Structure and agency

About: Structure and agency is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1265 publications have been published within this topic receiving 63660 citations.

How to Structure a Social Theory? A Critical Response to Anthony King’s The Structure of Social Theory

Abstract: This essay challenges King's argument for the claim that social relations have to be conceived of as primary and main ontological category for an adequate analysis of the social realm. The author shows that King's arguments do not succeed in fully replacing the categories of agency and structure that are pervasive in contemporary social theory. At most, King succeeds in delineating a neglected area of social theory, something that should be taken into account in addition to structure and agency.

Transgender identities, intimate relationships and practices of care

Abstract: This thesis is concerned with the social construction and formation of transgender identities, the impact of gender transition upon intimate relationships and the practices of transgender care networks. The research is linked to the ERSC research group Care, Values and the Future of Welfare (CAVA) and the focus of the project is in line with CAVA's enquiry into contemporary shifts in family, partnering and parenting practices, and the implications of these for future policy. The thesis is based on in-depth qualitiative interviews with thirty trans me and women who were purposely selected to reflect the diversity of transgender identity positions and experiences of gender transition. The overall theoretical concern for the thesis relates to transgender as a site through which to theorise gender identities as lying on a continuum of structure and agency; to signify identity as a fluid and contested concept, but one which also 'matters'. The study is developed from a queer sociological perspective, which is influenced by social theories of identity and engages directly with poststructuralist cultural theory. Additionally the study aims to bring a sociological analytic to the growing field of published literature within transgender studies. The work relates to contemporary sociological studies of identity, the body gender, sexuality, and practices of intimacy and care, and contributes to current debates about embodiment, reflexivity, agency and cultural difference. Located on the intersections of social theory, queer theory and transgender studies, the study represents the first UK empirical sociological study of transgender practices of identity, intimacy and care.

Beyond structure and agency: Rethinking political identities in Iraq after 2003

Abstract: This paper examines ethno-symbolic and instrumental explanations of ethnic and sectarian identities placed within the constructivist turn in the study of political identity, both in the abstract and how they have been deployed to explain the increasing contemporary influence of ethnosectarian mobilisation in Iraq and the wider Middle East. The paper identifies explanatory value in these approaches but finds their focus on either ideational structures or individual rationality too narrow to provide a comprehensive explanation of what happened to political identities in Iraq after 2003. Instead, the paper deploys what can be termed a ‘Bourdieusian method’, in an attempt to get beyond the polarities of structure and agency. It uses Bourdieu's conceptions of political field, principles of vision and division and symbolic violence to understand the influence that de-Ba'athification, the creation of the Muhasasa Ta'ifia or sectarian apportionment system and national elections had on political identities in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Why did Frank Field fail? New Labour and welfare reform, 1997-8.

Abstract: This thesis considers the development of welfare reform policy by the British Labour government in the period 1997-8, with a particular emphasis on the role and ideas of Frank Field, Minister of State for welfare reform from May 1997 to July 1998. It examines the significance of welfare reform to the New Labour project and the competing positions associated with Field and with (Chancellor of the Exchequer) Gordon Brown in the 1990s, with an in-depth discussion of Field's broader political philosophy and of his ministerial career, and of Brown's political philosophy with particular reference to welfare policy. We broadly adopt a model of structure and agency to explain the direction which welfare reform took under the first Blair government, and conclude that there are two reasons why Field's ideas did not prove to be the model for the government's welfare reform programme. The first, and lesser, reason relates to Field's performance as an actor in core executive politics. Field, we argue, misunderstood the contingent and negotiated nature of power in the core executive, and the structures which constrain capacity to act within it. The second, and ultimately more significant reason, is that Field's philosophy- in particular, his beliefs about the role of the state- was fundamentally incompatible with the discourse of New Labour, which emphasised an active state as an engine of national economic and social well-being. Brown's views, by contrast, were well-integrated with this discourse. The need for consistency with this discourse thus constrained New Labour's freedom of action in respect of welfare reform.