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Political Theory
Social structure is a key concept in social theory, but it is rare to find a clear exposition and discussion of the concept. A good attempt has been made by López and Scott, who take us on a tour around various concepts of social structure in sociological discussions. It is not only an exposition of different conceptualizations of social structure; the authors also have an idea. They organize the exposition and discussion around three ideas of the concept: institutional structure, relational structure and embodied structure. They start by giving a short but interesting overview of the history of the concept of ‘structure’ before it was adopted by social theory. Then comes discussion of the contributions from Spencer and, in particular, Durkheim to the concept of social structure. The authors argue that Durkheim inspired all leading approaches. His two aspects of social structure – collective relationships and collective representations – have inspired many theorists, but have never been brought together in a single theory. In the following chapters, López and Scott demonstrate how Durkheim’s collective representations have given rise to the institutional structures and how collective relationships form relational structures. Talcott Parsons is seen as the key representative of the idea of institutional structures. A relational structural approach is to be found in the works of Marx, Radcliff-Brown, Simmel and Tönnies. The two approaches are seen as complementary and, by stressing the embodied structural approach, the authors argue that the two approaches can be brought together in a more fruitful way. Some key thinkers who have made important attempts to this complementary view are Bourdieu and Foucault.
Bourdieu is one of the key figures in another interesting new social theory book – on ‘structuration’. Bourdieu, along with Giddens, is regarded as the most important representative of a ‘structurationist’ approach to social theory. Parker argues that structuration has two meanings. First, it refers in a very general sense to the generation of structures. This is a central problem to all scientific disciplines. The second meaning concerns a particular kind of solution to the problem of structuration within social sciences. It relates to the problem of the objectivity of social structures and the subjectivity of the human material. The book is essentially a discussion of how two different and more recent social theoretical positions have approached the problem. Parker contrasts Giddens and Bourdieu with the ‘post-structurationists’ M. Archer and N. Mouzelis. Can the character of the relationship between agency and structure be analysed as an identity between the two elements, as Giddens and Bourdieu seem to argue? Or must we characterize it as non-identical, as Archer and Mouzelis claim is necessary? Parker argues in favour of a post-structurationist approach. He supports his argument with a brief illustration of the work of the two historical sociologists M. Mann and W. Runciman. The book starts off with an interesting discussion of the rise of structuration theory in the early 1970s. Here, the term structuration is placed in a cultural and institutional context. Moreover, the book contains very fine expositions of Giddens, Bourdieu, Archer and Mouzelis, and an interesting assessment of the four theorists. The book has its shortcomings: notably, it neglects the more recent tradition that cannot be placed in a structurationist or post-structurationist framework, such as N. Luhmann. Luhmann provides us with a provocative although questionable alternative by arguing that the question of agency-structure is wrong in the first place. Second, he totally abandons the agency-structure problem and redefines the key problem of social theory as a problem of communication and social systems. Both books are well written and very accessible, and they will both work fine for advanced undergraduates and up.
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