Week 14: Recent Integrative Developments in Sociological Theory

The focus in the first part of this chapter is micro-macro integration. This development represents a return to the concerns of the early giants of sociological theory and a move away from the theoretical extremism, either micro or macro, that characterized much of twentieth-century American sociological theory. Little attention was given to the micro-macro issue prior to the 1980s, but during that decade and through the 1990s interest in the topic exploded. The works came from both the micro and the macro extremes as well as various points between them. Some of this work focused on integrating micro and macro theories; the rest was concerned with the linkage between micro and macro levels of social analysis. In addition to this basic difference, there are important differences among those working on integrating theories and levels.

The heart of the first part of this chapter is a discussion of several major examples of work integrating micro and macro levels of social analysis. Two works, those by Alexander and me, develop very similar micro-macro models of the social world. Although there are important differences between these works, their similar images of the social world reflect considerable consensus among those seeking to link micro and macro levels of social analysis. Collins’s effort at micro-macro integration is discussed and criticized for its micro reductionism—its tendency to reduce macro phenomena to micro phenomena.

The micro-macro section closes with a detailed examination of the work of one of the European precursors of American work on micro-macro integration—Norbert Elias. Of particular relevance are his thoughts on figurational sociology, as well as his historical-comparative study of the relationship between micro-level manners and macro-level changes in the court and the state.

The second part of this chapter deals with the largely European literature on the agency-structure linkage. This literature has a number of similarities to the American work on micro-macro integration, but there are a number of substantial differences.

Although a large number of contemporary European theorists are dealing with the agency-structure relationship, the bulk of the second part of this chapter is devoted to the work of three major examples of this type of theorizing. The first is Giddens’s structuration theory. The core of Giddens’s theory is his refusal to treat agents and structures apart from one another; they are seen as being mutually constitutive. We then turn to Bourdieu’s theory, which focuses primarily on the relationship between habitus and field. Finally, we analyze Habermas’s recent ideas on life-world and system and the colonization of the life-world by the system.

Following a discussion of these specific agency-structure works, we return to a more general treatment of this literature. We begin with a discussion of major differences in this literature, including differing views on the nature of the agent and structure. Another source of difference is the varying theoretical traditions on which these works are based. Some of these works strain in the direction of agency; others pull in the direction of the structure.

The next issue is the similarities between the agency-structure and micro-macro literature. Both literatures share an interest in integration and are wary of the excesses of micro/agency and macro/structural theories. There are, however, far more differences than similarities between this literature. There are differences in their images of the actor, the ways in which structure is conceived, the theories from which their ideas are derived, the degree to which they may be subsumed under the idea of levels of analysis, the extent to which they are embedded in a historical, dynamic framework, and the degree to which they are concerned with moral issues.