Organizations and modern technology give us much of what we value, but they have also given us Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Bhopal. The question at the heart of this paradox is "What is acceptable risk?" Based on his examination of the 1981 contamination of an office building in Binghamton, New York, Lee Clarke's compelling study argues that organizational processes are the key to understanding how some risks rather than others are defined as acceptable. He finds a pattern of decision-making based on relationships among organizations rather than the authority of individuals or single agencies.
Lee Clarke, Rutgers University, is author of "Mission Improbable" and "Worst Cases," both from the University of Chicago Press. He is often invited to speak about leadership, culture, disaster, and organizational and technological failures; he consults with corporations, government agencies, and research foundations.
One of Clarke's current projects, with Harvey Molotch of NYU, concerns how scientists negotiate the boundaries of science and politics. The project focuses on scientists whose work foretold, in various ways, the great harm that Katrina would bring to New Orleans.
Clarke has written about the Y2K problem, risk communication, panic, civil defense, evacuation, community response to disaster, organizational failure, and near earth objects. His most recent book is Worst Cases: Terror & Catastrophe in the Popular Imagination .
Dr. Clarke has written for, or been featured in, The Atlantic Monthly, Boston Globe, National Public Radio, the Washington Post, the NY Daily News, among others. He has been featured in the New York Times and the Harvard Business Review. His edited volume, Terrorism and Disaster: New Threats, New Ideas, was published in 2003.
Worst Cases is written in an accessible style, while making important scholarly contributions. It received 3 glowing reviews in Contemporary Sociology. Worst cases are instances of calamity that are beyond imagination. Historical examples are the Hindenburg disaster or the Black Death. More recent examples are Chernobyl, 9/11, and Katrina. Worst Cases was covered in the Chronicle of Higher Education in September 2005: "New Orleans and the Probability Blues."
Clarke was awarded the Rutgers Graduate School Award for Excellence in Teaching and Graduate Research, 1996-1997, and Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools' 1998 Graduate Mentoring Award. In August 2005 he was honored with the Fred Buttel Distinguished Scholarship Award by the Environment and Technology section of the American Sociological Association. During spring 2007 Clarke was the Anschutz Distinguished Scholar at Princeton University.
Clarke served on a National Academy of Science committee whose report, "Reopening Public Facilities After a Biological Attack: A Decision-Making Framework," was published in June 2005.
He has appeared on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, ABC World News Tonight, and National Public Radio's affiliate in Irvine, CA, KUCI. Clarke is currently writing a book about the boundaries between politics and science, focusing on the problem of wetlands loss and the idea of "coastal restoration" off the coast of Louisiana.
