Risk governance
Abstract
The term ‘governance’ has been used in political science to describe the multitude of actors and processes that lead to collective binding decisions. The term ‘risk governance’ involves the translation of the substance and core principles of governance to the context of risk‐related decision‐making. Does it involve a major change on how risks are conceptualized, managed, and communicated, or it is just a new fashion? In this paper, we aim to delineate the genesis and analytical scope of risk governance. In our view, risk governance pertains to the various ways in which many actors, individuals, and institutions, public and private, deal with risks surrounded by uncertainty, complexity, and/or ambiguity. It emphasizes that not all risks are simple; they cannot be calculated as a function of probability and effect. It is more than a descriptive shorthand for a complex, interacting network in which collective binding decisions are taken around a particular set of societal issues. The ambition is that risk governance provides a conceptual as well as normative basis for how to deal responsibly with uncertain, complex, and/or ambiguous risks in particular. We propose to synthesize the body of scholarly ideas and proposals on the governance of systemic risks in a set of principles: the communication and inclusion principle, the integration principle, and the reflection principle. This set of principles should be read as a synthesis of what needs to be seriously considered in organiz…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Compound effects of catastrophic wildfires, water supply vulnerabilities, and ecological, social, and economic stresses can cascade towards socio-hydrosystem collapse.
“Effective WWR governance must also account for the compound effects of catastrophic wildfires, water supply vulnerabilities, and ecological, social, and economic stresses that can cascade towards socio‐hydrosystem collapse (Figure 3) (Balch et al., 2020; United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, 2019; van Asselt & Renn, 2011).”
From Scientists' warning on extreme wildfire risks to water supply (2021) · cites this paper as van Asselt & Renn, 2011
Systemic risks require collaborative and networked governance to navigate their inherent complexities.
“Therefore, systemic risks -characterised by their cascading effects, transboundary impacts, and non-linear developments -require collaborative and networked governance to navigate their inherent complexities (Aven and Renn, 2010; Van Asselt and Renn, 2011).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Van Asselt and Renn, 2011
Incorporating dimensions of critical human security into risk governance is an attempt to avoid the depoliticisation of risk and the technocratic, decisionistic, and economic models of risk assessment and management.
“Incorporating dimensions of the critical human security approach into risk governance is an attempt to avoid the depoliticisation of risk (Fawcett and Marsh, 2014; Kettell and Kerr, 2022) and ' the technocratic, decisionistic, and economic models of risk assessment and management ' (Van Asselt and Renn, 2011: 436).”
From Risk Governance, State Capacity, and Critical Human Security: Evolution of Risk Governance in Response to Systemic Risk in the UK and South Korea (2025) · cites this paper as Van Asselt and Renn, 2011
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 95 · Cited by 420
- Authors
- van Asselt, M. B. A., & Renn, O.
- Affiliations
- University of Stuttgart (DE)
- ORCID
- Renn, Ortwin
- Venue
- Journal of Risk Research
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2011-04
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 431-449
- ISSN
- 1366-9877 (ISSN-L)
- 1466-4461
- OpenAlex
- W4248586640
- Cited by
- 420
- References
- 95
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 27 · 2024: 36 · 2023: 32 · 2022: 33 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 25 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 40 · 2017: 20 · 2016: 23 · 2015: 24 · 2014: 22 · 2013: 22 · 2012: 11
- FWCI
- 63.15
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Risk Research (publishedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Research Publications (Maastricht University) (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Risk Perception and Management
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Disaster Management and Resilience
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › Management Science and Operations Research › Leadership, Behavior, and Decision-Making Studies
- Keywords
- risk governance, systemic risk, governance, risk communication, risk management, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, group decision making, governance principles, integration principle, reflection principle
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
