Absolutely, we don't have to choose one over the other. But academic work
wedded to particular disciplines (lack of heterodoxy if you will) compel
people to choose one or the other, partly due to disciplinary hegemony,
theoretical domination, fashions, and changing political climate. I
have no real disciplinary allegiance so I am comfortable with both
as long as they help me with the problem I am interested in. So yes,
structures shape agency but structures also change slowly with agency.
The marxian method is very amenable with this outlook but not all of them
use it that way in their work.
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Anthony P. D'Costa, Professor
Comparative International Development
University of Washington
1900 Commerce Street
Tacoma, WA 98402, USA
Phone: (253) 692-4462
Fax : (253) 692-5718
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On Tue, 7 Nov 2006, Jim Devine wrote:
Anthony D'Costa wrote:
Parsons was a functionalist (neo if you like) where structures are
determined by (social) functions. It does not give room to agency (which
is also a problem for many marxian analysis). Dorrine's work (pomo) gives
far more agency to people, institutions, etc. So what's the difference
between functionalist (structuralist) and agency? One is too rigid to
explain much change, the other emphasizes relativism to an extreme.
why do we have to choose either structuralism (functionalist or not)
or an emphasis on agency? People's actions create structures -- or
help reproduce them over time. But structures limit individual action
and shape their perspectives and thus what they do.
A structure that doesn't shape people's actions very well to preserve
that structure slowly or rapidly goes away. (For example, in the last
years of the USSR, institutions were creating a lot of people,
especially in the upper echelons, who didn't want the system to
persist.) On the other hand, a structure that trains people well can
last for a long time (like the Roman Catholic Church).
--
Jim Devine / "Teach a parrot the terms 'supply and demand' and you've
got an economist." -- Thomas Carlyle
