comprehending modernisation and the risk society in East Asia. More specifically, using the case of the location policy for nuclear power facilities, this article reveals how dominant social forces acting in and through the state constructed a national riskscape that minimises the gravity of local risks while prioritising the economic value of the national economy over local risks to produce rapid modernisation. Additionally, it is argued that a dominant national riskscape may become weak from competing with different riskscapes that are constructed based on contingency factors (e.g., political democratisation or a natural disaster). Based on these analyses, the article emphasises that interdisciplinary research using the concept of the riskscape is required to better explain the risks in East Asia.