"COMPLEX SYSTEMS THREATEN TO BRING US DOWN...": Introduction to the Symposium on "Normal Accidents"

Introduces a symposium dedicated to an exploration of Charles Perrow's classic book, Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (1999 [1984]). Perrow presents a theoretical framework for risk analysis that allows an understanding of the complicated dynamics of high-risk organizational systems. It attributes serious accidents to structural factors & combinations of problems, where in the past individual human operator errors or design flaws of individual components have been blamed. Dangerous technologies, such as nuclear power & weapons systems, chemical & other toxic substances, recombinant DNA, & other genetic modifications, have been proliferating in an almost cavalier fashion. These risks are not borne equally among social classes, & in many cases the risks could be reduced or eliminated if responsible efforts were taken. 9 References. L. A. Hoffman