Book Announcement: Risk Governance of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations (Hempel Lindøe, Baram, and Renn, eds.)

Network member Michael Baram (BU) has asked us to alert the network to not one but two recent collective volumes on the topic of risk and governance of which he is the co-editor.  The first is Governing Risk in GM Agriculture, and the second is Risk Governance of Offshore Oil and Gas Operations, both from Cambridge.  The publisher's overview for the latter and more recent book is below, and more information can be found on the Cambridge site here.

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This book evaluates and compares risk regulation and safety management for offshore oil and gas operations in the United States, United Kingdom, Norway, and Australia. It provides an interdisciplinary approach with legal, technological, and sociological perspectives on their efforts to assess and prevent major accidents and improve safety performance offshore. Presented in three parts, the volume begins with a review of the technical, legal, behavioral, and sociological factors involved in designing, implementing, and enforcing a regulatory regime for industrial safety. It then evaluates the four regulatory regimes that encompass the cultural, legal, and other contextual factors that influence their design and implementation, along with their reliance on industrial expertise and standards and the use of performance indicators. The final section presents an assessment of the resilience of the Norwegian regime and its capacity to keep pace with new technologies and emerging risks, respond to near miss incidents, encourage safety culture, incorporate vested rights of labor, and perform inspection and self-audit functions. This book is highly relevant for those in government, business, academia, and elsewhere in civil society who are involved in offshore safety issues, including regulatory authorities and industrial safety professionals.