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Begin New Search Publishing Institution Center for Studies of Social Change Author Mustafa Emirbayer

1. Symbols, Positions, Objects: Toward a New Theory of Revolutions and Collective Action

Author:
Mustafa Emirbayer and Jeff Goodwin
Publication Date:
10-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
In 1980, Jack Goldstone wrote an influential review essay entitled "Theories of Revolution: The Third Generation." Goldstone noted that a "third generation" of theorists had emerged during the 1970s, one that placed special emphasis on the causal role of political and economic "structures" in social revolutions, especially states, transnational forces, and peasant communities. (By contrast, "second generation" theorists emphasized the role of diffuse "social strains" and their social-psychological consequences) Today, it seems increasingly apparent that this third generation, despite its impressive theoretical contributions, has largely run its course. In fact, as John Foran has recently noted, "the first signs of a new school may be appearing on the intellectual horizon." This new perspective, Foran and many other scholars agree, ought to focus much more attention on culture and ideology (as well as on agency) than did the third generation, but without losing sight of the important role played by political and economic structures.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and Science and Technology

2. What is Agency?

Author:
Mustafa Emirbayer and Ann Miscbe
Publication Date:
01-1995
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Studies of Social Change
Abstract:
The concept of agency has become a source of increasing strain and confusion in social thought. Variants of action theory, normative theory, and political-institutional analysis have defended, attacked, buried, and resuscitated the concept in often contradictory and overlapping ways. At the center of the debate, the term "agency" itself has maintained an elusive, albeit resonant, vagueness; it has given rise to a long list of associated (and often equally vague) terms, such as selthood, motivation, will, purposiveness, intentionality, choice, initiative, freedom, and creativity. Yet despite the growing numbers of recent theorists -- ranging from Jeffrey Alexander, Anthony Giddens, and Pierre Bourdieu to Jurgen Habermas and James Coleman -- who have addressed the so-called "structure and agency problem," the concept of agency itself has been surprisingly neglected. In the struggle to demonstrate the interpenetration of agency and structure, most theorists have failed to distinguish agency as an analytical category in its own right -- with distinctive theoretical dimensions and temporally variable social manifestations. The result has been a flat and impoverished conception that, when it escapes the abstract voluntarism of rational choice theory, tends to remain so tightly bound to structure that one loses sight of the different ways in which agency actually shapes social action.
Topic:
Government, Politics, and Science and Technology

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