PLANNING FOR A SUSTAINABLE EUROPE? - TU Berlin

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external environmental and social costs of the transport sector. This more nuanced view
is representative of a large number of recent works on transport and European integration
funded by the NECTAR research group of the European Science Foundation (see
especially the edited volumes by Nijkamp, Reichman et al. 1990; Banister and
Berechman 1993; Nijkamp 1993; Banister, Capello et al. 1995; Coccossis and Nijkamp
1995). Although these studies ultimately tend to concentrate on technological and
logistical innovations as well as new, improved transport links as the keys to solving
Europe’s transport problems, they nevertheless display a high degree of awareness of the
comprehensive spatial, social and environmental issues involved. This particular network
of scholars involved in the ESF’s transport research projects well represents current
“mainstream” academic opinion with regard to Pan-European transport policy.
4.3 Reflexive Modernization
The social and the natural worlds today are thoroughly infused with reflexive human
knowledge; but this does not lead to a situation in which collectively we are the
masters of our destiny.
Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash (1994:vii)
4.3.1 Introducing the Framework
The concept of “risk rationality” has been immensely influential over the course of
the last decade. One can even go as far as saying that in over the last decade, social
scientists’ faith in modernity has been restored primarily through two concepts developed
by the German sociologist Ulrich Beck: “reflexive modernization” and its subsidiary
concept of the “risk society.” Note that there are important parallels in Beck’s work with