Suchergebnisse

The centrality of risk assessment and risk management to complex organizations testifies to the institutionalization of risk in modern society. Much of the writing on risk assessment and management deals with how decision makers struggle with uncertainty rather than calculable risk. The conceptualization of risk and uncertainty depends in part upon whether one focuses upon decision makers and their decisions or upon outcomes of decisions. Focusing on decision makers leads to concern with risk management whereas focusing on the decision or outcomes draws attention to risk analysis. The papers examined in this paper are primarily concerned with decision makers and risk management. In doing so, we examine the social construction of risks and their control, how intelligence gathering and processing affects risk analysis and management, and the latent functions of risk regulation.

It has come as a surprise to me that quite a number of the reviewers of my book The Inertia of Fear and the Scientific Worldview (Columbia University Press, 1981) classify my views as "nonliberal" and inconsonant with pluralistic democracy. "Like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, whose disdain for parliamentary democracy is well documented," contends Joshua Rubenstein in The New Republic. "Turchin's ideas reflect a fundamental distrust of conventional politics." Says David Paul Rebovich in Worldview: "While he advocates democratic rights, he has little affection for Western-style liberalism." And Michael Scammell asserts quite unequivocally in the London Times that "Turchin…disagrees with political pluralism."

THIS ARTICLE EXAMINES THE ROLE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CUBA - THE WEAKEST CHURCH, THE AUTHOR SAYS IN ALL LATIN AMERICA. ISOLATED FROM PROGRESSIVE TRENDS IN THE INTERNATIONAL CHURCH BY THE ECONOMIC AND DIPLOMATIC EMBARGO OF CUBA AFTER THE 1959 REVOLUTION, THE CHURCH HAS BECOME LARGELY IRRELEVANT IN TODAY'S CUBA. IT HAS NEVER FOUND A ROLE FOR ITSELF IN THE CONTEXT OF A SOCIALIST CUBA.