The Theory of Anthony Giddens: Agency, Structure, Modernity

1. The Theory of Anthony Giddens: Agency, Structure, Modernity Instructor: Sarah Whetstone April 9, 2012

2. Readings and Key Concepts • “Agency, Structure” • Agency or “action” • Unintended consequences and Unacknowledged conditions • Structure • System • Theory of Structuration • Duality of Structure • “The Consequences of Modernity” • Reflexivity • Modern life: abstract systems, trust, and risk & danger • Post-modernity v. Radicalized Modernity

3. Giddens – Overview • Widely credited with “bringing power back in” to sociology, established Marx as a major player. • Sociology is the study of modernity. • Theoretical emphasis on institutions (“structures”) and their relationship to systems (patterns of social interaction). • Tried to overcome 2 major divisions: • Functionalism – Durkheim, Parsons • Interpretive Approach – Weber, Mead, micro-sociologists • What are the differences? • Double hermeneutic: Sociologists interpret a world that is already interpreted by the people who live in it.

4. Group Work: Giddens’ on Agency and Structure * • Work through pages 231-235 in the text to make a list of the main features of Giddens’ concept of “agency,” or human action. Think about how his notion of agency is different from other theorists’ we’ve studied. • Define the difference between structure and system (235-236). How are the two concepts related? *Work as a group, but write your answers down on your own sheet of paper for possible 1 point extra credit!*

5. Theory of Agency I • Temporality– Action is not a discrete phenomenon, but a “continuous flow of conduct” (232). • Context-- An action is always a “historically located mode of activity” (232). • Reflexive Monitoring of Conduct – “Intentionality is a process,” and actors may or may not be acting out consciously held beliefs or goals (233).

6. Theory of Agency II • Rationalization of Action– Humans are capable of explaining their acts by providing reasons for their conduct, but the reasons they provide may or may not be directly linked to norms or conventions. • “Motivational components of action, which I take to refer to the organization of an actor’s wants, straddle conscious and unconscious aspects of cognition and emotion” (234). • Unacknowledged conditions of action • Unintended consequences of action • Also involved in social reproduction and social change!

7. Structure • “Rules and resources, organized as properties of social systems.” • Rules = norms, values • Resources = material and non-material objects that confer power or authority • Does not exist until the moment it is used • Structures that are “deeply layered” practices across time and space are institutions. • Structures must be studied in social/historical context, and through practice (Rules can only be comprehended through their practice, actual use).

8. System • “Reproduced relations between actors or collectivities , organized as regular social practices” • Social systems are systems of interaction– exist across time and space. • To study social systems, we must study the ways in which its component parts (its structures) produce and reproduce the social order through patterns of human interaction.

9. The Great Agency-Structure Debates: How are individuals and society related? Class shapes everything about our lives– it determines our thoughts and actions! - Marx Institutional forms– like bureaucracies– can confine us to an “iron cage,” but let’s not forget about verstehen– The way people interpret their worlds is important too! - Weber We are constrained by social norms and values – they create the roles that shape our behavior as parts of the collective whole that is society. - Durkheim MORE DEBATE!

10. Agency-Structure Debates… That Weber guy was onto something. Interpretation matters. Individual agents construct the world through perceptions and interactions– that’s what builds social systems! It happens from the “ground up,” in everyday life. – The micro-theorists You’re all missing the point entirely… With my theory of power, the old ways of thinking about agency fall apart. “Individuals” are always, already a product of knowledge-power. We only have “subjectivity” through discourse, and bodies/desires are always being regulated by disciplinary power! -- Foucault

11. Giddens’ 2 cents… • Existing dichotomies between social constraint on one hand, and individual action on the other, are not useful. • Social determinism (Marx, Durkheim) is too simplistic: Individual agency matters. • Possible “derogation of the lay actor” (239). • To the micro-theorists: Focusing too much on individuals obscures how structure matters. It also assumes that people are constantly in the act of conscious interpretation– not true. • To Foucault: You underestimate the significance and possibility of human agency to change social systems.

12. Theory of Structuration • Giddens rejects “counterposing structure and freedom.” What does this mean? • Structure is both enabling and constraining • Structure not a barrier to action, but involved in its production: Past always implicated in present • Structure can enable new forms of agency • “Structure performs personality and society simultaneously, but in neither case exhaustively, because of the significance of unintended consequences and unacknowledged conditions” (238).

13. Theory of Structuration: Duality of Structure Unintended consequences and unacknowledged conditions of action can shape structure!

14. Theory of Structuration-Depicted with temporal element-

15. Group Work: The Consequences of Modernity • How are “abstract systems” changing our relationship to the world? Would Giddens argue that our world is safer or more dangerous? What is the role of risk and danger? • What is the “transformation of intimacy?” Give examples. How does Giddens theorize the importance of modern relationships? • What does it mean that the “self is a reflexive project?” Explain Gidden’s notion of reflexivity, and provide evidence from your own experience to illustrate the theory.