Showing papers on "Structure and agency published in 1981"
TL;DR: Ley and Samuels as mentioned in this paper discuss the prospectus for a humanistic geography provided by the contributors to Humanistic geography: prospects and problems, and suggest that a scientific explication of the relations between agency and structure can be attained through the deployment of a concept of structuration, which presages a critical return to the traditional materialism of la giographie humaine.
Abstract: This commentary discusses the prospectus for a humanistic geography provided by the contributors to D. Ley, M. Samuels (eds) Humanistic geography: prospects and problems. The resurgence of a humanist tradition in geography has drawn its impetus in part from la giographie humaine of Vidal de la Blache, and an examination of the connections between the two conceptions shows a common concern with the efficacy of human agency within an essential 'boundedness' of practical life. A series of parallel developments within 'Marxian humanism' (and in particular the work of E.P. Thompson) is used to suggest that a scientific explication of the relations between agency and structure can be attained through the deployment of a concept of structuration. But this will also require a concept of determination capable of incorporating 'economy' and 'culture' within a single system of concepts, which presages a critical return to the traditional materialism of la giographie humaine.
152 citations
TL;DR: This paper examined the relationship between the international economy and a wide variety of public expenditure patterns in eighteen capitalist democracies both in the early 1960s and mid-1970s and concluded that Cameron mis-specifies the relation between political and economic structure, and that an important factor conditioning contemporary expenditure patterns is the way in which the emergence of modern party systems structured the opportunity for lower and middle-class participation in political life.
Abstract: The controversy about whether ‘politics matters’ in the determination of public policy outcomes is frequently overlaid by assumptions concerning the role of structure and agency in human affairs. However, although it is usually assumed that the debate is about the rival explanatory claims of economic structure and political choice, the studies undertaken in the public policy field are almost invariably structural in character. Explicit recognition that the debate is about political and economic structures and the linkages between them will strengthen our ability to understand the nature of policy determination in the contemporary state. This view is illustrated by discussion and re-analysis of Cameron's thesis that the structure of international trade is the major determinant of the expansion of the public economy. What we do is to look at the relationship between the international economy and a wide variety of public expenditure patterns in eighteen capitalist democracies both in the early 1960s and mid-1970s. The analysis suggests that Cameron mis-specifies the relationship between political and economic structure, and that an important factor conditioning contemporary expenditure patterns is the way in which the emergence of modern party systems structured the opportunity for lower and middle-class participation in political life.
37 citations