Mike H. O'Donnell

Structure and agency

The relationship of social structure to individual and collective agency has been central to sociology from the outset. It remains so in period in which poststructuralists have challenged the idea of stable social structures and even the usefulness in social science of the concept of structure itself. The historical trajectory of the debate about the respective importance of structure and agency and the relationship between the two provides the narrative context of this collection of articles.

Radically Reconstituting the Subject: Social Theory and Human Nature

This article analyses some assumptions about human nature and subject agency apparent in two approaches to social theory: liberalism, particularly Giddens, and structuralism/poststructuralism, particularly Foucault. Feminist and Critical Theory are also drawn on. Disagreements between these approaches in relation to subject agency and structural influence are noted but an attempt is made to find complementary and common ground and to that extent to reconcile them. In so far as an integrated theoretical approach is achievable from the work of Foucault and Giddens, it is suggested that the term radical liberal best describes it. Nevertheless, this term sits more comfortably with Giddens than Foucault. I seek critical leverage on both thinkers by adopting an explicitly Freudian view of human capacities and a politically egalitarian perspective.