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are forced into a false methodology of bracketing – focusing away from - structures while
studying agents and vice versa. They must “bracket structure while doing historical
analysis and then must bracket history while doing structural analysis” (Doty 1997:374).
Second, the IR structurationist approach is shown to fall into contradiction by
defining agents and structures as separate yet composed of the same rules and norms.
The question arises as to whether rules are essentially deep generative properties
of enduring structures or intersubjective understandings of agents in their
immediate and local practices; or if they are both. If they are both, the
conceptualizing them as the definitive features of structures cannot be entirely
correct; i.e. if agents and structures are defined by some of the same properties,
then how are we to differentiate them (Doty 1997:371)?
Doty (1997) concludes that these contradictions cannot be overcome by any theory and
that history is undecidable, although certain kinds of analysis remain fruitful.
The theory presented here will make progress in overcoming the bracketing
problem. I will argue that humans’ capacity to have acted otherwise than they did is due
to their capacity for intention and reflection, and does not imply that agency is not
constrained or enabled by structures. I will define both agency and structures to be
composed of narratives that entail rules and norms, and argue that it is unnecessary to
eliminate the intersection between agents and structures for agents to retain certain kinds
of autonomy.
Approach and method
Social actions are situated. Each social action takes place in the middle of a
process of interaction in which demands upon the actor from other actors are outstanding,
earlier demands have been made, fulfilled, or rejected. Capabilities are forming and
decaying, coalitions are converging and disintegrating. Opportunities are emerging,
options are being foreclosed. Rules, inferences, and stories have arisen and fallen
accordingly. There is very little room or time for fresh deliberation. Subjects are
dependent on their past judgments, and they have only a limited capacity to test these
judgments. And yet, the breakdown of practices, rules, and narratives is always possible,
making new ones possible.
Convention