“You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother” – (Apocryphally) attributed to Albert Einstein.
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| Just think of "Structure" (material wealth, society’s rules and norms) as a building, such as a library, which allows one activity to be done, such as studying for an exam, but prevents another from taking place (e.g. a full-fledged football match). While "Agency" is a reference to the agent/person who wants to carry out the activity. |
One of the ideas that is fundamental to analysis in
the social sciences, is the so-called “Structure – Agency Debate.” “Structure”
simply means all the constraints there are that influence and limit the
capacity of individuals to act autonomously. Acting autonomously is the
“Agency” side of the debate. It is a “Debate” because one set of thinkers
assert that structures are more important in shaping human behaviour, while the
other set argues that agency trumps structures, as actors can always find ways around
the limits imposed on them by the structures. The structures in question then
are society’s rules and norms and, material wealth for example. Poverty,
insofar as it can prevent one from travelling to the city centre though there
is no rule against this, is a structural constraint for the poor individual.
The “Structure – Agency Debate” is so important to the
social sciences that it’s one of those concepts that has to be mastered in the
first semester by the politics, sociology, law, history or international
relations undergraduate, and it stays with them. When you see the most
decorated academic on TV, answering questions about the endless war in Syria,
the fall of the Roman Empire, the rise of ISIS or even on Climate Change, you
can be assured that his point of reference is the “Structure – Agency Debate.”
However, he assumes that everyone knows that he has already factored in the
Structure – Agency considerations in his answers, so does not explicitly
mention this.
The easiest way to think of the “Structure – Agency
Debate” is as illustrated in the pictures included in this blog entry. Just
think of "Structure" (material wealth, society’s rules and norms) as
a building, such as a library, which allows one activity to be done, such as
studying for an exam, but prevents another from taking place (e.g. a
full-fledged football match). While "Agency" is a reference to the
agent/person who wants to carry out the activity. But the debate is not
resolved that easily. As human beings (agents) built that library (structure)
in the first place, it follows that “Agency” influences “Structure” as well.
This is where we enter the “Chicken – Egg Dilemma” territory at full speed. The
contemporary sociologist, Anthony Giddens, has sought to rescue us from this
dilemma by proposing a “Structuration Theory,” whereby “Structure” and “Agency”
are to be seen as two sides of the same coin and not necessarily opposite
elements.
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| Just think of "Structure" (material wealth, society’s rules and norms) as a building, such as a library, which allows one activity to be done, such as studying for an exam, but prevents another from taking place (e.g. a full-fledged football match). While "Agency" is a reference to the agent/person who wants to carry out the activity. |
