Bioethics and the risk regulation of ‘frontier research’: the case of gene therapy

Anticipating risks has become an obsession of the early twenty-first century. Private and public sector organisations increasingly devote resources to risk prevention and contingency planning to manage risk events should they occur. This book shows how we can organise our social, organisational and regulatory policy systems to cope better with the array of local and transnational risks we regularly encounter. Contributors from a range of disciplines - including finance, history, law, management, political science, social psychology, sociology and disaster studies - consider threats, vulnerabilities and insecurities alongside social and organisational sources of resilience and security. These issues are introduced and discussed through a fascinating and diverse set of topics, including myxomatosis, the 2012 Olympic Games, gene therapy and the recent financial crisis. This is an important book for academics and policy makers who wish to understand the dilemmas generated in the anticipation and management of risks. • Presents a new analytical take on risk regulation issues by focusing on the role of anticipation • Multi-disciplinary approach gives a broad ranging view of the varying social science debates about risk regulation, including an historical view on risk society debates • Includes detailed case studies covering a range of different regulatory d