Theoretical Issues: Structure and Agency

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Theoretical Issues Structure and Agency

• Anthony Giddens
• Breaking down the structure-agency divide
• How social systems come about

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Anthony Giddens 1938-present

• Currently director of the School of Social
  Sciences, LSE.
• Giddens' has shifted from a concern with how
  societies work to some of the core problems of
  our such as inequality, globalisation,
  democracy, risk, family, tradition.
•  Main works referenced in this lecture
•  Central Problems in Social Theory, (1979)
• New Rules of Sociological Method (1982)
• The Constitution of Society Outline of the
  Theory of Structuration (1984)
• Modernity and Self-Identity, Cambridge (1991)
• Conversations with Anthony Giddens Making Sense
  of Modernity, 1998 (with C. Pierson)
• The Third Way The Renewal of Social
  Democracy,1998.

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The Third Way (1998) influenced New Labours
alliance with 'radical centrist politics

• No rights without responsibilities'.
• Takes a positive but not uncritical attitude
  towards globalisation
• Concerns itself both with equality and pluralism
• Tries to respond to changing patterns of
  inequality.
• Accepts that existing welfare systems, and the
  broader structure of the state, are the source of
  problems as well as means of resolving them
• Emphasises that social and economic policy are
  intrinsically connected
• Places a stress upon active welfare, coupled with
  labour market reform.
• Concerns itself with mechanisms of exclusion at
  the bottom and the top

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Giddens breaking down the structure-agency divide

• Challenged 'agency-structure' dualism as an
  epistemological problem, i.e. he posited that the
  duality between agency versus structure was a
  false dichotomy
• Sought to avoid reductionism, i.e. grounding
  social action as a primary effect of agency or as
  a primary effect of structure
• By this means we could avoid determination
• Dual structuration amounted to bridging analysis
  which sought to break down the entrenched
  division in traditional sociology between
  structure and agency

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Giddens on the divide (2)

• Synthesised these forces as an explanatory
  framework for the links between human action and
  the evolution of social structures.
• There is an ongoing relationship between human
  agency and social structure as they are
  interactive and reciprocal.
• Hence our analytical attention ought to be on the
  mutuality of processes of social development and
  of human interaction.

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Structure-agency in a nutshell

• 'Society only has form, and that form only has
  effects on people, in so far as structure is
  produced and reproduced in what people do'
  Conversations with Anthony Giddens (Giddens and
  Pierson, 1998 77)

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Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society

•  Structure and agency are inextricably linked
• People are intrinsically involved with society
  and actively enter into its constitution
• people are not 'outside of social structures and
  vice-versa

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So how do social structures come about?

• social life is more than random individual acts,
  but is not merely determined by social forces
• it's not merely a mass of 'micro'-level activity
  - but on the other hand, you can't study it by
  only looking for 'macro'-level explanations
• human agency and social structure are in a
  relationship with each other
• the repetition of the acts of individual agents
  reproduces the structure

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Breaking down the traditional dichotomy

• Giddens 'structure' relates to a more holistic
  model that incorporates social systems and rules,
  social order and social reproduction
• So we are constantly involved in predicting and
  reproducing society.
• Structure are the products of human action
• 'Society only has form, and that form only has
  effects on people, in so far as structure is
  produced and reproduced in what people do'
  (Giddens Pierson, 1998 77).

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Giddens views on agency

• We are not social or cultural 'dupes' or
  'plastic' individuals rather we act
  intentionally
• Modernity characterised by our being actively
  involved in constructing our identity and
  positions of agen
• because we are reflexive agents
• In post-traditional order (modern society),
  self-identity becomes a reflexive project
• Self-identity, then, is not a set of traits or
  observable characteristics. It is a person's own
  reflexive understanding of their biography.
• Self-identity has continuity - that is, it cannot
  easily be completely changed at will - but that
  continuity is only a product of the person's
  reflexive beliefs about their own biography
  (Giddens 1991 53).

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Are we just free-floating, self-creative
individuals then?

• Not quite. Our social actions have effects on
  others and on society, beyond our intentions
• We are, then, always engaged in social action
• Gives sociologists a wider capacity to analyse
  the meanings of social agency beyond out
  intentions
• Secondly, it underlines Giddens' notion of the
  continuity of social production and reproduction
  (they are always ongoing, social reproduction
  never sleeps)

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How about structural power?

• Power (as a social structure) is also in a
  constant state of evolution.
• Authority is never held as a form of total power,
  but is involved in a 'dialectic of control'.
• Dialectic refers to the shifts that take place in
  the balance of power relations as a result of
  attempts by subordinate groups to alter power
  balance)
• This means that all social actors have arole in
  developing power structures
• Giddens' concept of power also reflects
  Foucault's notion of power (from whom he heavily
  borrowed his ideas in this regard, but lacks the
  empirical weight of Foucault)

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STRUCTURE IS A DUALISM

• G defines 'structure' as sets of rules and
  resources that actors draw upon as they produce
  and reproduce society in their activities. Rules
  are generalisable procedures, implemented in
  enactment or reproduction of social practices"
  (1984 21).
•  Some are highly explicit, and formally codified
  (laws, prohibitions, bureaucratic, (doesn't have
  very much to say on signification - unlike
  Blumer).
• Others are the 'unwritten' social rules that
  apply to the the realm of the informal - body
  posture, linguistic register, linguistic tact,
  etc).
• These 'social rules' are the blueprint that
  enables us to get on in social situations.
• We often cannot consciously account for these
  skills or knowledges, rather they appear to be
  embedded.

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Rules as sanctioning conducthow do we
acknowledge social rules ?

• Giddens uses an analogy with language - people
  react strongly against those who disregard its
  rules and conventions
• In a similar way, the 'rules' of social order may
  only be 'in our heads but it is noticed when
  seemingly minor social expectations are not
  adhered to
• Resembles ideas from Harold Garfinkel's 1984
  first published 1967studies on ethnography.

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Resources

• Resources are frames of reference for carrying
  out social rules
• I.e. society provides the resources that enable
  us to acquire a sense of social 'rules').
• Allocative control over material objects, which
  enable things to get done (land, raw materialism
  information).
• Authoritative resources (status, education and
  knowledge, authority) which establish command
  over other people.

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Three modalities of structure

• Or, the ways in which rules and resources are
  embedded
• Social structures enable and constrain, (rather
  than compel or prohibit) in three ways
• Communication of meaning - individuals draw upon
  interpretative schemes
• Application of sanctions - people draw upon norms
  and these eventually become 'moral rules'
• The use of power - people draw on facilities
  ('resources') involving structures of (soft)
  domination.

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The reflexive individual

• We possess different levels of awareness which
  affect the way we act in the world. We switch
  between them in differing contexts
• Practical consciousness describes to the
  practical skills and knowledge that we employ.
• Discursive consciousness refers to the ability
  to reflect on and comment rationally on our
  behaviour.
• It is in shifting to one mode of consciousness to
  another that we employ another characteristic of
  agency - our ability to reflect on and monitor
  our own behaviour. Thus we become reflexive
  agents.

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Next Week

• Structuration Theory and Critiques of Giddens.
• Presentation briefing.
• Finalising presentation groups.
• Group work.