Introduction

Ideas of risk and risk management pervade our everyday lives through prominence in politics, economics, finance and an overriding concern with health and safety. It has become, as Wilkinson (2010, p 26) describes, ‘a cultural prism through which the character and tendencies of processes of rationalization are brought into view’. The development of risk practices within criminal justice are discussed by Clift (Chapter Two, this volume), but it is important to recognise that they are but one part of a wider cultural development that has sought, through using actuarial approaches, to establish security for states, communities and individuals.

Uncertainty has always been a key part of the human experience. As cultural interaction has become more complex, and the rate of change has increased, the perceived uncertainty of the environment has also increased. The scientific study of risk and probability parallel the development of the modern state, with the basic concepts of probability being developed in the 17th century, as the complexity of global financial markets led to the need to calculate potential profit and loss in a way that could be agreed objectively by the mercantile classes who had become dependent upon those markets for wealth and influence. Importantly, probability theory is a prerequisite to risk theory, and until modern mathematics had developed the principles of probability (in part through insights from games of chance), risk theory could not be developed (Bernstein, 1996).

This chapter will explore continued developments in the study of risk and risk management, with a focus for discussion on an increased understanding of evolutionary processes, and the development of insights into the nature and behaviours of complex systems. It will be argued that by taking a whole systems rather than a reductionist approach, our understanding and development of approaches to risk management can be improved, and the chapter will conclude with a case study to highlight some of the key issues.

Complexity and evolution

In understanding that probability and risk theory have developed as an attempt to control and manage the uncertainty of what we now term the evolutionary environment (Schneier, 2007), it is important to recognise that human thought processes, cultures and responses have evolved over millions of years.