Manager la société du risque : les interpellations de la sociologie aux sciences de gestion

As Ulrich Beck noted in The Risk Society (1986), the radical change in the threats to contemporary societies implies an equally radical change in the way in which collective action is managed and regulated. The process of globalization further aggravates the distortion between crisis-control capabilities and the reality of threats. In this context, the real challenge of public reforms lies in the ability of States to answer some questions: how can the framework and modes of action of the nation-state, which remains the unavoidable place of democratic control, be changed in a process of globalization that is accompanied by an increase in systemic risks? how can public strategies be adapted to collective action based on the paradigm of sustainable development, involving new forms of arbitrage between public goods and market activities ? In the face of these challenges, the strategies for reforming the States in and their management systems are totally obsolete. To support this finding, this paper compares the fundamental principles of organizing public action with the analyzes of a few sociologists who have particularly thought about the changes taking place: Antony Giddens and the consequences of modernity; Ulrich Beck and the risk society; Hans Jonas and the principle of responsibility; Jean-Pierre Dupuy and enlightened doomsday; Francis Chateauraynaud and the whistleblowers; Saskia Sassen and the global city etc. This confrontation highlights the extent of the delay in the way public action adapts to the challenges of the contemporary world.