Structuration

Structuration theory is built upon the premise of the duality of structure. Though it is better named the duality of structure and agency, given the concepts refusal to give either primacy over the other. The duality of structure stands in direct contract to traditionally positivistic theories of structure that argued that structures were beyond human control - structural primacy - and, interpretivist theories of agency that argued action creates structures - agentic primacy. Contrasting the theoretical concepts of the duality of structure with that of structural dualism offers a more sophisticated comparison of structures that moves beyond a dominance-of-one approach that traditional theories produce. The former of which is a foundational pillar of structuration theory states that the "structural properties of social systems exist only insofar as the forms of social conduct are reproduced chronically across time and space".  The conduct of agents that is repeatedly reproduced comes from a material grounding in the practical consciousness - which is in of itself grounded within time-space. Said practical consciousness extends reflexivity of the agent beyond the mere discursive ability to state why and what they do. Practical consciousness becomes a site of knowledagbility of an agents ability to know why and what they do. Returning to the earlier quote by Giddens, social systems are expressions of time-space social relations, as such a change in the time-space alters social relations. An altering of social relations also alters structure, as the duality of structure "is a medium and outcome of reproduction of practices". The interdependency of agents and structures mutually engaging in and enacting social systems is foundational to the theory of structuration. This interdependence does however make it difficult to understand causal relations.

A dualist notion of structure does not disagree with this process of reification across time-space but does make an explicit point of diversion through its emphasis that structures presuppose agentic social reproduction. A dualist notion therefore rejects the foundational structuralist belief that structure and agency are interdependent. The most compelling proponents of a dualist notion (Archer) of structure simplify the relationship between structure and agency by solely focusing on the constraining limitations that structural frameworks place of agentic action. Archer's dualism ignores, and as such lacks sophistication to explore the enabling influences that structural frameworks have upon social relations. By viewing all action as reaction to structural constraint, for consistency sake you must believe that structure presupposes social relations through action of the agent. This particular dualist view is a naïve one that fails to account for the role of enabling social relations that provides the possibility to foresee circumstances whereby an interaction of structure and social relations enables the reconstruction and establishment of new structural frameworks. Whilst not in of itself problematic to purport dualism over a duality of structure, the fact that Archer in particular doesn't appear to adequately express the exact relationship that individuals and societies share makes it difficult to accept their proposed argument that structure pre-dates actions that transform it through activity dependence (Archer).

Critiques of structuration theory such as Urrury and Thompson state that this sophistication of enabling and constraining forces of structures makes structures as a concept vaporous. By providing a system that allows for constraint and enablement, structures as rules and resources, systems as products of these structures, and agents as mediators in the production of social relations all appear to collapse into one another. Giddens' interpretation of structuration makes it impossible to discuss matters of cause and effect as both structure and agency operate in a circular relationship that forges the agent. This critique only holds if we retain Giddens' original theoretical orthodoxy. Healy proposes thinking of social structures as sets of relations and relational properties which supervene on individuals and their actions. With this view, structures themselves still are allowed to have properties independent of agents' intentions and a clearer causal picture emerges between structures and agents, whilst simultaneously providing an ability to explain both constraint and enabling influences through time-space (Healy). Whilst this view does abandon the view that structure and agents are interdependent, it does not reduce structures to the whims of the agents. Instead, by incorporating the view that people that were make the now it maintains that supervenience and causal dependence operate within the bounds of structure and agents being diachronically developed through social relations over time.

Mouzelis provides an attempt to salvage Gidden's application of structure as rules and resources by rejecting a duality of structure for failing to account for all manner of ''relationships subjects have vis-à-vis rules and resources''. He does not reject duality outright - he instead reincorporates a form of dualism in order to appropriately account for all forms of subject-object relationships. The result produces a four-fold analytical distinction of subject-object relationships: actors will unthinkingly enact rules (paradigmatic duality). This comes straight from Gidden's practical consciousness. Or actors contemplate rules (paradigmatic dualism). Actors may also be vital to an interaction-setting or game (syntagmatic duality). Or be powerless to affect it (syntagmatic dualism) as those in occupations of subordinate positioning are so often situated. Mouzelis' attempt to re-imagine Giddens provides a distance based measure to individuals agentic influence upon structure and thus provides a relevancy of power hierarchy to the discussion of actor and structure. In doing so however and because he also rejects the notion of co-presence as the defining feature of micro-macro distinction (as he should, a group of 6 barristers have the potential to influence macro matters much more so than a group of 6 baristas), this results in a breakdown of the syntagmatic duality compared to the paradigmatic dualism relationship, as for macro level actors this influence that they hold is ''precisely the ability to change the rules which structure interaction between micro-actors''. All of this results in a suggestion that social systems are made up of institutions that are symbolically constructed and maintained to varying degrees of durability by actors (1996) however in order to state this seriously, he also is required to state that said durability of structures lies not in their norms but ''in the fact that, on the level of social integration, powerful interest groups support them more or less purposively'' (1996: 3). Not only does this veer dangerously close to a populist interpretation of power, it is also theoretically circular. For macro-actors to have power to reorganise rules and deploy their resources, they must be at the top of a social hierarchy. This hierarchy is defined as the power to do something and that something is determined from the position someone is in within the hierarchy. ''The power of macro-actors is the power to change rules, but we can only establish who has that power by relying on a pre-existing picture of the structure'' (Healy). Asking where the hierarchy originates leads the investigator on a circular discovery eventually leading back to where originally starting from.

As such, whilst both Archer and Mouzelis both attempt (albeit in different ways) to salvage and re-interpret Gidden's original theories of structuration. Especially in regards to the duality of structure and structure as rules and resources. Both fail, the former for a lack of concise interpretation on the exact relationship between agent and structure in their dualist framework. The latter for falling into a circular theoretical trap. The ideas proposed by Healy do diverge substantively from that of Gidden's original intentions, however it appears to adequately account for structures as relations in a way that allows causal mechanisms to follow through acts of supervenience.

The application of this conceptualisation of structure and agency to youth transitions is simply explained by re-imagining an existing example laid out in Healy. By looking at the present (or in the case of this thesis, specific points of time defined by birth cohorts) and comparing to other actions or structures in the past we can explain existing social relations of the present time. Take the social stratification makeup of a society at time t. Its form supervenes on the population here present. It has properties which can have affects on that population, constraining or enabling actions, like what economic activity an individual enters into after mandatory schooling. Attempts to change its properties may be frustrated despite the best efforts, intentions, and actions of everyone in the population because the existence of individuals living at time t are dependent on the actions of past individuals living at time t-1.

Whilst traditional structuration theory does suffer from critiques, primarily concerned with its definition of structure and the duality of it, the theory itself still provides useful theoretical orientations to extract from when attempting to explain empirical phenomena and can usefully be conjoined to other social theory to explicate social processes. Gidden's social reproduction across space time presupposes the reflexive monitoring of agents participation in social activity. The knowledgeability of the agent is due to this, always bounded by the space time contexts of existing social relations. This particular point made by Giddens allows structuration theory ameliorates itself with a theory of Bounded Agency (Coleman???). Both theories argue that the agent and their decisions are bounded to a specific socio-historical context.

Processes of routinization extend this point further. Routine, as defined via the practical consciousness presents a set of continuity and regularity to individual agents actions which reify social institutions and relations. The study of routinised acts is a study of the heart of social relations. The economic activity of individual agents is a foundational routinised act for all individuals that are considered non-children in a given society. Identifying clusters of individuals that engage in similar organised routinised behaviour through a lens of economic activity provides a basis to understand a societies given social relations.

Routinisation can also readily be synthetised with social theories of rational action to produce an adequate theoretical explanation of the why. Routinised acts of those in similar clusters can be understood as rationally acted or unacted forms of social relations dependent upon the given individual. This in turn synthetises with Gidden's distinction between practical and recursive forms of consciousness. A working class child may grow up and instead of taking the risk of staying on education may take the immediate decision to enter into employment as a form of risk aversion that is actively discursively acted upon, or they may do so out of a practical routinisation because of a familiarity in that process by past lives from their parental figures etc. These acts can be thought of through differing lens of consciousness whilst maintaining a level (albeit a weak level) of rationality through risk aversion. This is one example, that is meant to provide evidence for structuration theory as a place of multiple theoretical fusions to explicate human behaviour.