How does Social Structure influence Human Agency?

Margaret S. ArcherEcole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

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Generative mechanisms in the Social order

Here we have to deal with TWO strata of reality

Those of social and cultural structures into which people are born and live

(Structures can be ‘centralized’ but people cannot)

People’s own ‘personal powers’ (People can be reflexive:

structures cannot)

THEREFORE we must examine their interplay 22

How does Structure (and Culture) influence

human Agents?

Without an account of HOW this influence is exerted we simply have a Realist statement about the

- temporal priority

- relative autonomy

- causal efficacy

of STRUCTURE & CULTURE

at a different (‘higher’) stratum influencing those at a ‘lower’ stratum (people)

BUT HOW?33

Realism against Reification

‘The causal power of social forms is mediated through social agency’

Bhaskar, Possibility of Naturalism, p. 26

This tells us nothing about the mediating process until we have unpacked what ‘through’ means and involves 44

‘Through’ is simply presented as ‘Conditioning’

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BUT ‘conditioning’ depends upon 2 sets of properties and powers

1. A specification of HOW Structural and Cultural properties IMPINGE UPON AGENTS

2. A specification of HOW agents use their own PERSONAL POWERS to RESPOND

THEREFORE it will not do to deal exclusively with (1) which necessarily NEGLECTS (2)

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Structural and cultural factors shape the social context for agents

‘These results of past actions are deposited in the form of current situations. They account for what there is (structurally and culturally) to be distributed and also for the shape of such distributions; for the nature of the extant role array, the proportion of positions available at any time and the advantages/disadvantages associated with them; for the institutional configuration present and for those second order emergent properties of compatibility and incompatibility, that is whether the respective operations of institutions are matters of obstruction or assistance to one another. In these ways, situations are objectively defined for their subsequent occupants or incumbents’. Archer, 1995. Realist Social Theory, p. 201.’

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People on fixed incomes

The effects of inflation on those with fixed incomes.

Objective constraints are undeniable, despite their (mis)understanding

But their subjectivity explains what they actually do

The Two-Stage ModelThird-person accounts

1. Structural and/or cultural properties objectively shape situations for agents and exercise constraints and enablements in relation to:-

2. Subjective properties imputed to agents and assumed to govern their actions:

- Promotion of vested interests

(Neo-Marxism)

- Instrumental Rationality (Rational Choice Theory)

- Habitus/ induced repertoires (Bourdieu/Discourse Theory)

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Third-Person accounts as ‘hydraulic’

Deprive agent of ‘personal powers’

Describe how ‘social properties & powers’ impinge on agents, but NOT how they are received by them: activation, evasion, suspension

Subjective reception, in light of personal ‘concerns’ is needed to explain what people do

Without this, Sociology settles for ‘what most people do most of the time’ – a retreat into Humean ‘constant conjunctions’

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Reflexive MediationReflexive Mediation

Reflexivity (reflexive deliberations) Reflexivity (reflexive deliberations) mediate the conditional influence mediate the conditional influence of structural/cultural factors upon of structural/cultural factors upon courses of action taken.courses of action taken.

Reflexivity: ‘the regular exercise of Reflexivity: ‘the regular exercise of the mental ability, shared by all the mental ability, shared by all (normal) people, to consider (normal) people, to consider themselves in relation to their themselves in relation to their (social) contexts and vice versa.’(social) contexts and vice versa.’

Reflexivity is how ‘reasons’ Reflexivity is how ‘reasons’ become ‘causes’ for courses of become ‘causes’ for courses of action.action.

The importance of Reflexivity The importance of Reflexivity varies with the nature of social varies with the nature of social formations.formations.

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Reflexivity is practised through

the INTERNAL CONVERSATION

Our Personal Powers are exercised through inner dialogue

ICON is responsible for defining

- our ‘concerns’ – what matter to us

- our projects i.e. courses of action

- our practices – what we do in any social context 1212

Internal Conversation & the Good Life

Defining CONCERNS (Internal goods)

Developing PROJECTS (Micro-politics)

Establishing PRACTICES (Modus vivendi)

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INTERNAL CONVERSATION as the mediatory mechanism

ICON mediates between our structurally shaped circumstances and what we deliberatively make of them

Because ‘constraints and enablements’ require something to constrain and enable – these are our projects

We cannot make what we please of them. That would be the ‘epistemic fallacy’

Get circumstances wrong & the subject pays the price – comprehendingly or not

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The Three-Stage Model follows

1. Structural and/or cultural properties objectively shape situations for agents and exercise constraints and enablements in relation to:-

2. Subjects’ own set of concerns, as subjectively defined by them

3. Courses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of agents who subjectively determine their projects in relation to their objective circumstances

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Without a mediatory mechanism between

Structure and Agency!

There would be no explanation of what people actually do

Social science would settle for- ‘what most of the people do

most of the time’- ‘under circumstances X, a

statistically significant % of agents do Y’

Meaning that social science would have returned to Hume’s ‘constant conjunctions

Because our ‘personal powers’ would again have been excluded

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Introducing Reflexivity in order to explain

what we DO It allows – individually and collectively – that

we seek many different ends

Agents are radically heterogeneous

People modify their goals in terms of contextual feasibility, as they see it (not psychologically static OR reducible)

Agents are active NOT passive: They adjust their projects to what they WANT

TO REALIZE and THINK THEY CAN (fallibly)

Without allowing for the above, we cannot explain what they Do and that they are

ACTIVE AGENTS

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Educational interaction in the Educational interaction in the Centralized SystemCentralized System

CentralGovernment

TeachingProfession

External InterestGroups

Educationalchange

Aggregation of demands

Politydirected

PoliticalManipula

tion

PoliticalManipula

tion

Educational Interaction in Educational Interaction in Decentralized SystemsDecentralized Systems

CentralGovernment

TeachingProfession

External InterestGroups

Educationalchange

Politydirected

PoliticalManipula

tion

PoliticalManipula

tion

ExternalTransacti

ons

InternalInitiation

Dominant Modes of Dominant Modes of ReflexivityReflexivity

Communicative ReflexivesCommunicative Reflexives

Those whose Internal Conversations need Those whose Internal Conversations need to be completed and conformed by to be completed and conformed by others, before they lead to actionothers, before they lead to action

Autonomous ReflexivesAutonomous Reflexives

Those who sustain self-contained Internal Those who sustain self-contained Internal Conversations, leading directly to actionConversations, leading directly to action

Meta-ReflexivesMeta-Reflexives

Those who are critically reflexive about Those who are critically reflexive about their own Internal Conversations and their own Internal Conversations and critical about effective action in societycritical about effective action in society

Fractured ReflexivesFractured Reflexives

Those who cannot conduct purposeful Those who cannot conduct purposeful Internal Conversations, but intensify Internal Conversations, but intensify their own distress and disorientationtheir own distress and disorientation

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