Date: Mon, 21 Apr 1997 09:37:25 +0100
From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk (COLIN WIGHT)
Subject: Re: BHA: Fetishism [3]


(An uncorrected post, apologies)

Don't you people have any Work to do? Strewth, no sooner do I commit myself
to leaving this issue alone than a host of replies emerges. Anyway, it seems
to me that we have hit on an subject which is kinda central to the CR approach.

To reply to Howie first:


>"[...]social collectivities, such as states, associations, business
>corporations, foundations, [...] must be treated as solely the resultants
>and modes of organization of the particular acts of individual persons,
>since these alone can be treated as agents [...]"

But this is exactly what I am NOT saying. I have _never_, _never_ argued
that states 'must be treated as SOLELY the resultants.....' To argue that
the TMSA is framed around the notion of Human agency is not to say that the
structures aren't causally implicated. Human agents act in structured
context, and both elements are indispensable to any adequate sociological
explanation. The point is, as RB makes clear, that there is an ontological
hiatus between agents and structures (but what this means is a different
matter) and that we must categorically distinguish between the powers
pertaining to agents (who are marked by the notion of intentionality) and
structures (who are not).

Equally, however, as I have pointed out previously RB is trying to sail
between methodological individualism and methodological holism, and getting
the balance right is not easy. But there is no reason to presume that he
would reject everything Weber said on this issue. What Weber does not
sufficiently appreciate is the way the relations between individual and the
products of those individuals and the relations between those products are
necessary for any sociological issue. 

In a previous post Howie also registered some unease at my claim that
relations are abstract. However, when I first posted this, some weeks ago, I
followed it immediately by:

 'We need, however, to be careful here, for structure as an abstract entity
does not refer merely to a concept nor yet a theoretical entity. Relations
really exist, independently of our concept of them. They are abstract only
in the sense that they exist as relations between their relata.'

The relations between myself and my partner are abstract in this sense, but
this does not mean that they are not real, nor causally implicated in our
interactions.

Then from Howie:

>Finally, I would be interested in hearing more from Colin (whenever it is
>convenient, of course) on how bringing the individual back in helps him deal
>with issues in the field of IR. While I appreciate his general point that
>simply treating the state as an individual writ large has serious negative
>consequences, I'd be curious to see how the differences in theoretical
>approches might influence analysis of particular cases.

This is a really difficult (well not so much difficult as complex) one to
answer in such a forum as this. Part of the problem for my discipline is
that its whole analytical rationale has been framed on what is known as the
'level-of-anaylsis problem'. I simply haven't got the time to go into the
ways the discipline misconstrues this as the agent-structure problem, but
suffice to say that the LOA problem is basically portrayed as this:

International Structures

        Vs

States

        Vs

Bureacracies

        Vs

Individuals

Given a certain research problem on this LOA one can quite legitmately take
the individual and see how they interact in the structured setting of a
Bureacracy. Here the Bureacracy functions as the structure with individuals
as agents. Move up a level, and we drop the individual and the Bureacracy
now appears as our agent with the state functioning as the structured
context. Move up another level and the state now appears as our agent with
the international structures (normally construed as anarchy) as the
structure. On any level what is agent and what is structure changes. (you
can probably also see how on this model the individual are only affected by
international structures insofar as these structures are mediated through
the state, thus giving primacy to the state, both analytically and
normatively). My argument is that attention to the TMSA disrupts this
picture in a fundamental way. In its place I would probably introduce
something like Derek Layder's research map. which has four levels, and I
can't remember them all now, but on this model individuals are constituted
by a complex of socail structures some of which will be local, domestic and
global in nature (global capital for example). Also there is a normative
(emancipatory) point in that the relations between global forces impact on
groups within the state and are enabled by groups within the state, thus CR
allows IR scholars to explore how gender relations, for example, impact upon
international outcomes and vice versa. On the LOA model such interchange
must be mediated by the levels above and below. Hope this makes some sense.

Anyway, in the final analysis, whatever our disagreements, it seems everyone
has agreed that individuals simply won't go away. For Tobin I suppose this
means that for my discipline, even if Tobin is happy to talk of the state as
an agent, he would have to supplement this with the individual agents he
agrees are so necessary. 

Intentionality:

Basically, I accept Howard's reading here, which is basically RB's.
Specifically, I totally endorse Howard's point that, 'I don't think there is
such a thing as "non-intentional human action,". This is not to deny the
unconscious of course, but the distinction here is that between real reasons
and rationalisations. An agent must be able to give an accout of their
activities such that it might be described as an action, if not then it
could not be described as such. Falling of a cliff is not the same as
jumping, even if the end result is the same. However, the real reason why an
individual might jump of a cliff may not be the rationalisation they
themselves employ, but their jumping could not be described as such without
the rationalisation. The only other example I could give is RB's notion of
an action being overdetermined, such as a firing squad. Here the decision to
shoot by a reluctant member of the firing squad, faced with the threat of
being shot themselves if they fail to shoot, can be said to be
overdetermined, even if we might be straining to say that they intended to
shoot. 

 Howards also argues, however,

>Where does the meaning exist?  It exists in practice and in the
>material institutional embodiments of practice.  Books, newspapers,
>taking out the garbage, collecting it, etc.  A common decision is
>the same.  What is done is what it is.  Practice fixes meaning. 
>A,B,C and D act.  They announce their intention is to do X.  But
>because of their practice we know this is pretense and that ABCD's
>intention was to do Y.  Maybe they all thought their intention was
>to do X.

Here again I think there is some confusion between unintended consequences
and intended action. If ABCD all get together and have differing viewpoints
but reach a compromise (X), then it is they who have reached the compromise,
and X would not get done if they had not compromised. Where does this
compromise exist? How can the act X get done if ABCD refuse to compromise
and hold onto their original positions? If it still gets done but there had
been no compromise we would not say that X was intended, but that it was an
unintended consequence.
 
>Since meaning is a social form, I think we can speak of an
>organization's intention. 

I am not sure how the move from meaning to intention is being made here. And
once again, where does the organisations intention reside? What does it mean
to say Union carbide intended the accident at Bohpal? what actually happened
was that certain embodied persons decided (under structural pressures) to
cut corners to make profits to pursue narrowly concieved self-interest. 

Anyway, at times I have felt I was talking to myself, since many of the
concerns raised are also the ones I myself have had. I am still arguing that
based on the TMSA (which is predicated on human agency) that the state is
not an agent. We talk of states acting but to return to Jessop we must
remember that '[i]t is not the state which acts: it is always specific sets
of politicians and state 
officials located in specific parts of the state system.'  

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----

Colin Wight
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth
SY23 3DA

--------------------------------------------------------



     --- from list bhaskar-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---