Structuration

by John Parker

* How is structuration central to the social sciences?
* What are the implications of conceptualizing the relation between structure and agency as one of duality or dualism?
* Why was structuration theory invented and what can replace it?

Structuration provides an introduction to this central debate in social theory and helps to explain the historical processes producing the structures that shape human social life. Few would dispute that social reality is produced by creative human agents operating in pre-existing structural contexts, but social theorists are divided over how structure and agency are related. John Parker contrasts the views of Bourdieu and Giddens, who uphold duality (identity), with those of the post-structurationists, Archer and Mouzelis, who defend dualism (non-identity). The context and logic of the duality arguments are examined, but it is suggested that Giddens' structuration theory is outdated, and the emphasis is placed on making accessible the positive suggestions of the post-structurationist dualists in relation to actual historical cases. The debate about structuration has important consequences for the way we explain the production and transformation of social structures such as institutions and rules, cultural traditions, patterns of regular behaviour, and distributions of power and inequality. Students and researchers across the social sciences will find this to be a clear and accessible guide to a concept at the heart of social theory.

Paperback

First published January 12, 2000

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Reviews

[Naeem · Rating 4 out of 5]

At a quick 125 pages and 9 chapters, Parker's book is an excellent introduction. The novelty here is to first place Giddens (and Bourdieu) in a historical context of the 50s and 60s. He then goes onto explicate their theories with a clear bare bones analysis. Another novelty is that Giddens and Bourdieu are subjected to a thorough critique through Lockwood, Archer, and Mouzelis -- all termed "post-structurationists."

In Parker's hands these post-structurationists sound quite convincing. The knock against Giddens is that his "duality of structure" turns the flow of dialectics into a "flat" and "smooth" process. Flatness is a problem for at least 2 reasons: it is inaccurate regarding the hardness (but not immutability) of actual structures; and, therefore it favors a kind of Parsonian order as well as favoring a subjective constructedness that looks too much like invidualism. Parker and the post-structurationists perfer not "duality of structure" but a return to a "dualism of sturcture." In sum, Giddens "flow" is wrong ontologically and conservative politically. This is news to me about Giddens because I favored him precisely because I thought his structuration was a dialectical via media -- a connection to he tradition of dialictics (there is a small section on dialectis, (24-5). It turns out that it is perhaps not. In Parker's hands Giddens turns into a version of Parsons.

Through Lockwood, Archer, and Mouzelis, Parker favors a kind of social theorizing that I assumed structurationism to be. Namely, one in which structures change as a result of human actions, human actions are limited and enabled by structures, and in which space/time specificty can be heard to make their clicks, squeaks, and tumbles. Especially the description of structures as, in my language, "bumpy" attracts me.

What troubled me and what I did not like was a too easy assumption about the ontological actually of reality outside of concepts. And therefore a theoretically tinged call for a kind of empirical analysis. That strikes me as too close to a return to positivism.

All in all the strategy of placing these theorist in their historical context and suggesting that structurationism and post-structurationism are responses to perennial problems in philosophy and social theory really appeals to my history of thought bent. I am still not sure I like the label "historical sociology" -- which is what Parker calls for. This strikes me as to English and too imperial.

Good book; worth a re-read.

[Jacob Moltke]

very nice book! the shifting between the socialtheories of Bourdieu to Giddens was amazing and helped me alot in an assignment about obesity in the late modern society.

Thank you, John Parker!