File spoon-archives/bhaskar.archive/bhaskar_1997/97-04-21.144, message 51


Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 09:47:26 +0100
From: ccw94-AT-aber.ac.uk (COLIN WIGHT)
Subject: Re: BHA: Collectives still


Much as I would like to continue this discussion, I'm afraid that I'm now
working on a different chapter. Still, Howard says much of what I would have
said in his last reply, and I particularly liked his point about the
political dimensions of the whole issue, which was something I had thought
about but hadn't managed to articulate with the clarity Howard did. Thanks.

Like Howard, I was surprised to see Tobin argue that Howard thought that
organizations can and do make decisions and so possess intentionality ,
since I took Howard to be denying this point. Howard, I think, has since
confirmed my reading (although I am not claiming that the majority rules, or
anything like that). 

As I say I am extremely busy and Howard has basically replied to Tobin. Just
some minor points. One thing that I really do want to reiterate, is that if
we adopt a critical realist ontology, differentiation should be important
and it is for this reason that I am going to argue in my thesis that we
should drop the whole conceptual grid of agents and structures. Because what
happens, and this has occured in the course of this discussion, is that such
a grid seems to force us into thinking that the social world is comprised of
ONLY agents OR structures. As I have argued I view the state as what Collier
calls a structuratum. We also have to be careful when talking about
structures, which I do see as social relations, and the elements which
comprise them, the relata. Now what ever the state is, it also includes the
relations bewteen the various relata (elements) which comprise it. So in
this sense I would argue that part of what the state is, is a structure.
Jessop aregues thus, as does Olin Wright and Christopher Lloyd (all broadly
embracing critical realism). But Tobin is right, the state also exists as a
totality, of a kind. This is what I, following Collier, call a structuratum.
I am going to post a small section of my thesis just to explain this concept
(it's only in draft form, so please be lenient with me). 

"The term structure is polysemic to such an extent that it is almost
useless. We speak of the structure of a building, a society or molecule.
Structure can also refer to a relationship between two or more entities and
we call these structured entities themselves structures, including the parts
(elements, components, relata) whose relations constitute the structure in
the first sense of the word.... However, if structures produce emergent
realities what should we call these emergent entities? Following Andrew
Collier I want to suggest 'structuratum'. Thus a given state (or entity),
due to its structuring in a certain way, would, on this reading, constitute
a structuratum. Structure, then, refers to the relations between the
constituent elements which make up a structuratum. A structuratum, we might
like to say, emerges out of the various structures which make it up, and it
has a concrete existence, whilst a 
structure, as a set of relations is abstract. 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.

Now a state might be considered such a structuratum constituted out of many
structurata (elements of the structure) which are structured in a certain
manner. One could identify many such structures which comprise the state and
the following list is not meant to be exhaustive and each of which would
have domestic or global dimensions: economic; political;  ideological;
cultural; gender and so on. In part, these structures will have different
components, but in large measure the same components related differently.
Thus, John Major, for example, may relate to his local shopkeeper as a
consumer, the cabinet as political leader, Tony Blair as ideological and
political opponent, ethnic minorities in Britain as political leader from
within an overlapping cultural system and his wife as an economic provider
(perhaps) and husband. These differing sets of relations generate differing
structural tendencies and these differing tendencies co-determine the
development of history. Thus, making a mockery of Waltz's structural monism.

This distinction between a structure and a structuratum although useful,
does not circumvent the plethora of questions which arise when one raises
the issue of the ontological status of the state. The following questions
are, again, by no means exhaustive. Is the state best defined by its legal
form, that is as a 'legal person'? Is it a thing, a subject, a social
relation, or simply a construct which operates as a forum  for political
action? Is it best defined in terms of its coercive capacities, its
institutional composition and boundaries, or its place within the
international system, or society of states? What is the relationship between
the state and law, the state and politics, the state and civil society? Can
the state be studied on its own, in isolation from both 
the domestic and international conditions of its possibility? Does the state
have any autonomy and what are its sources and limits? Clearly, answers to
these questions are  important although equally clearly, they are beyond the
scope of this thesis. However, it is possible to suggest some ways in which
to begin to rethink the state along critical realist lines using the account
of agency 
developed here."

Hope that helps. Tobin continues:

 Now, a social relationship
>would not be what it is without the people who comprise it.  But the
>relationship is not the individuals themselves, particularly if we're
>thinking sociologically and so have a network of positioned-practices in mind
>(see PON2 41 on not confusing positioned-practices with the people who occupy
>them).

Yes I agree, I have never meant to suggest otherwise, the positioned
practices can do nothing without those people and differing people will
practice differently. Hence the need to reject any approach which reifies
and ascribes to one entity, powers which actually reside in another. This is
what I take to be the truth of the TMSA, you cannot do away with embodied
human agency, but in IR where talk of states as agents and actors (no or
little distinction is ever made between these two terms) is endemic this is
exactly what happens, or, when people talk of the state they then drift
effortlessly into talking of state leaders. But state leaders are not states
and vice versa.  

>Okay, now, where do organizations fit in this picture?  They aren't the same
>as individual people, because they are groups of people. 

  General Electric is not capital, it is a
>capitalist corporation. 

Yes but if you are an employee of General Electric part of what GE is is a
set of relationship which position you as an actor.

BUT: on the other hand, looking *inside* the
>organization, organization *is* a structure of social relationships. 

Ok, so are we now in agreement that in some sense the state might be a
structure.

 An
>organization is, one might say, a miniature society, with its own
>structure-agent dialectic. General Electric *is* a specific set of
>organizational relations, a structure into which individuals can come and go.

This is exactly my point, because the same follows for the state of course,
but why when moving up a level to we then ascribe agential powers to the
totality. Tony Skillen put the point well, 'even to talk of the
'international-level' could mislead one into seeing nation states as the
agents of global political currents.'  


>
>The perspective I have been arguing is from the organization's place in
>society as a whole.  I think this is the more important perspective, since
>society sets the conditions for the organization's possibility. 

On this point Bhaskar is clear, somewher in Dialectic I think, we can
reverse the perspectival switch and view humans as setting the conditions
for society. (again, this much should be clear from the TMSA, since without
the perspectival switch we would be in danger of social determinism) 

But as I
>hope will become clear below, for many purposes we need to consider the
>internal perspective as well, especially when it comes to the State.

We seem to be agreeing more than I supposed.


 In this regard, once again organizations look
>a lot like individual agents, not like structures; and the existence of
>intentionality explains why we can hold corporations liable for their actions
>and inactions. 

Again, I would simply argue that organisation do not make decisions, but
elites within them do. The neccesity of the elites can be demonstrated by
mentally subtracting them from the organisation.

>Now, Colin emphasizes the fact that it is certain individuals within the
>organization who make the decisions, and that is of course true, even where
>decisions are made by everyone, democratically.  Likewise, it is concrete
>individuals who act on those decisions.  This is the "individualist truth,"
>as Bhaskar puts it (PON2 39-40)--but, if Colin's real point is that it is
>specific *locations* within the organizational structure which have this
>capacity, then it is also the truth when looking at the organization from the
>internal perspective, and Colin can hold it without risking individualism at
>all. 

Well this is not exactly my point. Bill Clinton can only make presedential
decisions because of a position practice system which constitites him as
president of the US. But that positioned practice system makes no decisions.
But equally, Bill Clinton in 20 years time (if still alive) and now not in
that positioned practice system will not make presidential decisions, but
will still make decisions. It is the positioned practice system we each
inhabit which enables and constrains us. But it is only _us_ that practices
in such positions. This is the individualist truth.


Anyway, enough, enough please. And many thanbks to the comments they have
been invaluable to me. 

Howard, give me a few days to get the bibliography together.

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

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

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