PERCEIVED RISK AND THE SITING OF A CONTROVERSIAL ...

3. LITERATURE REVIEW
3.1. Uncertainty and Probabilistic Risk
Uncertainty is a reality of life and always has been. The vagaries of natural
events and evils such as plagues, pestilence, earthquakes, floods, droughts, crop failures
and social conflicts have been the source of public and private insecurities throughout
history (Denney, 2005, p. 7). Industrialization in the nineteenth century and subsequent
technological advances in the twentieth century produced additional uncertainties that
were previously incomprehensible to non-industrialized societies, defined as “post
modern risks” (Beck, 1992). These “post-modern risks” that contemporary societies face
include, but are not limited to, instabilities because of international economic
interdependence, threats associated with breaches in communication security, social
destabilization due to regional political upheaval, political aggression based on
technologies, religious terrorism, chromosomal damage from pharmaceuticals, diseases
resulting from agricultural production, and social disequilibrium associated with
advances in communication (Denney, 2005).
Individuals, institutions, and societies have responded to this uncertainty, and the
possibility that one’s actions may have undesirable outcomes, in various ways. They
have attempted to: isolate themselves from global risks, implement private property
rights, set up bureaucratic agencies, legislate statutes, promote the return to fundamental
religious beliefs, establish insurance indemnification procedures, and develop analytical
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