This article focuses on central assumptions in the literature on reflexive modernization and the notions of `risk society' and `modernization risks' in order to verify their utility for analysing current environmental conflicts. The article examines this in the light of the information gathered in a research on recent controversies and mobilizations over environmental policies which the author coordinated in Spain and England over a three-year period with the support of the Research Directorate General of the European Commission. It deals with the attempt of these theories to contribute to a theory of modern society grounded on a new typology of societies and on a very broad and ambitious notion of `reflexivity'. The article suggests a constructionist approach to this notion based on the analysis of environmental organizations and private companies striving to promote different collective definitions on the effects of policies of waste management by use of incineration. This allows for a more contextualized perspective of the processes leading to risk perception, the roles played by contending organizations and by the popular forms of knowledge on which alternative definitions of these issues are based.
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