Ulrich Beck

Beck argued that modern industry increasingly organizes society around hazards it has itself produced, including pollution, nuclear danger, and technological uncertainty. He developed the argument in Risikogesellschaft, first published in German in 1986.

His point was not simply that modern life contains danger. Modern risks can cross borders, remain invisible without scientific measurement, and result from systems intended to create wealth and progress.

Reflexive modernization occurs when modern institutions are forced to confront the unintended consequences of modernization itself. Scientific, political, and industrial authorities then become subjects of doubt rather than unquestioned managers of progress.

Beck argued that hazards such as climate change and financial instability do not respect national borders. In works on cosmopolitanism, he therefore criticized sociology that treated the nation-state as the natural container of social life.