Anthony Giddens . British sociologist whose structuring theory is one of the leading contemporary approaches to overcoming the analytical divide between agency and social structure.
Giddens is also a prominent public intellectual in Britain, head of the London School of Economics, and co-founder of the Fund for Economic Culture . In the early part of his career, he owed his fame to a series of strong exegetical readings of classical social theory, such as Capitalism and Modern Social Theory ( 1971 ), Politics and Sociology in the Thought of Max Weber ( 1972 ) , and Emile Durkheim ( 1978 ).
Summary
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- 1 Theories
- 2 Thought
- 3 Works
- 4 Sources
Theories
Giddens’ theory of structuring, emerged in the course of a series of works from the 1970s and early 1980s , including the essays collected in the new rules of the sociological method ( 1976 ) and central problems of social theory ( 1979 ). They are summarized more systematically in the Constitution of the Society ( 1984). Theory of the structuring of steps backwards the long debate in the social sciences about the relative priority given to social structure and individual action. Rather than taking sides, Giddens argues that structures and agency cannot be conceived separately from each other. Structures are neither independent nor of the determining actors of their behavior. Rather, they are a set of norms and competencies that the actors draw upon and that, together, they tend to reproduce over time. In other words, social structures are not only “facts” that limit human action, but exist only to the extent that they are recognized by agents.
Thought
Giddens recognizes the importance of historical change and the difficulty of integrating into an account that seems to agree only to individuals a margin of improvisation within a relatively stable set of rules. Although some recent works (The Nation-State and Violence, 1985 : Modernity and Identity of Being, 1991 ; The transformation of intimacy, 1992) contains many elements of a historical sociology, a full account of how to change societies remains difficult in his writing, and structuring continues to produce skeptics at this point. Giddens has also emerged as a strong critic of postmodernity, arguing that the present is best understood as a continuation of the long-term trajectory of modernization and globalization.
His other works include Consequences of Modernity (1990) and The Third Way and Its Critics ( 1998 ), the latter of which describes an apparently new adaptation of global capitalism and the welfare functions of the state.
Plays
Anthony Giddens is the author of more than 34 books and 200 articles. This is a selection of some of his most important works.
- Capitalism and modern social theory. An analysis of the writings of Marx. Durkheim and Max Weber. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1971)
- Politics and Sociology in Max Weber( 1972 )
- The class structure in advanced societies( 1973 )
- The New Rules of Sociological Method: Positive Critique of Interpretive Sociology( 1976 )
- Political Theory(1977)
- Emile Durkheim(1978)
- Central Problems in Social Theory(1979)
- A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism(1981)
- Sociology(1982), (textbook of sociological discipline)
- Profiles and Critiques in Social Theory(1983)
- The Constitution of Society: Basis for Structuring Theory(1984)
- The Nation-State and Violence(1985)
- Consequences of modernity(1990)
- Modernity and identity of the self: the self and society in contemporary times(1991)
- Beyond the Left and the Right: The Future of Radical Politics(1994)
- The transformation of intimacy: sexuality, love and eroticism in modern societies(1995)
- The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy(1998)
- A Runaway World: The Effects of Globalization on Our Lives( Runaway World , 1999)
- The third way and its critics(2000)
- On the Edge: Life in Global Capitalism(2001)
- Europe in the global age(2007)
- The Politics of Climate Change(2010)
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