Adam Burgess

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Adam Burgess University of Kent Staff profile image

Adam Burgess is associated with the libertarian anti-environmental LM network. He has written for Spiked, and LM, is married to another member of the network, Tracey Brown, has written an article with network associate Stuart Derbyshire, and has spoken at the London Legal Salon.

Current and Recent roles

Burgess has been a reader in Sociology at the University of Kent, in the same department as the network guru Frank Furedi, since 2011, and has lectured at Kent since 2004. Burgess neglects to mention any of the elements of the network on his page on the University of Kent Website. He has been a Visiting Fellow for the PHRS Global Systemic Risk Programme at Princeton University since 2015, an editorial board member at Frontiers in Public Health since 2014, and an associate board member for Sociology since 2013. From 2013-2015 he has been vice-chair of the European Sociological Association's RN22 group on the 'Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty' and is set to become the chair in 2015. In 2012 he contributed a chapter to the International Center for Alcohol Policies report on conflicts of interest and in 2011 spoke on 'What are public enquiries for?' at the London Legal Salon. He has been a research associate for the London School of Economics in the centre for the analysis of risk and regulation since 2010, and was the principal advisor for New Labour on the Risk Regulation Advisory Council (RRAC) between 2007 until 2010, which Burgess notes made only modest achievements. From 2006 until 2013 he was co-editor of Sociology Compass, and he has been an editorial board member for 'health, risk and society' since 2005, the year in which he contributed 3 articles to Spiked. He was a lecturer in Sociology at Brunel University between 2003 and 2004 and also lectured in Sociology at the University of Bath between 2001 and 2005. Before this he was a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster in the centre for the study of democracy. He studied for his PhD in Sociology at the University of Kent between 1998-2001 and lectured at the University of Reading between 1999-2001. Whilst studying for his PhD he founded and co-ordinated a research group, Bez Hranic, to develop critical perspectives on the emerging Western discussion of developments within the former communist bloc, and the consequences of the ‘Westernisation’ of ‘the East’. Some of these perspectives are elaborated in his book, Divided Europe. He contributed 2 articles to LM between 1997 and 1998, and his book, 'Divided Europe: the new domination of the East' (1997: Pluto Press), was also publicised in LM.

Education

• BA (Hons) in East European Politics and Society, at the University of London, 1995.
• Certificate in education (post compulsory), Canterbury Christ Church University College, 1997.
• PhD Sociology, University of Kent, 2001..

Staff Profile

Although he does not directly indicate any of his links to the LM Network on his staff profile at Kent, it does demonstrate a number of links to areas of interest for the network, namely issues such as AIDS, BSE, perceptions of risk and a sceptical tone regarding 'environmental risk':

I became interested in risk in the 1980s when – through issues such as AIDS, food poisoning and ‘dangerous dogs’ - it began to become a part of public discourse and policy, and impact upon social behaviour. This new risk aversion was particularly striking in a nation that identifies itself through resilience; to ‘keep calm and carry on’. I was also intrigued as it appeared to follow a pattern set by the US a decade or more earlier, when environmental risk became so prominent. I sought insight into these developments through case studies such as into the concern with mobile phone radiation that began in the late 1990s, locating reactions in an institutionalised defensiveness that followed the ‘mad cow disease’ experience, among other factors. I also became engaged more, working closely with the previous UK government’s Risk Regulation Advisory Council, which sought ways of challenging what it saw as a damaging cycle of public and political risk aversion

Funded projects

• 2002 - British Academy postgraduate Fellowship - Award Winner
• 2006-2007 - British Academy - 'Heightened perceptions of drug assistsed sexual assault amongst students'
• 2006-2007 - Sasakawa Foundation - Perceptions of Women-Only Carriages on Japanese Trains (with Mitsutoshi Hori)

Views

Media Presence

Adam Burgess has a limited media presence outside of his research on risk related to mobile phones and date-rape. He is cited in an article written by Frank Furedi for THES considering the relationship between academia and fatherhood.

Adam Burgess Nexis Media Presence
Topic	Frequency
Mobile phones no risk	34
Date rape drug 'myth'	19
NUDGE	3
Risk and Earthquakes	2
Risk - Experts Vs Public	1
Academic Life	1
Consumer Culture	1
Other	2

Date Rape 'Myth' Research

In 2007 Burgess presented at a conference for the Social Contexts and Responses to risk (SCARR) network in 2007 on: 'Irrational Risk Behaviour?: Exploring Belief in the 'Urban Legend' of Drug Rape'. The research findings presented here argued that people were unwilling to take responsibility for personal failures and implied there was evidence that rape victims had actually only drunk excessive amounts of alcohol, and so had been targeted, rather than that they had also been victims of the application of GHB to their drinks. Whilst the rigour, validity and reliability of the research were later questioned, it received some prominence in the mainstream media and encouraged headlines such as 'Affects of drink mistaken for date-rape drugs' in the Scotsman, '"Myth" of date rape drug' in the Sun, and the abhorrent 'Date-rape Drug? No, dear, you just had far too much to drink' in the Daily Mail. Ultimately the research appears to seek to re-apportion blame by downplaying certain forms of risk.

Mobile Phone 'Myth' Research

Similarly his mobile phone research drew headlines in the media such as 'Truth or scare; We've all heard about the urban myths but should we really believe them?...' in the Daily Record , 'Hospitals accused over "misguided" ban on mobiles in the Daily Mail, and 'Mobile phones "no threat" in petrol station in the Observer. In both cases certain aspects of risk are downplayed and blame is re-apportioned, in the case of the 'date-rape research' on to the victim and in the case of 'mobile phone risk research' on to the regulators.

Mobile Phone Risk

His work on risk and mobile phones - taking the line that there is no risk - has been featured on Spiked online. This formed part of a 'debate' on 'Mobile Society' sponsored by O2 the mobile phone network. The mobile phone scare is presented as a lesson in how journalists and policymakers should not react to concerns about a new technology. In January 2004 he also spoke at a conference entitled: 'Mobile Communications: Health, Environment & Society Exchanges of Best Practice in EU Member States and Risk Communication towards its Citizens', in a talk entitled 'Reflections on the Mobile Phone Panic'. Burgess argued there existed 'risk entrepreneurs' within society who seek to promote or exaggerate risk to the public to suit their own agendas and concerns. The conference was organised for the European Commission and was carried out in association with the Mobile Manufacturers Forum (MMF), and GSM Europe (The European Interest Group). MMF are an international association of radio equipment manufacturers whose members at the time of the conference included Alcatel, Ericsson, Miitsubishi Electric, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, Phillips, Sagem, Siemens and Sony Ericsson. GSM Europe are the European Interest Group of the GSM Association, the global body behind the world’s leading wireless communications standard. GSM Europe represented 148 operators in 50 countries and areas of Europe and served over 454 million GSM customers at the time of the conference.

Sharing experiences of the Risk and Regulation Advisory Council

In 2010 Burgess spoke at an Anglo-Dutch Seminar/conference on 'future regulation: risk and responsibility' which saw a delegation from the Netherland's Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations visit the UK 'to enquire about the UK’s experience of exploring “Public Risk” through the work of the former Risk and Regulation Advisory Council, now being taken forward through the Regulatory Policy Committee'. The aim was to develop ideas on risk and regulation to be taken to a major conference in the Hague on May 19 2011. Many of the conclusions drawn at the seminar/conference appear to relate directly to Burgess's research interests, including the belief that regulation is often largely due to heightened expectations of risk rather than legitmate concern, and that such regulation will necessarily have an overall negative impact on societal advancement and improvement.

Society anti-reason

For example regulation is linked to excessive anxiety rather than evidence and reason:

Regulation as a subject has a highly political dimension that has not been recognised and studied sufficiently. Political crises or periods of high public anxiety which result in regulation occur far more frequently and form a greater source of policy and regulation than is usually acknowledged. They are seen as distractions and anomalies, when contrasted with a more ordered, evidence-based, rational approach to policy development and regulation

BSE

The regulatory response to the BSE crisis is used an example of an excessive use of the precautionary pronciple:

There is an economic cost, seen most easily in relation to safety issues. The entire Admin Burden Reduction programme is subject to a self-denying ordinance of never compromising safety. That automatically excludes vast swathes of burdens for no good reason other than political timidity. They may include some of the burdens that business most wants reduced. Even when the science moves on, the ratchet remains locked. TSE regulation following BSE is grossly disproportionate to the current scientific assessment of risk and the reliability of counter-measures yet loosening it is strongly opposed. Nor is it a question of actually compromising safety but more often a question of appearing to compromise safety. The cost of “safety” is often the cost of political safety

Regulation and personal responsibility

For example they appear to argue that regulation is effectively anti-democratic as it ties the hands of those 'who know':

Each time a Minister bows to pressure that 'something must be done' and takes responsibility for something outside his remit, he disempowers the person or body whose responsibility it is. This has led the UK to a degree of centralisation of government functions never planned and a weakening of the intended structures of powers and accountabilities. So there is a constitutional cost.

They then conclude that the real drive for regulation comes from a society unwilling to take individual responsibility for personal failings:

Most profoundly, the cumulative impact of all this becomes an erosion of personal responsibility. This is under attack from many other directions as well but the leadership messages reinforce the idea that responsibility will always lie with professionals, officials or government and not with individuals. Even where it is clear that the problem was an individual’s failure, it is not left there but will be interpreted as a failure of control over that individual. The counterfactual to this argument is a line of development the RRAC considered, namely legislation to allow individuals to reclaim responsibility for risks that have been removed from them under protective rights. In a sense, the able-bodied, smart and otherwise privileged are becoming the victims of discrimination, yet it is often on their innovation and risk-taking that progress depends.

The overall conclusions drawn from these points suggested that those who do most for societal improvement are held back due to the heavy regulatory burden imposed by a risk averse public unwilling to take responsibility for personal failures. These conclusions appear to link closely to the two prominent research projects carried out by Burgess, one concluding risks from mobile phones at petrol stations and of radiation from mobiles are a myth, and the other concluding that the 'date-rape' drug is a myth.

Career Chronology

• 1993 - 1995 - University of London, London School of Economics - BA Honours East European Politics and Society
• 1996 - 1997 - Canterbury Christ Church University College - Certificate in Education (post compulsory)
• 1997 - 1998 - LM - Contributor/Writer
• 1998(approx) - Kazan State University - Postgraduate Tutor
• 1998 - 2001 - University of Kent - PhD in Sociology
• 1999 - 2001 - University of Reading – Lecturer in Sociology
• 2001 - 2002 - University of Westminster – Research fellow in the centre for the study of Democracy
• 2001 - 2005 - University of Bath – Lecturer in Sociology
• 2003 - 2004 - Brunel University – Lecturer in Sociology
• 2004 - German Government - mobile telecommunications research
• 27 December 2004 - 2006 - University of Kent – Lecturer in Sociology
• 2005 - Nuffield Health Trust - Security and Foreign policy Programme discussion
• 20 January 2005 - 20 June 2005 - Spiked - Contributor/Writer
• 2005 - Present - Health Risk and Society - Editorial Board Member
• 2006 - 2013 - Sociology Compass - Co-editor
• 2006 - 2011 - University of Kent – Senior Lecturer in Sociology
• 2007 - 2010 - Risk Regulation Advisory Council - Principal academic advisor for New Labour
• 2008 - University of London, London School of Economics - External Examiner in the Department of Sociology
• 2009 - ESRC - Consultant, reviewing Pandemic Influenza research in the UK
• 2009 - 2012 - University of London, London School of Economics - External Examiner for the MSc in Managements and Regulation of Risk
• 2010 - Department of Business, Innovation and Skills - Advisory panel member, Risk and Responsibility Project
• 2010 - Present - International Sociological Association - Vice Chair of the CG04 stream
• 2010 - Present - London School of Economics, Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation - Research Associate
• 2011 - Present - European Journal of Risk and Regulation - Associate Editor
• 2011 - Present - University of Kent – Reader in Sociology
• 24 October 2011 - London Legal Salon – Speaker
• 2012 - Open University - Undergraduate Degree revalidation, Newham College
• 2012(approx) - International Center for Alcohol Policies - Consultant
• 2013 - 2015 - European Sociological Association - Vice Chair of the RN22 Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty
• 2013 - Present - Sociology - Associate Board Member
• 2014 - Present - Frontiers in Public Health - Editorial Board Member
• 2015 - Present - Princeton University - Visiting Fellow for the PHRS Global Systemic Risk Programme

Other Links to the Network

Panel, TV and Radio appearances

• Adam Burgess and Bill Durodie appeared on Radio 4's 'Thinking Allowed' by Laurie Taylor, discussing 'Social construction of risks - mobile phones'.

Contact

Staff profile: Adam Burgess

Publications

1996

• Adam Burgess, ‘National Minority Rights and “Civilizing” Eastern Europe’, Contention, 5 (2). pp. 17-37. ISSN, 1996.

1997

• Adam Burgess, ‘Writing off Slovakia to “the east”? Examining charges of bias in British press reporting of Slovakia, 1993–1994’, Nationalities Papers: The Journal of Nationalism and Ethnicity, 1997, 25 (4). pp. 659-682.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Divided Europe: The New Domination of the East. Pluto Press, 1997.
• Adam Burgess, 'Excluding 'the East' Through Civil Society?', in Transition in Central and Eastern Europe, Z. Sevic and G Wright Ed., Belgrade: YASF, 1997, pp. 49-59.
• Adam burgess, 'Reading Between the Lines', June 1997, LM 101, p. 43.

1998

• Adam Burgess, ‘Why Gypsies Go West’, December 1997/January 1998, LM 106, p. 33.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Historical Reflections on the International Enforcement of Minority Rights in Europe’. In: Cordell, Karl Ethnicity and Democracy in the New Europe. London: Routledge, 1998, pp. 49-61.
• Adam Burgess, ‘European Identity and the Challenge from South and East’. In: Hedetoft, Ulf Political Symbols, Symbolic Politics: Between European Unity and Fragmentation. Aldershot: Avebury, 1998, pp. 209-226.

2001

• Adam Burgess, ‘Flattering Consumption: The Growth of Consumer Rights and Product Safety Concerns in Europe’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2001, 1 (1). pp. 93-117.
• Adam Burgess, 'European Editor, 'Mobilex, Monitoring of legal and health risk developments affecting the mobile telecoms industry 2001-2003.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Universal Democracy, Diminished Expectation’, Democratization, 2001, 8 (3). pp. 51-74.

2002

• Adam Burgess, ‘Comparing National Responses to Perceived Health Risks from Mobile Phone Masts’, Health, Risk & Society, 2002, 4 (2). pp. 175-188.

2003

• Adam Burgess, ‘A precautionary tale: the British response to cell phone EMF’, Technology and Society Magazine, IEEE, 2003, 21 (4). pp. 14-16.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Cellular Phones, Public Fears and a Culture of Precaution’, 2003, Cambridge University Press, New York, 312 pp.

2005

• Adam Burgess, ‘Dial-a-scare: The mobile phone panic is fuelled by politics, not science’, Spiked, 20 January 2005.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Dialling up an old panic: What's behind the claims that it's riskier to use a mobile in the country than it is in the city?’, Spiked, 27 May 2005.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Currents of Death? Twenty-five years of research has rubbished claims of a link between childhood cancer and overhead power lines. So why do new studies keep appearing?’, Spiked, 3 June 2005.

2006

• Adam Burgess & Roel Pieterman, 'Bridging the Gap with Precautionary Politics' Recht Der Werkelijkheid (Law in Action), special issue on Good Governance, 2006, pp. 57-59.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The Shock of a Social Disaster in an Age of (Nonsocial) Risk’, Space and Culture, 2006, 9 (1). pp. 74-76.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The making of the risk-centred society and the limits of social risk research’, Health, Risk & Society, 2006 8 (4). pp. 329-342.
• Stuart Derbyshire and Adam Burgess, ‘Mobil phone use in hospitals’, British Medical Journal, 2006, 333 (7572). pp. 767-768.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Risk, Precaution and the Media’, In: K. Ingo Richter and Berking, Sabine and Muller-Schmid, ‘Ralf Risk Society and the Culture of Precaution’, 2006, London: Routledge.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The Impact of the Wider Social and Institutional Environment on Risk Perception’, In: C. del Pozo ‘Risk Perception and Risk Communication: Tools, Experiences and Strategies’, 2006, European Commission Directorate General Joint Research Centre.

2007

• Adam Burgess, ‘Risk Perception of Mobile EMF’, In: M. Nishizawa, ‘Mobile EMF and Communication – International Perspectives’, 2007, Tokyo/Tsukuba: National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Mobile phones and service stations: Rumour, risk and precaution’, 2007, Diogenes, 54 (1). pp. 125-139.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Real and phantom risks at the petrol station: The curious case of mobile phones, fires and body static’, Health, Risk & Society, 2007, 9 (1). pp. 53-66.
• Andy Alaszewski and Adam Burgess, ‘Risk, Time and Choice’, Health, Risk & Society, 2007, 9 (4). pp. 349-358.

2008

• Adam Burgess, 'Public Risk', Report for Risk, Regulation Advisory Council, London: Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 2008.
• Adam Burgess, 'Public Inquiries and Public Risk', Report for Risk, Regulation Advisory Council, London: Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 2008.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Revisiting the BSE experience: Hindsight and the politicization of food’, Health, Risk & Society, 2008, 10 (2). pp. 195-200.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Health Scares and Risk Awareness’, In: David Wainwright, ‘A Sociology of Health’, SAGE Publications Ltd, London, 2008, pp. 56-75.

2009

• Adam Burgess, ' Regulatory Storms in the Risk Landscape', Report for Risk, Regulation Advisory Council, London: Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 2009.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The politics of health risk promotion: 'Passive drinking': A 'good lie' too far?’, Health, Risk & Society, 2009, 11 (6). pp. 527-540.
• Adam Burgess, Pamela Donovan and Sarah E. Moore, ‘Embodying Uncertainty? Understanding Heightened Risk Perception of Drink ‘Spiking’’, British Journal of Criminology, 2009, 49 (6). pp. 848-862.

2010

• Adam Burgess, ‘Media risk campaigning in the UK: From mobile phones to 'Baby P'’, Journal of Risk Research, 2010, 13 (1). pp. 59-72.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The Contemporary Emergence of Health Concerns Related to Mobile Phones’, 2010, VDM Verlag, 268 pp.
• Adam Burgess, 'An Economic Impact of Heightened Public Risk?', London: Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 2010.

2011

• Adam Burgess, AND http://londonlegalsalon.blogspot.co.uk/2011_10_01_archive.html 'What are public enquiries for? A London Legal Salon debate', 24 October 2011.
• Sarah E.H. Moore, and Adam Burgess, ‘Risk rituals?’, Journal of Risk Research, 2011, 14 (1). pp. 111-124.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Thinking culturally about risk’, International Journal of Law in Context, 2011, 7 (2). pp. 249-256.
• Adam Burgess, ‘The changing character of public inquiries in the (risk) regulatory state’, British Politics, 2011, 6 (1). pp. 3-29.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Fukushima Fixation – The Media Focus on Radiation Risk in Tsunami-Stricken Japan’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 2011, 2. pp. 209-212.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Representing emergency risks: Media, Risk and ‘Acts of God’ in the Volcanic Ash Cloud’, In: Allemano, A. The Challenge of Emergency Regulation - Beyond the European Volcanic Ash Crisis. 2011, London: Edward Elgar, pp. 65-80.

2012

• Adam Burgess, ‘Media, Risk, and Absence of Blame for “Acts of God”: Attenuation of the European Volcanic Ash Cloud of 2010’, Risk Analysis, 2012, 32 (10). pp. 1693-1702.
• Adam Burgess, and Mitsutoshi Horii, ‘Risk, ritual and health responsibilisation: Japan’s ‘safety blanket’ of surgical face mask-wearing’, Sociology of Health & Illness, 2012, 34 (8). pp. 1184-1198.
• Adam Burgess, ‘An Experimental Offensive against the Mishandling of Risk in Society’: Reflecting on the Pioneering Work of the Risk Regulation Advisory Council in the UK’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 2012, 3. pp. 343-351.
• Mitsutoshi Horii and Adam Burgess, ‘Constructing sexual risk: ‘Chikan’, collapsing male authority and the emergence of women-only train carriages in Japan’, Health, Risk & Society, 2012, 14 (1). pp. 41-55.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Nudging’ Healthy Lifestyles: The UK Experiments with the Behavioural Alternative to Regulation and the Market’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 2012, 1. pp. 3-16.

2013

• Adam Burgess, ‘Missing the Wood for the Trees?’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 2013, 2. pp. 287-291.
• Adam Burgess, ‘Manufacturing Uncertainty out of Manufactured Sweeteners: The Curious Case of Aspartame’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 2013, 3. pp. 377-381.

2014

• Adam Burgess, Nicholas Field, Douglas Handley, Laura Lazzarini, Dilasha Mahat, Daryl Selen, Raj Thakrar, Sarah Adams-Kollitz & Janice Gallant, 'Nutrition As The Foundation For Good Health: Evaluating The Impact Of Food Programs On Health', January 2014, Health Services Research Commons, accessed 30 March 2015.</ref>

2015

• Adam Burgess, ‘The Social Construction of Risk’, In: Cho, Hyunyi and Reimer, Torsten and McComas, Katherine A, ‘The SAGE Handbook of Risk Communication’, 2015, SAGE Publications, Inc, pp. 121-139.

(Accepted) Invited Lectures and presentations & Conference Presentations

2004

• Adam Burgess, 'Human and Environmental Risk Assessment of Chemicals Conference', Brussels, 2004.

2006

• Adam Burgess, 'Risk and Regulation' seminar, Houses of Parliament, 2006.

2007

• Adam Burgess, Symposium on Risk Management, Wilton Park, 2007.

2008

• Adam Burgess, 'Risk Perception', House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, 2008.

2010

• Adam Burgess, 'Anglo-Dutch seminar on challengin public risk in the Netherlands', London, 2010.
• Adam Burgess, 'Government Economic Service conference on risk and regulation, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, 2010.

2012

• Adam Burgess, International Center for Alcohol Policies, Washington, 2012.

2013

• Adam Burgess, 'Plotting a New Course', conference on alcohol, drug and tobacco policies, London, 2013.

2014

• Adam Burgess, was an invited expert to HEROIC EU Project roundatable on integrated human and environmental risk assessment for chemicals, Brussels, 2014.