There was a time when it was clear what risks social security policy was meant to protect: unemployment, sickness, and occupational disability. For many decades - although true equity remained elusive - a focus on these external risks seemed to be enough. It is to the credit of more policy that such previously hidden but all-important matters as excluded minorities, inadequate income, and obstacles to personal development are now on the agenda. Yet, with the globalization of the economy, new and unprecedented risks proliferate, most of them being of the manufactured kind that stem from technological and economic factors that are largely independent of time and place and that do not lend themselves easily to regulation. This text surveys and analyses the forces affecting social security policy as understood by 21, mainly European, authorities in the field.