Relinquishing apparent national sovereignty does not have to entail a loss of national sovereignty, but can actually be a benefit.

But it then very soon became clear that the response of a war against terrorism, initially conceived of in a metaphorical sense, began to be taken increasingly seriously and came to entail waging a real war.

Global conditions are far too complex to be able to imagine that they could ever be really controlled by one power.

Neither science, nor the politics in power, nor the mass media, nor business, nor the law nor even the military are in a position to define or control risks rationally.

The world has become so complex that the idea of a power in which everything comes together and can be controlled in a centralized way is now erroneous.

All theory of modernity in sociology suggests that the more modernity there is, the less religion. In my theory we can realize that this is wrong: atheism is only one belief system among many.

I held a conference in Harvard where Americans said they didn't believe in risk. They thought it was just European hysteria. Then the terrorist attacks happened and there was a complete conversion. Suddenly terrorism was the central risk.