Strategies 'in between' to deal with risk and uncertainty in current welfare states

Abstract

In current societies public debates are increasingly about the allocation of risks and uncertainties. Environmental and technological risks as well as social risks are subject of public controversies and are addressed by state regulation. The article argues that many debates about the strategies of how to deal with risks refer to a modern dichotomy of professional scientific knowledge on the one hand, and lay-knowledge, beliefs or ideologies on the other. This orthodoxy of rational and non-rational knowledge tends to neglect that in everyday life and professional practice other kinds of reasonable strategies are often more influential. These are strategies which refer to a kind of pre-ration..