Page 97 - Cultural Theory

Edwards-3516-Ch-05.qxd 5/9/2007 5:56 PM Page 86

••• John Scott •••

the large-scale features of modern societies and the issues of intimacy and self-
identity that arise in contemporary modernity (Giddens, 1991; 1992).

Culture as Structure

Giddens’ social theory is an explicit attempt to address a contradiction that has, he
feels, bedevilled serious discussion of the direction that should be taken by sociolog-
ical analysis. Throughout its history, and especially since the ending of the structural
functionalist monopoly, theorists in sociology have tended to divide between those
who accord analytical priority to the actions of individuals and those who gave this
priority to systems and social wholes (O’Neill, 1973).
Those who argue that the focus of attention must be on individuals and their social
actions have seen these as the building blocks for larger social processes. Weber and the
symbolic interactionists of the Chicago School have been the main inspiration,
though rational choice theorists in mainstream economics and the social exchange
theorists who have followed them in sociology have advocated the same position.
These ‘methodological individualists’ and ‘action theorists’ have argued that social
organization and social institutions must be seen as the direct and knowledgeable
creations of acting subjects. Individual actors are free agents, creatively producing
the variety of social forms through which they live. All ‘macro’ phenomena are
reducible to these micro-level processes.
The opposing position emphasizes the autonomous properties of ‘society’ and
‘social facts’. Central advocates of this view have been Durkheim and such structural
sociologists as Radcliffe-Brown, Parsons, and the structural functionalists, though
it is found also in many strands of Marxism. These ‘methodological collectivists’ and
‘system theorists’ have emphasized the objectivity of social institutions and the
external and constraining powers that they exercise over individuals and their
actions. Social systems are deterministic forces, moulding individuals to their needs,
and they cannot be reduced to the actions of individuals.
Giddens holds that this theoretical dualism between individual actions and social
systems, between agency and determination, is misconceived. Sociologists do not
have to choose one side or the other in this theoretical dispute. Actions and systems,
he argues, are interdependent, and satisfactory theories of them must be comple-
mentary. Reconstructed and recast, the two bodies of theory will fit together seam-
lessly. Sociology should be working towards the integration of these two strands of
theory into a single explanatory framework.
While action and system theories can be seen as two aspects of a larger theory, it
is not necessary for each and every sociologist to work at this larger theory. Much
sociological work can be undertaken on the basis of a methodological ‘bracketing’.
This is a means of analytical isolation in which questions that occur in one area are
temporarily put to one side in order to study issues relating to the other. Actions
can often be analysed without taking any direct account of the complexities that
arise at the system level. A researcher can, for example, study individual action and

• 86 •