Controlling the Uncontrollable? : A qualitative content analysis of the United Nations Sendai Framework and its reflection of disaster risk reduction in a risk society.

Sammanfattning: Occurrences of extreme weather events are increasing due to the ongoing climate change driven by human actions. In parallel, this triggers a growing need for humanitarian action in the future to help those impacted by disasters. Disaster risk reduction and management has hereby become a central element of today's national and global governance in the aim of preventing and reducing humanitarian crises and minimizing economic loss often resulting from the impacts of natural hazards. The now more global effects from these events has resulted in a collective vision that is constantly concerned with the future and how to reduce the disaster risks it withholds. Due to climate change and a great number of other risks to our societies having been generated through humanity’s own actions, the possible indication of the global society attempting to gain control over uncontrollable risks through collective disaster risk reduction strategies between countries draws attention. This thesis provides a qualitative content analysis of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030, which is the most current international disaster risk reduction policy adopted by the United Nations. The risk society theory by German sociologist Ulrich Beck is applied to this study to examine how the Sendai Framework can be seen as an outcome of a risk society that attempts to gain control over risks from the natural environment, which can be perceived as uncontrollable. The results of this study uncover that the Sendai Framework can be regarded as a product of a risk society through several different aspects, and that it generates an illusion of gaining control over uncontrollable risks.