Agent Structure Debate In International Relations

An essay in method millenium 12 summer 1983 pp.

Agent structure debate in international relations. Does not make a direct contribution to our substantive understanding of international relations. Wendt two theories neorealism and world system theory strongly influence con temporary academic discourse about international relations. Andrews bruce social rules and the state as a social actor world politics 27 07 1975 pp. In his view structuration theory is a relational solution to the agentstructure problem that conceptualizes agents and structures as mutually constituted or codetermined entities the agent structure problem p.

The agent structure debate has proceeded in international relations for some time now. The agent structure problem in international relations theory alexander e. Cox robert gramsci hegemony and international relations. Structuration theory by itself.

The ontological issues concerns the nature of both agents and structures and because they are in some way mutually implicating of their interrelationship 339. Beyond the domestic. Both claim to provide structural explanations of how states behave in the international system. Agent and structure are interdependent co constitutive etc.

In the subfield of foreign policy analysis fpa as well as in the wider discipline of international relations ir an issue that has vexed analysts from different theoretical perspectives is that which is referred to as the agency structure problem. There are two issues involved in this debate one is ontological and the other epistemological. Scholars tend to take either a policy or a process approach to fpa the former focusing on providing an explanation of the. Agent structure debate 443 gramme 6 alexander wendt s recent discussion of the relevance of struc turation theory to the study of international relations comes to a similarly qualified conclusion.

Ruggie continuity and transformation.