Biological risks and social processes - Disruptions, risk perception, conflict

Biological threats in their various forms, as laboratory accidents, epidemics or the use of biological weapons, are hazards whose harmful effects have a genuine impact on humans and their bodies.

In the public and scientific discussion, the assessment that these risks have a special potential to have a disruptive effect on society is repeatedly manifested. Based on a peace research-oriented approach, the project will deal with this topic in a dedicated manner. Thus, questions of identifiability of the influence of the harmful effects of biological threats on social processes and social order are in focus, as well as the question of the extent to which risk perceptions are influenced by the expectation of disruption on the one hand, and possibly themselves produce disruptive effects on the other.

In a qualitative-explorative project, these aspects will be put into context and the relationships between perceptions, risk assessments and social processes will be examined and the implications for conflict potential, social inequality and thus social orders will be reconstructed.

Contact person: Hares Sarwary