Ulrich Beck

In risk conflicts, the central question of power is a question of definition. It is the question of who, with what legal and intellectual resources, gets to decide what counts as a ‘risk’, what counts as a ‘cause’, and what counts as a ‘cost’. The question of determining who is responsible, and who has to bear the burden of paying for damages, has been transmuted into a battle over the rules of evidence and the laws of responsibility. And the reason for this is because at bottom the real clash is between the idea that someone is responsible and the idea that no one is responsible. […] The dynamic that fans risk failures into risk crises is the attempt to shift the burden of proof and the burdens of cost that have thus far been borne by consumers and the environment back onto corporations and governments. Or to put that another way, they are driven by the attempt to institutionalize the concern for ultimate consequences.

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