Week 3: Structure and Agency

Some Case Studies

Class structure- Crompton, Class and Stratification

Class as both
socio-economic structure -occupational groups, relation to the means of production,
and
networking agents (Miliband- The State in Capitalist Society) and agents of class struggle (Thompson- The Making of the English Working Class)

The classical view of (social) structure.
The Weberian tradition in sociology: structure is something that stands over and against us, outside our control. Weber: society as an iron cage. We are trapped in our roles, jobs, duties as defined by bureaucracy. Society as production line. Fordism.
C. Wright Mills- in modernity people feel trapped in jobs, career structures
Weber- modernity means the routinisation of charisma- loss of spontaneity. We become trapped in our routines. These become bureaucratised- governed by contractual agreements- legal-rational authority. This is seen as a power over the individual possessed by state and employer

The Enlightenment Legacy
People as capable of independent thought and action; rational planning- social engineering. Utopian ideas- the perfect society, city etc. (Garden Cities –Ebenezer Howard). Hence people as agents

The agency- structure dilemma. Frankenstein’s Monster. People create something which then gets out of control and comes to dominate them. Hence the riddle of the relationship between agency and structure. The monstrous- that unknown aspect of society which threatens us –structure out of control

Different views of structure
Berger- Invitation to Sociology The individual in society and society in the individual.
Goffman- Presentation of Self in Everyday Life –the individual exists as an individual agent but also as a team member i.e. expressing the aims of the team i.e. the structure


Contemporary Sociology
The micro and the macro…is there a link?
Giddens’ ‘trick’- dual aspect sociology. Gestalt. Routines as basic to social life. Routines as duality: people doing things, people’s lives structured by what they are doing. Therefore no separation between agency and structure.