Rethinking sociological perspectives on risk for the possibility to analyse and manage security risks

The aim of this paper is to discuss different perspectives on risk for aviation security. We take the standpoint that aviation security risks are social phenomena but that this implicates neither risk as an objective property nor risk as subjective and relative to social reality or in the extreme reductionistic case of radical constructivism instantiated as a perception in someone's head. We investigate how social theory and applied risk frameworks enable conceptualisation of risks as ontologically real while maintaining an epistemology of risk where knowledge is socially relative. Focus is placed on a framework where risk captures the combination of events, consequences and associated uncertainties. We discuss its ontological basis and the implications of such a position for analysis and management of security risks within the aviation sector.