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.

Individual agency and the experience of new deal.

Abstract: This paper examines the experience of a small number of unemployed youngsters taking part in the government's New Deal for Young People programme and discusses in the light of their responses the ways in which New Deal represents an individualisation of unemployment, to the neglect of structural factors. The ways in which different individuals are able to utilise different elements of the programme are considered and the paper draws on Bourdieu's notion of habitus as a way of understanding the links between agency and structure and the importance of the young person's own horizon for action.

The positive and the negative: Assessing critical realism and social constructionism as post-positivist approaches to empirical research in the social sciences

Abstract: The argument developed in this paper holds that critical realism is stronger than many other forms of post-positivism but that it is itself open to criticism. While critical realists are polemical about positivism they do share with positivism the concern positively to develop knowledge. This stands in contrast to social constructionism which embraces relativism and scepticism in an attempt to delegitimize knowledge claims by exposing them as symptoms of underlying discursive power relations. For critical realists we need to defend knowledge from relativist and sceptical challenges while seeking to avoid the empiricist theory of knowledge that underpinned positivism. To do this critical realists turn from empiricism – and epistemology more generally – to ontology, and argue that the natural and social sciences need to be based on a coherent definition of reality. As regards the social sciences, critical realists argue that a meta-theory which defines social reality in terms of agents interacting with structural emergent properties is required to underpin empirical research. This non-positivist emphasis on generating knowledge about causal processes in society is stronger than social constructionism, which cannot move beyond the purely negative position of scepticism. However, we may consider problem-solving challenges to critical realism. These focus on the need for conceptual revision in contrast to the critical realist argument that the meta-theory of structure and agency is the condition of possibility of a mature social science.

Challenging the field: Bourdieu and men's health

Abstract: This article considers how understandings of health promotion with men may be assisted by engagement with Bourdieu’s theoretical work. The article outlines leading concepts within Bourdieu’s work on ‘field’, ‘habitus’ and ‘capital’; considers subsequent critical debates among gender, feminist and sociological theorists around structure and agency; and links these to discussions within men’s health. A particular focus concerns structural disruption of, and movement of social actors between, ‘fields’ such as family, work and leisure settings. The article examines, through Bourdieu’s critical legacy, whether such disruption establishes conditions for transformative reflexivity among men in relation to previously held dispositions (habitus), including those inflected by masculinities, that affect men’s health practices. Recent work within Bourdieu’s heritage potentially facilitates a re-framing of understandings of men’s health practices. The article specifically explores masculine ambivalence within accounts of reflexivity, identities and practice, and considers how social and symbolic (masculine) capital are in play. Implications of Bourdieu’s leading concepts for theorising settings-focused approaches to men’s health promotion are exemplified with reference to a men’s health project in a football stadium leisure setting. The article considers the benefits and challenges of applying gendered critical insights drawing on Bourdieu’s work to men’s health promotion, and discusses emerging theoretical dilemmas.

The relational approach to egalitarian justice: a critique of luck egalitarianism

Abstract: This article contributes to the critical engagement with luck egalitarianism by advancing two arguments. Firstly, it questions the cogency of the dichotomies – e.g., luck/choice, person/circumstance, agency/structure – and the accompanying moral ideal of pure voluntarism. This makes it difficult for luck egalitarianism to dissect appropriately the inequalities embedded in social relations, such as social networks and involuntary associations, in which voluntariness and contingency as well as agency and structure are intertwined. Secondly, it suggests that the relational approach, which has been developed, inter alia, in the empirical study of inequality, provides a morally and practically adequate perspective on egalitarian justice. The relational approach achieves this by converging upon those in‐between social relations that are irreducible to the macro‐level structure and to micro‐level agency. Moreover, a relationally sensitive perspective on inequality can adeptly respond to the difficulties that luc...

Microfoundations of Institutions and the Theory of Action

Abstract: In this article, I argue that progress with microfoundations in institutional theory requires a suitable theory of individual action—i.e., one which overcomes the shortcomings of how agency and structure are typically conceived of. I contend that my previous article on action within institutions (Cardinale, I. 2018. Beyond Constraining and Enabling: Toward New Microfoundations of Institutional Theory. Academy of Management Review, 43: 132-155) provides such a theory. However, the fact that it is a theory of individual action does not imply that the individual level is always the most explanatorily relevant. Rather, the theory provides insights on individual action that are useful—in different ways—no matter the level of analysis. I go on to show how the theory can contribute to the multilevel analysis of institutions.