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Beck's Argument Analysis

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public figures such as police and local authorities. This argument essentially balances and legitimises the need for surveillance as it is bound by strict rules and is regulated by organisations outside the government, so it is made difficult for the rules to be manipulated. In conclusion of Fischer and Poland’s (1998) argument, social control is often implemented through health and welfare regulations. This can mean that institutions such as the government and health regulators can control the public through laws on health, for example, passing through laws to tell people where to smoke and who they can smoke around, particularly in their own car, which is considered as their own ‘private’ space. The emerging interest in risk and society became more apparent around the 1970s – 1980s, where more ‘macro-level’ sociologists began formulating their opinions around the late 1980s – early …show more content…

He argues that although Beck makes his case fairly clear, he does not narrow down the factors in play on why risk may or may not be ‘passed on’ through societies. Ormrod comments that, what makes Beck’s views more confusing, is that he believed “pollution follows the poor” (Beck, 1999: 5, cited in Ormrod, 2013: 739). However, he contradicted this statement, adding that rich people have the ability to use their wealth in order to change their lifestyles, their habits and so on, in order to reduce their pollution and reduce the ‘risk’ of environmental issues. This is something which, unlike rich people, poorer people could not afford to do and so could not lower their own risks or global risks such as climate change. In contrast to Beck’s theories on risk in society and how it is a method of social control, Michel Foucault instead challenges this stance and puts forward that

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