The risk society is one of the most accepted theories or notions of contemporary sociology. As a constituent it has been central in a number of scientific analyses, models and explanations dealing with a wide range of issues within realms ranging from ecology to socio-cultural and politics throughout last two decades or so. While this idea and its related models originally seemed to be an ecological and environmentalist manifest in the early years of its construction, now it enjoys wide currency among scholars of social philosophy, politics, sociology, human ecology, economics and science & technology studies. Such a currency is attributed to the way it accords with theories such as globalization, late or reflexive modernity, and/or modernity as an unfinished project.
Reviewing and introducing Beck’s notion of risk society in general, this article endeavors to reflect on implications and applications of the notion in its interplays between knowledge and society before and after 9/11, 2001. It is supposed that since 9/11 and with environment becoming a global social problem of our time, the notion of risk and accordingly the theories of risk society and risk culture have increasingly been globalized, as Ulrich Beck elevated the risk society a doomsday prophecy. In this view, the globalized world is no longer a risk society or risk culture per se, but it constitutes a surveillance-risk society. Thus, one can think of globalization as having a multilayer and serious nature.