Why BP is not very slick in an emergency

This article was published in Spiked Online 21 June 2010

When companies adhere to the rituals of risk-aversion, they lose sight of how to deal with real emergencies. Now we can see the consequences.

The most important lesson of the tragic Gulf of Mexico oil spill is that the tendency today to dramatise risk creates a climate in which risk management becomes a kind of performance.

At a time when taking risks is seen as culturally unacceptable, companies and individuals tend to make a big, performative display of their concern to manage risk. Yet when company executives become preoccupied with being seen to tackle risks - rather than with actually thinking in a rational way about risk - then they often end up confusing their adherence to the rituals of risk management with actually taking real-world, effective action. Far from making the world a safer place, the transformation of risk management into impression management diminishes institutions’ capacity to respond to disasters in a sensible and resilient fashion.

The US Congress House Energy and Environment Subcommittee’s hearing into the oil spill exposed some of the more sordid features of the performative nature of Western risk culture.