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1. A Sum m ary of Ulrich Beck - Risk Society: Tow ards a New Modernity
http: / / tcs.ntu.ac.uk/ books/ titles/ rs.html
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1 . Tradit ional Societies
This describes the general form s of social life in Europe and North Am erica at t he beginning of the
modern period and int o t he mid 18th century. Traditional institutions and struct ures ( i.e., t hey
had been in place for a long period of time; passed down from generat ion t o generat ion and seen as
just how the world worked) shaped people’s lives gave t hem t he symbols t hat provided meaning, place
and purpose in society. These were inst itut ions t hat gave order to people’s lives and forming t ight
social comm unit ies. People did not give these institutions their loyalty it was just how the world was.
People knew t hem selves as primarily part of a w e rather than as individual I ’s who contract with
others.
Some of these primary inst itut ions and struct ures were:
• Church as shaping center of meaning and purpose in life.
• Extended family in which t he I was formed and embedded in an extended network of
relat ionships.
• Village community in which I had a place in term s of role and ident ity.
2 . Early m odernity
Beginning in t he early 17th cent ury t he inst itut ions and structures of these tradit ional societies were
challenged in t he name of individual freedom and autonomy. The individual began t o emerge as the
center of life; t he comm on, traditional comprehension of life as lived wit hin a we wit hin tradit ional
instit utions was replaced by a new locus, t he I . Early modernity championed the rights and freedoms
of t he individual; as this new underst anding entered the imaginat ion of modern societies it began to
effect and then replace these tradit ional structures and inst itut ions with new ones that shaped people
in very different ways.
Some of these new inst itut ions and structures were:
• Churches became less critical as they shaped t he inner, private personal life of individuals but
had less and less to do wit h the ways individuals formed their meaning systems in t he public
world. Along side the church, in the emerging industrial societ ies, all kinds of loose social
organizat ions and clubs ( such as unions, professional organizat ions, and social clubs) were
emerging t hat provided for people’s private, personal life.
• Nuclear fam ilies: in the new industrial societ ies the extended fam ily all but disappeared t o be
replaced by the small, nuclear family. Work and family were separated and m ost of the
relat ionships were now in the form of more impersonal, work-related and contract-type
relat ionships. The w e was displaced by the social contracting I who now gave loyalty to
professional organizat ions, church groups, work places and ot her social instit utions.
• Nation state: in the place of the village came the corporate, bureaucratic state which,
impersonally, took responsibility for the ordering of people’s lives in a larger industrial society.
Individuals were now urged t o give loyalty to the st ate and the various compet ing part ies
prom ising these individuals t he good things in life.
I n all this transformat ion created by m odernity the basic locus st arted t o shift from structured forms of
life as the provider of meaning to that of the individual as an agent who chose to give loyalty t o
struct ures and institutions.
This happened in several ways:

2. 1. When modernity challenged and ended t he roles of tradit ional instit utions and structures in the
name of hum an or individual autonomy and development it did not do aw ay w it h
institutions and struct ures but replaced them w it h a new set. I n other words, early
modernity essent ially said to the emerging individual: “I f you give your loyalty to the new
emerging inst itut ions and structures of society then these very struct ures will give you the
freedom and t he good things in life t hat you want.” This prom ise was a) accepted by most and
b) for most of t he 20t h century was also delivered by t he new inst itut ions and structures. The
key point to remember is this central prom ise: Personal, individual developm ent and freedom
will be best achieved by giving loyalty to these new inst it utions. Much of the 20th cent ury in
North America can be characterized as a society t hat lived out the reality of t hat promise.
2. The dominant m eans whereby t hese new structures and instit utions of modernity achieved this
was t hrough t he development of the modern corporation which became, as Henry Ford, GM
and I BM so elegantly dem onstrated, t he primary inst itut ional form of social structure for much
of t he 20t h century. The m odern corporation was built on hierarchies of organizat ional life,
professionalizat ion of all elements of work and social services, impersonal bureaucrat izat ion
and a strategic planning process t hat could predict outcomes and result s. I t was a brilliant
creat ion for t he new, modern industrial society.
For most of the 20th cent ury t he churches of North America designed and built their organizat ions and
struct ures around this highly successful and product ive model of organizational life. Churches
flourished within the professionalized, corporate m odel of organizat ional life. Denom inat ions grew
rapidly with large professional staffs, departmentalizat ion around specialties and vert ically integrated
struct ures of synods or conferences in regions serving congregat ions t hrough an overarching nat ional
strategy. Like all t he other corporate systems t hese form s of structure and inst itut ionalization thrived
well int o the last quarter of the 20th cent ury. Most significant ly, many schools and denom inational
system s were given their current forms in t he last century and were set in place to train leaders for
this very system. This means t hat t he prim ary im aginat ion about struct ures and instit utions in the
churches ( and in those younger leaders now critiquing the institutional church) is this very lim ited one
of early m odernity. Church systems and their leaders are struggling to underst and why it doesn’t work
any longer, most church members couldn’t care less and younger, ‘emergent ’ type leaders direct their
crit iques against these forms but tend to use m ore universalizing argument s about struct ure and
instit utions in general (betraying their own Kant ian-like, modernity imaginations).
3. Lat e or Reflexive m odernity: from st ructure to agency
Late in the last century, for a series of reasons beyond t he scope of t his brief out line t o address, t he
overall frameworks and assumpt ions of early modernity were questioned and radically changed.
While t he reasons for this are complex and shouldn’t be reduced to simplist ic opposites there are
some important observat ions for t his conversat ion about institutions and structures. (Not e: this
taxonomy is from Ulrich Beck (http: / / t cs.nt u.ac.uk/ books/ tit les/ rs.ht ml)
By the latter part of t he 20t h century individualism deepened its hold on t he western imaginat ion.
People become better educated and the technological- informat ion revolut ions no longer required
unskilled and uneducated work forces but just the opposite. A result was t he emergence of a highly
educated inform ation society which displaced the older manual worker society of the previous
period. I nstead of a high value on long term loyalty to t he corporate instit utions and structures of
the 20th century these new classes of people in t he information society reflected (hence reflexive
modernity) back on t heir relat ionships with these institut ions concluding t hat t hey no longer needed
to m ake them primary in order t o maxim ize their own individual self developm ent and biographies.
Hence, what began t o emerge in t he late 20th cent ury was a radical shift in the locus of meaning in
western societies from a culture where meaning and identity were grounded in loyalty t o institutions
and structures to one in which meaning and identity are grounded in the self as the primary agent
of meaning; a shift t o the I primary agent of meaning. Overnight the instit utions and structures of
the 20th century quickly entered a place where t heir legitimacy was quest ioned and m ost loyalty t o
them removed.
The following diagram summ arizes what has taken place.

3. Traditional Societies
( Pre-Modern)
Early-Sim ple Modern
Societies
Late or Reflexive
Modernity
Institutions & Structures over agency Agency primary over st ructure
Com m unal structures:
• Concrete/ part icular
struct ures shaped around
relat ionship of "we"
o Extended family
o Church
o Village community
• Vertically & horizontally
integrated society
• People embedded and
form ed com munally within
concrete, local spat iality,
time material relat ionships
Collective Structures:
• Abstract "we"
• Atonom ized individual
• Social Classes
• Vertically & horizontally
integrated society
• Spatiality, temporality and
materiality transferred t o
collect ive struct ures
• Functional
department alizat ion
• I mpersonal
bureaucrat ization
Agent prim acy
• Self as agent reflect s on
itself primarily an
autonom ous, self-
monit oring of life
• Structural reflexivity:
agent reflect s on social
struct ures ('rules' and
'resources.')
• Networks of flexibility
• Educated classes required
for advancing modernity
• Comm unicat ions /
technology t he new
struct ure
• Knowledge based
• Client-centered-co-
production
Shared meanings Shared interests/ needs/ wants Self-organized life-narratives
Disem bedding Processes --- > Risk Society
Motor of social change are structures --- > Motor of social change - individualization / agency
This summary was penned by Alan Roxburgh of GOCN