Die „Zweite Moderne“: Realität oder Fiktion?

Ulrich Beck’s theory of reflexive modernization is based upon the assumption of an epochal change taking place since the 1970s, from the “First” toward the “Second Modernity”, and tries to explain this epochal change with the development dynamics of unbounding. The “linear” modernization of the “First Modernity” is replaced with the “reflexive” modernization of the “Second Modernity”. This essay keeps a systematic and critical view to the fundamental assumptions of the theory of reflexive modernization in view of its empirical strength. In particular, the question is being dealt with as to whether time diagnosis is suitable as a foundation of modernization theory, whether the “Second Modernity” differs in fact from the “First Modernity” by an increased risk production, namely as regards science, technology and private life, whether the “Second Modernity” is distinguished by an increased risk awareness and an increase in plurality, whether unbounding is the cause of the afore established epochal change, and whether a reliable risk control is possible on the paths of modernization or whether it requires, instead, an epochal change of institutions.