Showing papers on "Structure and agency published in 2003"

Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation

Abstract: The central problem of social theory is 'structure and agency'. How do the objective features of society influence human agents? Determinism is not the answer, nor is conditioning as currently conceptualised. It accentuates the way structure and culture shape the social context in which individuals operate, but it neglects our personal capacity to define what we care about most and to establish a modus vivendi expressive of our concerns. Through inner dialogue, 'the internal conversation', individuals reflect upon their social situation in the light of current concerns and projects. On the basis of a series of unique, in-depth interviews, Archer identifies three distinctive forms of internal conversation. These govern agents' responses to social conditioning, their individual patterns of social mobility and whether or not they contribute to social stability or change. Thus the internal conversation is seen as being the missing link between society and the individual, structure and agency.

Realist Perspectives on Management and Organisations

Abstract: Part 1 Theory and Metatheory 1. Locating Realist Perspectives in Management and Organization Studies Stephen Ackroyd and Steve Fleetwood 2. What is Management: An Outline of Metatheory Haridimous Tsoukas 3. In Praise of Duality and Dualism: Rethinking Agency and Structure in Organisational Analysis Michael I. Reed 4. Structure, Culture and Agency: Rejecting the Current Orthodoxy of Organisation Theory Robert Willmott 5. Connecting Organisations and Societies: A Realist Analysis of Structures Stephen Ackroyd 6. Critical Realism and the Labour Process Steve Pratten Part 2 Susbstantive Contributions 7. Critical Realist Ethnography: The Case of Racism and Professionalism in a Medical Setting Sam Porter 8. Routines, Strategy and Change in High-Technology Small Firms Neil Costello 9. Managers' Innovations and the Structuration of Organisations John Coopey, Orla Keegan and Nick Elmer 10. Case Research as a Methodology for Industrial Networks: A Realist Apologia Geoff Easton 11. Structuring the Labour Market: A Segmentation Approach Jamie Peck 12. The British Production Regime: A Societal-Specific System? Jill Rubery and Nick Elmer.

Gotta Catch 'em all: Structure, Agency and Pedagogy in Children's Media Culture:

Abstract: This article uses an analytical case study of the Pokemon phenomenon as a means of addressing broader theoretical issues concerned with the relationships between structure and agency in children's media culture. It analyses the political economy of Pokemon, and its attempts to appeal to different sub-sections of the children's market; the textual appeals of the different Pokemon artefacts, and the role of `knowledge'; and debates about the positive and negative consequences for child consumers. In the process, the article explores the notion of `pedagogy' as an alternative means of understanding the relations between structure and agency, and assesses its possibilities and limitations in the context of the case study.

Beyond Meaning, Discourse and the Empirical World: Critical Realist Reflections on Health

Abstract: This paper provides a series of critical realist (CR) reflections on the limits of approaches, within and beyond the sociology of health and illness, which begin and end with meaning, discourse and the empirical world. The first part of the paper provides a brief review of traditions, trends and tensions within the sociology of health and illness, with particular reference to the shortcomings of positivist and interpretivist legacies. This in turn provides a backdrop and paves the way, in the second main part of the paper, for a detailed discussion of the merits of CR in moving beyond these former impasses, with particular reference to (i) non-conflationary approaches to ontological and epistemological matters, (ii) principles of stratification and emergence, (iii) habitus and the ‘primacy’ of practice, and (iv) the (morphogenetic) relationship between structure and agency. The relevance of these insights to health is then hammered home in the third part of the paper, through three key examples of realist research in action, so to speak. The paper concludes with some further reflections on the promise and potential of critical realism for health, as an ‘underlabouring philosophy’, and the future agendas it signals.

Archetype Theory and the Changing Professional Organization: A Critique and Alternative

Abstract: In recent years there has been growing interest in analysing processes of change in professional service organizations drawing on the concepts of archetype theory. In this article, our primary goal is to question the validity of these ideas. A key weakness, we argue, stems from the continued legacy of functionalism in this approach and the limited role given to human agency. A further problem is the uncritical generalization of assumptions about professional organization and change, especially in the context of public services. These difficulties, we suggest, bring into question the usefulness of archetype theory as a general model for understanding change. They also point to the need to develop alternative approaches to these issues. In this article such an alternative is outlined, combining recent advances in the social theory dealing with the relationship between agency and structure with ideas from the sociology of professions.

Pathways to early retirement: Structure and agency in decision-making among British civil servants

Abstract: The context of this paper is the changing nature of later life in the United Kingdom. It examines some of the broader issues of early retirement. While there has been considerable debate about the restructuring of employment during the latter part of the 20th century which led to a shake-out of older workers from the labour force, less attention has been given to those who take voluntary early retirement. Given the importance of early retirement to the economy and to social policy, it is important to find out how individuals make retirement decisions. The paper examines the results of a semi-structured interview study of the decisions made by a purposively drawn sample of British civil servants who are participants in the Whitehall II study. The sample included participants who chose early retirement and those who did not. From the interview data, ideal types of possible routes into retirement have been constructed. Illustrating these ideal types, individual life histories are drawn upon to show how responses to the issues surrounding retirement feature in people’s lives. It is argued that decisions about early retirement are not made in a vacuum, neither are they free from pressures or inducements. Some are to do with organisational restructuring, some are about financial offers, and some are influenced by the opportunities for leisure and self-fulfilment that early retirement offers. The paper concludes by arguing that early retirement needs to be studied as a process involving the interplay between structure and agency.

Theorizing Change in the Educational "Field": Re-Readings of "Student Participation" Projects.

Abstract: There is a burgeoning literature on educational change ‐ how to make it and how to understand its failures in order that the causes can be remedied next time. Much of this literature implies that when free and autonomous policy agents know what they are doing, they can shift institutional structures and habituated ways of doing and being. In this article we mobilize Bourdieu, who rejected this binary of structure and agency, in favour of the notion of ‘field’, ‘habitus’ and ‘capitals’, to theorize one case of change. We describe the shifting policy-scape in Australia in the latter part of the twentieth century which created some opportunities for students to act as educational leaders and participate in making decisions about their learning and schooling. We then develop a specific and situated theorization of change in a contested and hierarchical educational ‘field’. We argue that the continued press from the political field and the wider field of power to increase levels of mass schooling produced a ‘principal opposition’ in the schooling field between democratization and hierarchization. This opposition, we propose, is now in policies, institutional changes and the varying actions of educators, making the field not only contested but also unstable: this produces further spaces and opportunities for both hierarchic and democratic changes.

Place and power in tourism development: tracing the complex articulations of community and locality

Abstract: This paper outlines the case for the analysis of tourism, power and place in the development process from a critical sociological perspective. It draws on recent trends in the sociology of develop- ment to develop existing theoretical models in a manner which transcends the more rigid dualisms be- tween structure and agency on the one hand, and, the concerns of power and identity on the other. As in recent works from noted scholars such as Picard and Wood (1997), the relationship between tourism and processes of development and social transformation are more nuanced and varied than previous 'theo- retical' models in tourism have recognised. Hence, this paper examines the issue by considering four major thematic areas of relevance to the study of tourism and its diverse relationships to processes of social change: the relations of community, consumption, production and place.

Structure and Agency in Medical Case Presentations

Abstract: This study investigated the role that medical case presentations play in the renegotiation or reconstruction of agency that occurs between medical students and physicians. Medical case presentations perform a dual function in teaching hospitals. They constitute formalized ways that physicians convey complex information about patients, and they are educational vehicles which medical students use to demonstrate their medical problem-solving abilities. This study observed and transcribed 16 oral case presentations performed by third-year medical students in a children’s hospital. As part of an interview protocol, two transcripts, one from a less and one from a more expert student, were turned into scripts, dramatized and videotaped. Ten faculty and 11 students were interviewed and asked to identify the differences between a more or less expert student performance. Data were analyzed using modified grounded theory and statistical strategies. Using a combination of dialectical social theories—specifically structuration theories (Giddens and Bourdieu) and activity theory (Vygotsky and Engestrom)-- as well as rhetorical theories of genre (Bazerman, Russell and Schryer), this study concludes that genres such as case presentations function as mediating tools that allow participants to negotiate agency across generations and across levels of expertise as sets of strategic choices. This renegotiation or reconstruction of agency, however, is not unproblematic. Genres have ideological consequences, and, through medical case presentations, medical students are learning to classify in quite specific ways, behaviors that could negatively affect communication with their patients.

Structure and Agency in Everyday Life: An Introduction to Social Psychology

Abstract: Chapter 1 1 Introduction to Symbolic Interactionism Part I 2 Part I: The Social Nature of Human Nature Chapter 2 3 The Social and Ideological Context of Symbolic Interactionism Chapter 3 4 William James and James Mark Baldwin Chapter 4 5 Charles Horton Cooley, W.I. Thomas, and John Dewey Chapter 5 6 George Herbert Mead Part II 7 Part II: Macrosociological Structres Chapter 6 8 Society: The Structural Context of Interaction Chapter 7 9 Structures of Social Interaction Chapter 8 10 Contemporary Conceptions of the Self Chapter 9 11 Mind Part III 12 Part III: Socialization Chapter 10 13 Interactionism and the Child: Cahill, Corsaro, and Denzin on Childhood Socialization Chapter 11 14 Socialization and Emotions Chapter 12 15 Gender and Power Part IV 16 Part IV: Deviance Chapter 13 17 The Interactionist Conception of Deviance Chapter 14 18 Conclusion

Moral Discrepancy and Political Discourse: Accountability and the Allocation of Blame in a Political News Interview:

Abstract: During the course of this article we intend to explore some issues surrounding government policy and actions and the moral organisation of political discourse surrounding the recent enquiry into the BSE crisis and the publication of the Phillips Report in the UK. More specifically, we wish to develop the concept of moral discrepancy and it's use in politically accountable settings, in this case the political interview. The paper, through the use of membership categorisation analysis, explores issues surrounding the social organisation of interview settings, the discursive management of policy decisions and 'bureaucratic mistakes' and the allocation of blame in situated media/political formats. The paper then relates these issues to notions of democracy-in-action, public ethics and the respecification of structure and agency as a members phenomenon.

Author(iz)ing Agency Feminist Scholars Making Sense of Women's Involvement in Religious `Fundamentalist' Movements

Abstract: This article discusses ways in which feminist scholars draw upon agency in relation to the complex subject matter of women's engagement in so- called 'fundamentalist' movements. While postcolonial critiques generally reject the term 'fundamentalism', and in particular the way it is linked to Islam, feminist perspectives have a vested interest in looking at contemporary developments in different religions from the perspective of women's lives. Against the patriarchal reputations of fundamentalist movements, feminist scholarship increasingly tends to emphasize women's agency, thereby effectively breaking with widespread notions of 'false consciousness'. After briefly discussing two such examples, the question is raised whether this emphasis on agency does not risk evacuating structural constraints in the construction of subjectivity, thus neutralizing the productive tension, at the heart of women's studies, between structure and agency. In conclusion, the article joins other calls for new ways of thinking about subjectivity. In different ways and in relation to different subject matters, the question of agency has become a renewed focus of thought in feminist and social theory (McNay, 2000). The branches of a possible genealogy of the theor- etical concern with agency extend in many directions, including 'structure vs agency' debates, questions of the generation of subjectivity, issues of

Towards a structurational theory of information systems: a substantive case analysis

Abstract: This paper employs the analysis of an interpretive case study within a regional train operating company (RTOC) to arrive at theoretical understandings of information systems (IS). Giddens' 'structuration theory' is developed which offers an account of structure and agency; social practices developing and changing over time and space. The most common application of structuration theory to the IS domain is the analysis of empirical situations using the 'dimensions of the duality of structure' model. The best-known attempts to theorize IS concerns using this approach have come from Orlikowski from whom this paper draws particular attention. Structurational concepts (system integration, time-space distanciation and routinization) as well as Giddens' conceptualization of social change are further developed to help explain IS phenomena. Some fifty interviews were conducted at every level in the company (RTOC) from engineers and train drivers to the board of directors. Participant observation was also undertaken with the authors attending twenty-one meetings, workshops and presentations. The resulting theoretical model describes IS embedded in social practices, which evolve to display both regularity and change.

Reflexivity Contra Structuration

Abstract: This paper argues that Giddens recent writings on reflexivity and modernity fundamentally contradict the underlying paradigm of agency and structure -- the duality of structure -- that he has developed since the 1970s. Whilst many critics of Giddens' writings on reflexivity have focused on his relative neglect of power, they have overlooked the emerging contradictions with his overall analysis of agency and structuration that I argue lie at the root of these problems in his recent writings. The arguments of dualist critics of Giddens' structuration theory such as Archer and Mouzelis are developed and applied to his recent writings on reflexive modernization. The analysis of late modernity and self-reflexivity requires recognition of the temporal non-correspondence of structure and agency that is not possible under the assumptions of structuration theory. Resume Cet article fait valoir le fait que les rdcents ecrits de Giddens sur la reflexivite et Ia modernite contredisent fondamentalement le paradigme sous-jacent d'agencement et de structure, soit la dualitd de la structure. qu'iI a developpee depuis les annees 1970. Alors que bon nombre de critiques de ses ecrits sur Ia reflexivite se sont penches sur la negligence relative du pouvoir, ils n'ont cependant pas tenu compte des contradictions emergentes de cette analyse globale d'agencement et de structure qui -- a mon avis -- se trouve a la base meme de ces problemes dans ses derniers ecrits. Les arguments des critiques dualistes de la theorie de structuration de Giddens tels que Archer et Mouzelis sont developpes et appliques a ses derniers ecrits sur la modernisation reflexive. Il est necessaire de reconnaitre la non correspondance temporelle de l'agencement et de la structure pour analyser la recente modernite et l'autoreflexivite, ce qui n'est pas possible dans le cas des hypotheses de la theorie de la s tructuration. The Freitsetzung of Agency and Structure? It is my contention in this paper that what Lash (1994) has described as the "freisetzung" of agency and structure is the key assumption of Giddens' reflexive modernization thesis, and that this assumption generates some significant and irresolvable conceptual problems for his broader social theory. These detraditionalizing processes of late modernity captured by the term "reflexive modernisation" are apparently "freeing" individuals, enabling them to create "reflexive projects of the self." Instead of self-identity being "given" by social structural locations, or traditional value systems, we are now able to construct it for ourselves from a range of range of available discursive resources (Beck et. al., 1994; Giddens, 1991). Giddens' work since 1990 has given us a distinctive and substantial contribution to these debates. One that signifies a new departure in his writings, although he sees it continuing the project that he has developed since the 1970s. In Giddens' work up to the 1990s there was a sense of a continuous intellectual project, that has often been compared to that of Parsons (Kilminster, 1991: 75; Mouzelis, 1995: 118). Firstly, Giddens' settled his accounts with the classical inheritance, then he dealt with various contemporary debates in class theory, followed by varieties of contemporary social theory (Giddens, 1971; Giddens, 1974; Giddens, 1975; Giddens, 1979). Subsequently he examined the institutional parameters and developmental tendencies of modernity and the nation-state (Giddens, 1981; Giddens, 1985). His most recent discussions have focussed more on the modern self (Beck, Lash and Giddens, 1994; Giddens, 1990; Giddens, 1991). His work in the 1970s outlined a workable social ontology and a unifying perspective for post-classical sociology (1975; 1979), followed in the 1980s by an application of this unifying perspective (1981; 1985). It is also possible to see his recent work as an attempt to apply the structuration approach to the dile mmas of the modern self. …

Constructing Disability and Social Inequality Early in the Life Course: the case of special education in Germany and the United States

Abstract: Joining life course and educational stratification research with disability studies' complimentary emphasis on structure and disabling barriers enables a more complete analysis of the experiences and life chances of primary and secondary school students who are classified disabled. Because the processes that affect life course phases and transitions, as well as individual opportunities, identities, and attainments are cumulative, analysis of early differentiation is necessary to understand how (special) education legitimates and generates social inequality. Universal compulsory education led schools to develop a variety of sorting mechanisms. Especially during the resulting transitions within an educational system's learning opportunity structures, special educational needs are identified, labelled and categorical boundaries drawn around dis/ability altering individuals' trajectories. By stigmatizing, separating, and segregating students, special education institutions in Germany and the United States construct social inequality early in the life course. Life course perspectives emphasize the interrelation of social structure and agency, the importance of age and generation, and the accumulation of dis/advantages over a person's life course. Disability studies, while also attending to individuals' lived experience of impairment, chronic illness, and disability, has primarily focused on the key role of social, institutional, and environmental barriers in constructing disability. Together, these two young, energetic fields provide methodological tools, concepts, and research goals that can profitably guide social scientific analysis. The article begins with brief reviews of relevant life course and educational stratification

Social Theory: Conflict, Cohesion and Consent

Abstract: This textbook introduction to Social Theory is unique in addressing key issues in sociological, political and cultural analysis through an examination of modern theories of social conflict, cohesion and consent. Chapters are structured to cover the major thinkers - Marx and Engels, Gramsci, Durkheim, Parsons, Weber, the Frankfurt School (Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse and Habermas) and Foucault - and offer a useful and accessible introduction to the main ideas of these important and widely studied theorists. Through the unifying theme of conflict, cohesion and consent the reader is introduced to core social concepts such as structure and agency, ideology, discourse and legitimation, and to key features of modern society such as the state, economy and civil society. Dealing with both contemporary social debates and established theoretical approaches, this book is ideal for both Politics and Sociology students.

Knowledge, power and monetary bargaining: central bankers and the creation of monetary union in Europe

Abstract: This article specifies and explains the role of central bankers as an epistemic community in the process of European monetary co-operation. The article argues that it is necessary first to find the right balance between structure and agency and second to specify alternatives to the observed outcomes. While structure is arguably a strong shaping force for outcomes in monetary bargaining, it is ultimately indeterminate in predicting change. Contrasting the Maastricht process with potential alternative outcomes, I argue that the content of the Maastricht Treaty on European monetary union can be explained largely by underlying structural factors. On the other hand, the process of institutional change itself raises the issue of agency. Within this process of institutional change, the epistemic community of central bankers played a special role to facilitate the Maastricht accord.

Moving from interpretivism to critical realism in IS research: An exploration and supporting IT outsourcing example

Abstract: The major contribution of the thesis is to highlight the Importance of philosophical awareness in progressing research. It argues against the use of a priori theory in research and proposes that an understanding of the philosophical underpinnings of particular research approaches can provide the opportunity to be ones own guide and to work out critically one's own conception of the world. It suggests that the adoption of critical realism as the underlying philosophical base can support research in a useful and practical manner. The thesis introduces the philosophy of critical realism and uses its underlabouring role to provide new Insights into the Information systems arena in general and the case example In particular. The thesis specifically concentrates on a comparison between interpretlivism and critical realism, highlighting the differing approaches both have to research. The thesis provides an Illustrative case example examining the development of an organisation's first Information Business Plan and the subsequent outsourcing of the IS Department. The study was originally targeted at describing the Implementation of the organisation's first Information business plan but this changed as the information business plan Implementation was overtaken by events. It is argued that political directives from above were the major reason behind the organizational move to outsource all non-core activities, Including IS. The thesis documents a dissatisfaction with the original interpretivist approach on which the case Investigation was based and uses the case example to highlight the thesis arguments. Critical realism provides a promising analytical and explanatory framework for examining the Interplay between structure and agency within organizations. It Involves both Interpretive and explanatory understanding unified In "the analysis of structural relations, and the ways In which these affect, and are affected by, the subjective meanings of human beings" (Keat and Urry, 1982, p. 174). This thesis will reflect these understandings and emphases.

Constructing Discursive Practices in School and Community: Bilingualism, Gender and Power

Abstract: In England one of the key national determinates is English monolingualism which is reflected in an English-only educational system. Drawing on the framework of legitimate discursive practices and languages (Nic Craith, 2000) English is perceived as the language of government and power and awarded legitimacy, while languages spoken by minority groups have no official legitimacy and are not recognised as legitimate languages for learning or schooling. Thus, schools are potential sites of contestation for issues of structure and agency around language diversity where linguistic minority learners construct their languages in their social and discursive practices. This paper explores how bilingual children manage their cultural and linguistic capital (Bourdieu, 1977) by colluding with, and contesting, the structures of language and power in school (Martin-Jones & Heller, 1996). An important gender perspective emerges in the children's discursive strategies in constructing languages in school.

Sui Generis Micro Social Structures: The Heuristic Example of Poker

Abstract: This article uses aspects of poker (no prior knowledge of the game is required) as a heuristic example to facilitate arguments to the following conclusions. Micro social structures have a sui generis aspect to them. Social structures are simultaneously a set of relations between positions and interactional relations between people. Micro structures have some of the features usually only associated with macro structures but nonetheless there are qualitative differences in kind between macro and micro structures. The article thus retains the insights associated with both interactionist and structuralist positions with respect to sociology's long history of debate about structure and agency. But it also shows both poles of debate to be significantly mistaken. Resume Cet article emploie des aspects de "poker" [un jeu des cartes] (aucune connaissance anterieure du jeu nest exigee) comme exemple heuristique pour faciliter des arguments aux conclusions suivantes. Les structures sociales micro ont un aspect sui generis a elles. Les structures sociales sont simultaniment un ensemble de relations entre les positions etles relations interactionnelles entre les personnes. Les structures micro ont certains des dispositifs habitue1lement seulementlies a de macro structures mais neanmoins il y a des differences qualitatives en nature entre tie macro et micro structures. L'article maintient ainsi les perspicacites liees aux positions d'interactionist et de structuralist en ce qui concerne l'histoire de la sociologie longtemps tie la discussion au sujet de la structure et de l'agence. Mais il montre egalement les deux poteaux de la discussion a confondre sensiblement. Introduction The intention of this article is to provide a new lens through which to focus attention upon the long standing debates and theoretical issues concerning the relationship between human agency and sui generis social structure. We shall examine the emergence of a particular kind of micro social structure found in a particular example of social interactive phenomena: games of poker. Two things must be made clear from the start. First, no knowledge of the game of poker will be required to understand the sociological points made in this article. Good players will find the descriptions of the game's features, examples of strategy etc. relatively unremarkable and incontrovertible. Those who have never played should also find nothing difficult to grasp about such features of the game as are analysed here. On the other hand, those who do play often yet are not very good at it (which is to say most players) may import some of their poker confusion and misconceptions into the interpretation of the article. This is perhap s unavoidable but if the points concerning structure and agency are missed, such readers might at least find some suggestive ideas for improving their play. The second thing which must be made clear is that though poker is a game and lam using it to make some sociological points, I am not a "game theorist." I have serious reservations about such theory in all its formulations and applications. Nor do I wish to make the claim that the game of poker is in every sense analogous to the "game of life." Poker as I shall be using it here is not intended as either metaphor or model. The aspect of poker which I shall analyse here as a type of sui generis social structure is very definitely not analogous to social structure in general. It is not intended as a metaphor at all. Rather it is an example of a form of social structure. But it is a form, not the form. One of the crucial points which I wish to make is that there are social structures and social structures. The example of poker is ideally suited to demonstrate features of social reality focussed upon by interactionist perspectives. It involves rules, explicit and implicit interpretation (including the body language of unconscious clues), calculation and deception, "impression management," (variably) stable patterns of play, the accessibility and inaccessibility of knowledge, memory and many other subtle features of interaction. …

The Handbook of Political Sociology: Neopluralism and Neofunctionalism in Political Sociology

Abstract: A broadly pluralist tradition of political sociology flourishes today in its neopluralist reconstructions in political science and, to a lesser extent, sociology. Since the 1970s the pluralist tradition of political analysis, which stressed the causal primacy of a plurality of collective social actors, has passed into a neopluralist phase. This transition entailed an extension of the pluralist repertoire of actors into the once-forbidden territory of Marxian class and antiestablishment social movements, as well as an enhanced recognition of the grounding and embeddedness of politically influential actors in social structures and systemic dynamics beyond those of culture. Neopluralism expands the pluralist stress on multiple bases of social action to encompass a yet fuller range of actors (class ones in particular), an increased sensitivity to structural and systemic modes of power not reducible to social action, and a more complex articulation of agency and structure. Insofar as frameworks and theories of political analysis today reflect both this ecumenical approach to the varieties of potentially important actors (for example, union movements as well as business lobbies and interest associations) and the approach's openness to the causal powers of both agency and structure (for example, macroeconomic and political institutional constraints upon as well as ground for action) today we are all neo-pluralists. Neofunctionalism is a notable complement to neopluralism, much as functionalism was an important complement to classical pluralism. Neofunctionalism is hardly the pervasive force that functionalism was during the first two decades following World War II. Nevertheless it remains a significant presence in sociology, especially political sociology, neopluralist political sociology most particularly.

The State of Privacy in the Canadian State: Fallout from 9/11

Abstract: The literature on privacy and surveillance is rich and varied. Scholars, journalists, practitioners, and others from many nations have analysed the causes and consequences of the excessive collection and processing of personal information, and debated the merits of a range of legal, selfregulatory and technological solutions (Bennett and Grant, 1999). With few exceptions, most of this literature would share the following four assumptions: 1) privacy is an individual right; 2) privacy is something that we once had but is now eroding; 3) the privacy problem arises from structural and organisational forces that together reduce the ability of individuals to control the circulation of their information; and, 4) the organisations that are responsible for privacy invasion can be observed, resisted and regulated because they are subject to the laws of discrete and bounded liberal democratic states. These assumptions constitute the ‘privacy paradigm’ (Bennett and Raab, 2003). In contemporary circumstances, each of these assumptions can be questioned. Privacy protection can be regarded as a social value as much as it is an individual one (Regan, 1995). To argue that privacy is vanishing, eroding, dying and so on (e.g. Whitaker, 1999; Rosen, 2000), assumes that antecedent agricultural and industrial societies offered higher ‘‘levels’’ of privacy than conditions in current post-industrial societies, an assumption which is highly problematic. The sources of privacy invasions are also complex. The picture of an embattled individual trying to stem the tide of surveillance flowing from a range of impersonal and invulnerable structural forces makes good rhetoric for the privacy cause, but it distorts reality and oversimplifies social and political analysis. Privacy problems arise from a complex interplay of structure and agency. They occur when technologies work and when they fail, when humans have worthy motives and when they do not. However, the subject matter of this article most closely relates to the last assumption. The privacy paradigm tends to be state-centric in two different senses. First, the right to privacy is generally regarded as a benefit of state citizenship. This right is conferred on us by virtue of our national identities, be they Dutch, American, British, Canadian, or any other. The privacy and data protection laws, which provide us with certain guarantees about our personal information, reflect some essential principles of liberal democracy that are either enshrined in constitutions (such as in the US Fourth Amendment) or deeply embedded in the cultural and historical experiences of different societies. Second, contemporary discourse and policy prescriptions are generally dictated by a paradigm which suggests that our personal information still tends to be held within organisations that are easily identifiable and that operate within the boundaries of modern territorial states. It is not simply that the forces of globalisation have necessitated harmonised international solutions to the privacy problem; the growing policy interdependence has caused a proliferation in the number of transnational actors, and a progressive frequency and regularity of networking opportunities. It might be assumed that this transnational policy-making has caused a concomitant reduction in state sovereignty. The question is not, any more, whether data protection policy should be made at the international or the national governmental levels; data protection policy is, and must be, made at both levels. Rather, the question is how national and international regimes interact to respond to an inherently transnational policy problem caused by a global economy. Privacy is a global problem, and it is being addressed through a repertoire of policy instruments that also know few attachments to traditional conceptions of legal and territorial sovereignties (Bennett and Raab, 2003). This article charts the Canadian policy responses to the acts of terrorism on 11 September 2001. In brief, we argue that before 11 September, Canadian privacy protection policy had diverged in some significant ways with that of the United States. Policy developments were very much driven by international pressures, but from Department of Political Science, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., V8W 3P5, Canada *E-mail: cjb@uvic.ca **E-mail: martian@uvic.ca

Structure and Agency in Modern Greek Education

Abstract: In a recent editorial in Comparative Education P. Broadfoot highlighted the traditional social tension between structure and agency, "between the external directives to institutions that shape the social space and the individual's capacity to choose; to be self-determining" (Broadfoot 2002, p. 5). She concluded that both the academic community and educational policy makers around the world are today faced with two great challenges: the first, "to set out a defining vision of what education could be like in the twenty-first century," and the second, to find ways "to strengthen agency rather than structure, and to produce individuals who are committed, confident, and flexible learners" (Broadfoot 2002, p. 6).

Magic of Objects

Abstract: Performance Studies is a very young discipline, but its youth hasn't stopped some of its founders from characterizing the discipline as post-disciplinary. For me, this characterization is troubling since the terms "performance" and "performativity"in the promiscuity of their applications and in the very indefinition of their own specific concept of an object of study-often threaten to assert themselves as the ground of every possible area of study. When faced with the conflict between global desire and an objectless locality where disciplinarity and discipline are eclipsed, one is called upon to ask certain questions that converged with the theme of our gathering in Cuba. Is the post-discipline a good model for the changing U.S. academy and, more broadly, for the forging of a new and liberatory understanding of the relation between humanity and the humanities? Permit me, and please forgive, a long quotation from Randy Martin's brilliant book, Critical Movas, wherein Martin begins to address some of these issues: ... insofar as structure and agency retain the discrete separation of object and subject, practice emerges instead as the already amalgamated process of these last two terms. From the perspective of practice, it is no longer possible to insert human activity into a fixed landscape of social structure; both moments are formed in perpetual motion. Where this insight has its immediate political application is to the series of practices articulated through race, class, gender and sexuality. Each of these words points to a systematic structuration that appropriates different forms of surplus through racism, exploitation, sexism and homophobia. By extending a productionist model to domains not generally associated with an economy oriented toward exchange, I want to take seriously Marx's understanding of capitalism. He treats it as forcibly constituting, by the very organizing boundaries it erects and then transgresses, in pursuit of increasing magnitudes of surplus, the global collectivity, the "combination, due to association," that he understood as the socialization of labor.... That race, class, gender, and sexuality, as the very materiality of social identity, are also produced in the process indicates the practical generativity-the ongoing social capacity to render life as history-necessary for any cultural product. Therefore, it is not that a productionist approach assigns race, class, gender, and sexuality the same history, political effects, or practical means. Instead, this approach is intended to imagine the context for critical analysis that would grant these four articulating structures historicity, poli