Are you getting used to uncertainty? The feeling that things are uncertain – in financial markets, cities, the climate, new technologies, the spread of a pandemic – seems to be getting ever more intense. Familiar structures that prop up modern life, even those that looked serious and powerful, seem more and more flimsy. Messy assumptions hide behind hard facts, and even sophisticated models can’t seem to keep up with unfolding reality. The gaps in our knowledge about the world are combining with the unpredictable ways that things actually happen.
All this adds up to a wild variety of different experiences of uncertainty, which then get reflected in how people plan and respond to the world around them. And yet politicians and leaders repeatedly talk about “minimising risks” and “taking (back) control”. In the intense race towards goals or away from emergencies, uncertainties get left by the wayside.
In the intense race towards goals or away from emergencies, uncertainties get left by the wayside.
As we explore in a new open access book, The Politics of Uncertainty: Challenges of Transformation, people are right to feel uncertain. But uncertainty is more than a vague feeling of not knowing what’s going on, or being caught off-guard by the unexpected. From measurable risks to the possibility of surprise, there are different flavours of uncertainty, and maybe even more different ways to adapt and respond.
