Riziko, globalizace a občanská společnost

The increasing role of science in modern society, the growth of dependence on specialist knowledge and growing political failure are juxtaposed with the complexity of the effects of modern civilisation and the acceleration of social changes. In these circumstances the importance of social construction, communication and acceptance of risk is becoming more important. Risk in modern society is changing in nature – risks are being generated by the efforts of modem institutions to control and colonise the future, and a major role is also being played by the structural anatomy of the complexity of social processes. The accumulation of the ambivalent results of modern civilisation is having local and global effects, supranational social spaces are emerging with global impacts and crises in conditions of growing mutual dependence. The needs and demands for the creation of a global civic society and increased global responsibility and justice are today politically and theoretically considered from the points of view of realism and cosmopolitanism, which assess the possibilities of supranational political structures of government as a means to solve risk-involving social problems and possibilities of democratic participation by citizens.