Download The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences

The Concept of Structure in Social
Sciences
Ali Murat Özdemir*
Abstract: Despite its frequent use in the social sciences literature,
the content of the concept of structure still maintains its ambiguity.
When the literature is examined as a whole, there exist numerous
theoretical approaches, instead of a single comprehensive theory of
social structure that explains the concept of social structure. Different theoretical approaches define the concept in different ways. It is
evident that in theoretical practice, these different approaches are
rarely investigated with reference to the theoretical effects of the
concept of structure. This article focuses on the various modes of
conceptualization of the term ‘structure’ in the context of two different structural traditions, namely American and European approaches.
Key Words: Structuration, structuralism, structural sociology, critical realism.
INTRODUCTON
When the interest the concept of structure captures in the
field of social sciences and the references it receives are considered, it is striking that the explanations on the content of the
concept and attempts to understand it are highly limited. Even
though this can be explained to some extent by the fact that
while the content of the concept is determined by the studies
conducted in the fields of political philosophy and linguistics,
its use is realized in a wide range of fields of study within the
social sciences discipline, a call for in-depth studies on the
concept should not be remained unanswered. As for the relevant Turkish literature, which is limited to a few number of
translations and fewer number of copyrighted works in terms of
debates on its content, such a call can be said to be more ac-
* Assoc. Prof., Hacettepe University, FEAS, Department of International Relations.
TODAĐE’s Review of Public Administration, Volume 5 No2 June 2011, p. 1-39.
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tual compared to the Western literature.1 Not focusing on the
theoretical effects of the concept of structure, i.e. the effects of
the explanation modalities used on the relationship established
with production relations, is the major factor that differs the
Turkish literature from the Western literature.
This study reviews the content of the concept of structure by
giving prominence to a series of basic arguments on the concept in the study fields within social sciences. Different theorization modalities analyzed in the literature were not approached
in a consuming manner; these were subjected to a selective
evaluation by focusing on the use of the concept of structure in
the fields of study that fall within the scope of the disciplines of
public administration, international political economics and international relations and on the theoretical effects of its use.
The approaches that were subjected to a selective evaluation
have been presented by the critical interpretation method, instead of simple definition. To this end, firstly, the meaning ascribed to the concept by American Structural Sociology. Secondly, Continental European approaches were discussed. While
presenting Continental European approaches, current arguments on the theoretical effects of the concept of structure
were taken into consideration, which thus led to the need for
using two sub-titles. In this context, under the first sub-title of
the latter subject, the meaning ascribed to the concept of
structure and under the second sub-title, the Structuralist Marxism’s approach to the concept – and the meanings ascribed by
Structuralist-derived approaches, though not literally overlap
with pure and Structuralist Marxism – were scrutinized. The
study was concluded by emphasizing the importance of the
implications of meanings ascribed to the concept of structure
on our practices of perceiving and intervening in the world.
1
Despite the relevant Turkish literature is less extensive than its Western examples, it involves a number studies on in the fields of science of politics, anthropology, linguistics, sociology and ve international relations (see: Bkz. Acar-Savran (2006), Çelebi (2001), Gökçe
(1996, 2007), Kıray (1982), Kongar (1999). Yet the mentioned studies were not included in
the scope of the analysis, as they did not focus on the theoretical effects of various structure
conceptualizations.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
3
The US-Based Approaches
In its broadest sense, structure is a term that imposed itself
in the effort to think rigorously about the way things or events
get inscribed in a consciousness proposing grids or patterns
without which they would not even appear (Rabate, 2003: 5).
Questioning is usually conducted in such a way so as to cover
the arguments on the ontology of the given consciousness,
and how this consciousness can know. The concept comes into use as a manifestation of a general attitude that criticizes
the approaches that overlook the system while frequently interpreting the events. However, the theoretical expressions of
the attitude mentioned differ. Even though the concept of
structure is given different contents by different theoretical approaches, it can be ascertained that the structure-oriented
studies tend to give prominence to or to emphasize investigating synchronization, i.e. various elements comprising a structure and their interaction, against diachrony.
The concept of structure developed within the context of
studies of two deep-rooted traditions from two different geographical areas throughout the 20th century: the US-based approach and Continental European tradition (see: Baert, 1998;
Harland, 1993; Sturrock, 2003; Swingewood, 1998; West,
1998). One of the fields of study obviously marked by the USbased approach is the American Structural Sociology. It is possible to detect deep influence of Durkheimian in the intellectual
roots of this approach. However, Durkheimism actually entered
into the American tradition by Merton and Talcott Parsons’s
studies, thus via their interpretations (Wight, 2006). The lateperiod Parsons’s holistic, anti-psychological point of view
brought a systematic society theory, which was comprehended
in an integrated manned, against the anti-theoretical sociological empiricism that prevailed until the 1940s. Parsons was also
in search of a theoretical position against the Marxist understanding of structure. His studies emphasized the voluntarist
aspects of action and involved a functionalism that focused on
the roles of individuals. The Parsonian approach with traces of
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Durkheimism, which internalized the historical foundation of
society as a process and structure in a static social solidarity
and social consensus, found, with its current stance, an orthodox place in the American sociology in the 1950s (see: Koehler, 1971; Swingewood, 1998: 268-271). The style of analysis
mentioned excluded the studies conducted based on structuralized patterns of social exchange, social power relations and
finally, the themes such as change and conflict (Baert, 1998:
50-51). Meanwhile, Merton, while defining universalism and
communism as scientific myths based on the connection he
established between impersonality and consensus, spoke from
this tradition, which was in search of a non-Marxist structure
(Alexander, 1995: 114).
The American Structural Sociology internalized Durkheim,
ignoring one of the two meanings he ascribed to social facts
(see: Sturrock, 2003; Tiryakiyan, 1962). Durkheim’s concept of
facts of social morphology2 (the volume and density of population, birth and death rates, ecology) are “collective representations consisting of collective beliefs, values, norms and conventions as well as “collective relationships” that are interdependencies and antagonisms among individuals that are formed into divisions of labor and patterns of solidarity. According to
Merton and Talcott Parsons, social fact refers to the set of
facts, which Durkheim exclusively used as the facts of social
morphology (Baert, 1998: 14, Scott, 2001: 80).
The production of social facts exclusively from social
morphology allowed this tradition to construct structure for
the actor as an external mechanism. Thus, the isolated reactions of the actor, who entered into the completed structure
and exposed to its restrictive effects could be scientifically examined. When the attitude of considering structure as an external mechanism is combined with the American Structural
Sociology’s epistemology that developed in the context of
2
In its common acamedic use, the term social morphology refers to systematic knowledge
production modality for determining forms composed of observable and measurable quantities resorted to while defining a given social or ethnic group or social layers of this given
group (and the discipline dealing with this task).
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
5
methodological individualism, some sort of psychologism
(which is interested not in motives of the object, but observable
objective consequences of behavior) would be inevitable, and
this happened, as expected: The actor existed before structure,
and was exposed to the restrictive effects of structure. Now, the
measurement of the individual’s reactions to external factors
(with the explanatory references to the same individual-subject
strategies) could be considered a legal target.
There are different definitions by the US-based approaches,
albeit preserving common characteristics within the framework
given above (Hawkes, 2004; Eagleton 2004a; Giddens, 2000;
Strurrock 2003). Among these definitions, the definition of
“structure as patterns of aggregate behavior that are stable
over time” comes to prominence (Wight, 2006: 127). This definition involves agents/actors as well. According to this definition, first the given individuals take action, then these actions
start to display an order, and eventually, structure comes out.
Structure, once it becomes clear, now can pose restrictive effects on actors, who have created it with their behavior. When
social behavior patterns, institutions and organizations are accepted as abstractions obtained from behaviors of individuals,
this given definition of structure and methodological individualism will be compatible with each other. In that case, structure,
as the environment, where connections are materialized between real people, who take action, will not embody collective
representations such as the state, economy, culture and social
class; social consequences will be approached as the products
of external effects that are assumed to create the existing state.
Then, in some of the expansions made based on this definition of structure, being of structure, which is accepted as an
abstraction (taking as starting point the view that abstractions individually cannot produce causal effect) is imperiled
as an independent variable as well.
In some versions of the US-based approach, structure is
conceptualized as “law-like regularities that govern the behavior
of social facts” (Porpora, 1998; Tiryakiyan, 1962). Waltz’s
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methodological3 structuralism that explains the consequences
of social facts by terms of structure (explaining social facts with
social facts), but which excludes the effect of structure on the
construction and shaping of its own elements, can be examined under this second definition. If we observe regularities
among social facts (demographic or ecological data sets), then
we can speak about the existence of a structure. Here, the idea
of structure as an external restrictive environment for agency/actor once more manifests itself. However, in this definition,
unlike the previous definition, the Durkheimian approach,
which argues that social facts must be explained by social facts
is determinant and the explanations made taking as starting
point the elements of structure (like competitiveness of human
being by his/her nature) are excluded from theorization. In the
said case, psychological expansions are excluded; methodological individualism becomes invalid as a method and eventually,
the concept of structure, by its form we discuss here, turns into
a method (Wight, 2006: 127). Both definitions from the US
tradition, which we discuss in the context of the US tradition,
are based on a morphological understanding of social fact. As
the morphological approach to social facts imagines structure
as an entity exterior to the elements composing it, it constitutes
an obstacle to the effort to include exchanges between structure and agency/subject/actor in the theoretical calculation. It
should also be noted that interpreting criticisms on the USbased definitions of structure, whose common point to be
based on “morphological description of social facts, which
have been deeply influenced by the Weberian ontological individualism and Deweyian pragmatism (and pragmatic truth)
embodies potentials for conceptualizing the possible interactions between structure and agency/subject/actor.4
3
Waltz can be attributed ontological structuralism, as he argues that structures in fact do not
exist.
4
Ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism are examples to interpreting criticisms.
Ethnomethodology, which does not directly see structural elements of social interaction as
object of research, but focuses on the method that people use for interpreting or ascribing
meaning to social fact, which it is not directly interested in its structure, maintains that all
forms of social interaction has a systematic and organized character. In this aspect, the starting point of Ethnomethodology is not the acts imposed by stable relationship patterns on
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
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The tendency to recognize a subject that comes before the
meaning ascribed to social facts and structure gave an opportunity to the US-based approaches to put a distance between
themselves and Continental approach.5 In the US-based approaches, structure becomes “a set of social facts for individuals” or “the environment, where individuals act”, and it realizes
its effect via individual behavior. The measurement of the effect
is possible with individual-focused empirical studies. Over time,
this attitude that combined empiricism with functionalism would
approach to structure as the simple aggregate of the existing
characteristics of their own elements, and it would also be selective while inquiring the functional relationship of the parts, which
it manufactured from its own paradigm with the whole (see:
Benton and Craib, 2008: 76).
The American Structural Sociology, which is known with its
devotion to the methodological individualism in some of its examples, but actually to the positivist method in general, kept off
linguistic studies, semiotics and the Freudian approaches from
those entered into this system of relationships, but how come social interaction, which is
somewhat evident, has become regardable and measurable. The objective is to explore
common methods of the members of the related society in their everyday actions. However,
the mentioned interest in exploration - within the scope of criticism of structuralism – is
ironic not as disinterest in structure, but to the extent it corresponds to an interest in the
structure of everyday activities, (see: Keat and Urry, 2001:221-223; Swingewood, 1998:
319-321). According to Symbolic Interactionism, humans act toward things on the basis of
the meanings they ascribe to those things. Behavior is the product of the process of ascribing
meaning. Social interaction determines the content of meanings. Meanings that acquire their
content during the interaction undergo new changes and transform depending on the interpretation processes, which their users employ in other interactions. In this scope, for Symbolic Interactionists, there is no knowledge independent from the known by humans investigated by the social scientist. The thing that appears in the course of our actions and interactions is that we deliberate (and thus construct) the meanings, which we ascribe to the objects
in our world (Benton and Craib, 2008: 115-116). What is important in both movements,
which include a similarity limited to some kind of instrumentalism adopted by positivists,
who have problem with the status of unobservale and/or unmeasurable theoretical entities, is
that in the reception of relevant social facts, the consequences produced by the reflective
thoughts of action groups (actors) involve potentials that break the one-way determinism of
classical concept of structure (see. Baert, 1998). As it is seen, in both ethnomethodology and
symbolic interactionism, the determinism of the concept of structure is indirect. Due to this
reason, in this study that mainly focuses on the theoretical effects of the concept of structure,
we briefly touch on important criticisms towards the US-based the practice of mainstream
sociology (and thus Ethnomethodology and Symbolic Interactionism).
5
For instance, Merton places the rejection of continental structuralism as the second defining
characteristic of his understanding of structural sociology (Merton, 1975: 32).
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its content from the very beginning (Swingewood, 1998; Alexander, 1995).6
Later on, with the Talcott Parsons’s structural functionalism
and his systems theory, its content entirely differed from the
contents of the expansions of Structural Sociology, the Continental approaches, which developed as an anti essentialist
movement having the tendency to consider the role of the subject less important than structure and especially that of Structuralism.
The recognition of the constraint effect of structure by both
American and Continental approaches provides a convenient
criterion for their comparison. The constraint effect made it
possible to approach to the societies as integrated systems in
both understandings. The indirect influence of Marx and
Durkheim on the understanding of structure has determining
importance for both approaches (Sturrock, 2003).
The Continental European-Based Approaches
The term Continental Europe has not a clear content just
like the term US-based approaches, and it corresponds to a
very comprehensive field of study. The term, in its broadest
sense, refers to an approach opposed to the analytical philosophy prevailing in English-speaking world. In this sense, the
Continental European-Approach covers a broad field ranging
from philosophers like Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche,
Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Gadamer, Habermas, Derrida,
Foucault and Giddens to the movements of thought like Hegelism, Marxism, Critical Theory, Existentialism, Structuration,
Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Structuralism and PostStructuralism (see: West, 1993: 15). In that case, when we prefer the above-mentioned title, we speak about a diversity of
movements of thought related with each other (mostly via opposition), rather than a tradition, This study, among various
6
Approaching to the relationships betwen structure and subject by using the expansions of
the structuralist tradition dominated byFreud and psychoanalysis and a sicentific realistic
epistemology - instead of positivism - rather than phenomenology, gestalt, semiotic and linguistic studies, are the distinctive characteristics of continental structuralism.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
9
definitions of structure, will only focuses on the titles “Structure
in Structuration Theory” and “Marxism and Structure, as these
allow for precise determinations in this study that investigates
the theoretical effects of the concept of structure.
Durkheim’s influence is apparent in the social fact understanding of Structuration Theory and Structuralism, i.e. the
Continental-based approach. However, these two theoretical
approaches, which developed in the Continental Europe, prefer
to conceptualize social fact as collective representations composed of collective beliefs, values, norms and conventions as
well as collective relationships that are interdependencies and
antagonisms among individuals that are formed into divisions
of labor and patterns of solidarity (Baert, 1998; Porpora, 1987;
Scott, 2001; Wight, 2006). Social fact in its latter meaning (collective representations and collective relationships), which is inherent in Durkheim’s studies, laid foundation for a different
concept of structure. When interdependencies deriving from
solidarity and divisions of labor, collective beliefs, values, norms
and conventions are approached as social facts, they become
inherent in the modalities of existence, names and identities of
elements and actors comprising structure existence. Now, the
individual or another actor cannot be considered exterior to social facts. In this context, the source of knowledge and values
used of the actor will be moved outside his center (Eagle ton,
2004a: 134). In such a theoretical stance, social facts transform from being elements that determine the actor, who has
somehow come into the world before them, into elements having constructional effect on the actor. Here, the decisive effect
is based on reasons a piori for them.
Structure in the Structuration Theory
As mentioned above, the Continental European-Based approach is not holistic. Among the definitions developed by the
studies that brought a holistic approach to the relationships between structure and subject, first Anthony Giddens’s definition
of structure will be discussed. Giddens, with his definition of
structure, which he developed through his arguments with
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Luhmann – in the context of the system problem - and many
interpreters from Frankfurt School and its circles – in the context of rationality, has a distinguished place in today’s political
economy arguments.7 Taking Giddens as starting point, the
“facilities” brought by defining structure as rules and resources
were put into use in almost all constructive perspectives.8 This
approach was also applied to some neoliberal and Gramsciah
perspectives.9
Giddens accepts social facts as collective representations,
and in this sense, he keeps distance with the American-based
mainstream approaches. It does not seem possible to say that
in Giddens’s works, the concept of structure is recognized as
interdependencies deriving from solidarity and social consensus among individuals, and collective relationships stemming
from conflicts. This enables Giddens to conduct an argument
(within the European-based approach) against Marxism’s
concept of structure, without falling into gaps of the American tradition.
The Giddensian perspective approaches to structure as a
set of rules and resources. This definition is immanent in Giddens’s approach to structuration (Giddens, 1981). According to
Giddens, structures can be analyzed as rules and resources.
Here, a distinction is made between structure and system. Social systems are composed of patterns of behavior between actors and collectivities reproduced across time and space. At the
point we reach, it is seen that Giddens distinguishes a part of
Durkheim’s understanding of social fact within itself as struc7
Like Habermas, Offe and Keane, Giddens too identifies basic contradictions at the heart of
the systems of rationality which structure contemporary societies. But contrary to the arguments of the Frankfurt School, in Giddens’s studies, class implications and/or effects of the
idea of order are systematically shunted aside; instead of the idea of class inequality and perspectives for eliminating inequality, a diversity of cultures are given prominence (West,
1998:287). However, according to Habermas, since the principle of destructive critical principle as the keystone of a sociology based on postmodern imagery, which is effective in modernity, will not be assimilated in a formless pluralist culture that has neither center nor
structure, the said shift of perspective will have not constructive, but destructive consequences (Swingewood, 1998:376).
8
See: Kratochwil (1989), Onuf (1989) Wendt (1999).
9
See; Piore, M. and Sabel, C. (1984).
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
11
ture and system. That is to say, while the mainstream American
tradition gives prominence to ‘facts of social morphology” given in Durkheim’s definition, Giddens subjects “collective representations” to the same procedure; he excludes interdependencies deriving from solidarity and divisions of labor among individuals and collective relationships stemming from conflicts
from the content of social facts. As a result of Giddens’s maneuver, social systems turn into situated social practices. Accordingly, “...structures exist in time-space only as moments
recursively involved in the production and reproduction of social systems. Structures have only a 'virtual' existence” (Giddens, 1981: 26). “social structure is not like a physical structure
as a building, which exists independently of human actions.
Human societies are always in the process of structuration.
They are reconstructed at every moment by the very 'building
blocks' that compose it – human beings like you and me”
(Giddens, 2000: 6).
In view of the considerations discussed until now, it can
be said about Giddens’s concept of structure as follows: First
of all, Giddens tries to get rid of the concept of structure as the
sets of objective relationships faced by the subjects. At this
point, though it can be said that he has an aim similar to
methodological individualism, let’s add not be unfair to him:
Giddens, while trying to get rid of the concept of structure inherent in structuralism, he, at the same time, rejects the efforts
to explain social actions by making reference to the behavior of
individual. As mentioned above, Giddens, thus, got rid of paying
the price for difficulties inherent in American tradition. Besides,
he reduced the determination of structure to the determination
of norm by making distinction between structure and system
and purifying structure from patterns of behavior. Determination of a structure composed of objective relationships – exterior
to its object - in a certain sense resembles determination of laws
of nature: Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, it has no option
of not boil. However, determination of norm is the determination over an entity with will that produces meaning: individual
has the option not to comply with the norm (Akın, 2005). In
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fact, laws, especially penalty laws that involve numerous sanctions exist for this purpose. Giddens, by excluding objective relationships from structure, presented to the political philosophy
a conceptualization of non-methodological individualistic structure against the Marxist discourse’s concept of structure composed of objective relationships, which illegalized all attempts
towards compromising left-wing perspectives with market.
Giddens conceptualized his two-way escape under the title
of structuration. Within this perspective, interdependence of
structure and subject becomes a cyclical process. Each of
them continuously determines the other; the determined one
re-determines the other; determination reaches out to infinity.
Structure provides both mediation and result of practices that
construct social systems. The point it should be noted is the
thing accepted as structure among many other perspectives is
called social system under Giddens’s theorization. When the
patterns of behavior embodied in social systems are once removed from the content of the concept of structure, the concept of structure can be approached as rules and resources.
Thus the process of structuration materializes at the level of
“structure” that does not involve social relationships, and the
intervention of social systems (or production relations, which
are their contents) in the process of structuration or vice versa
remains entirely out of discussion. The disconnection between
social systems and structure (the state that the structuration
process is limited to “stuucture” not embodying production relations) makes the intervention of objective relationships in the
structuration process, and as an outcome of such theorization,
Giddens’s “structuration” remains purely and simply at level of
phenomena.
The theoretical approach under discussion produce drastic
results for the explanation of entities accepted as subject/agents well. The role of objective relationships (and thus
structures breeding class effect) in the structuration and motivation of behavior is reduced to zero. From the perspective of
this approach, strike will be explained based on a number of
rules and resources, whose origin is not known. It cannot be ex-
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
13
pected that the issues and questions such as the structure of industrial relations, the state of capital accumulation regime,
whether a given country is a central country or not, the state of
the army of replacement workers and how many poles the world
has come on the agenda of those making this explanation. According to Porpora (1987: 96), the conceptualization of social
structure as rules and resources will result in the reduction of
organizational and institutional characteristics of the society to
the shade phenomenon of human behavior. Thus, numerous
causal factors resulting from the organized structure of the society and the relationships between structures will either be
concealed or denied.
The denial of the complicated relationship between the
structure of capitalist societies and individual decisions of actors/agents/subjects is very important for the bourgeois literature. The bourgeois structuralism developed numerous methods in order to make this denial feasible. The formula of Waltz
(1986: 340), a member of the US-based approach, which can
be summarized as “maintaining that causality on structural
platform is entirely different from that the causality on the platform, which agents make decision and develop strategy” is
among the most widely accepted one among the formulae
produced to eliminate the structure-subject tension. Even
though such distinction of subject and structure solves the
problem of the subject-structure tension, probably because of
the incompatibility of this solution with the Continental European approach that aims to scrutinize the interaction between
both of them, Giddens reaches his conclusion, which resembles Waltz’s solution, through a different way: Instead of completely distinguishing structure and subject (as in Waltz), distinguishing structure and social system s and cutting off the interaction between them and thus, eliminating the interference of
production relations in the structuration process (in the concrete in mind). According to Giddens (1984: 25), while structure, as recursively organized as sets of rules and resources, is
out of time and space, the social systems, in which structure is
recursively implicated, on the contrary, comprise the situated
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activities of human agents, reproduced across time and space.
Structure determines the activities of human agents through
rules and resources. However, production relations can be understood and/or explained in any case dependent on time and
space.
Giddens (1984: 16) states that in the structuralist approaches, structure appears as external to human action and as a
source of constraint, but it has also ‘enabling” aspect. This ascertainment almost entirely overlooks the theorization made
under the subsequent title of this study. In addition, in Giddens’s formulation, the capacity of structure for enabling is capable of exercising causal power only through the consciousness. “The only moving objects in human social relations are
individual agents, who employ resources to make things
happen, intentionally or otherwise. The structural properties of
social systems o not act, or `act on', anyone like forces of nature to `compel' him or her to behave in any particular way”
(Giddens, 1984: 181). That is to say, structural constraints
cannot make their presence felt except their reasons for the
things done by subjects /agents and, the expression of unconscious to some extent. The existence of structures and institutions are imperiled as long as they are not reproduced in the
mind of human agent. This is a view of structure, which is internally related with the action, and which can therefore be
reached indirectly via the effects of the action of human agent.
“The knowledge they [human agents] possess is not incidental to the persistent patterning of social life but is integral to
it” (Giddens, 1984: 26). Repeating once again, in Giddens’s
formulation, social structure, which does not embody independent causal effect of social relations, and therefore, which is
virtually designed, has to owe its existence to the mediation of
knowledge and mind of individuals. Then, Giddens, by strictly
being attached to knowledge and awareness, reduces an ontological category to an epistemological one. The reduction of an
ontological category to an epistemological category results in
the dissolution and removal of both agents and structure in a
sea of phenomena. This approach that restricts structuration to
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
15
phenomena limits the effect of structures entirely to the agent’s
understanding of the related rules and resources, thus laying
foundation for a voluntarist social (Wight, 2006).
Giddens, with the theory he developed, prevents the inclusion of independent causal effects of social relations in theoretical calculations, thus making it difficult to understand difficulty
and violence that come out in the production and reproduction
process of social power as well. The rules that regulate the distribution of resources cannot be understood without being associated with social relations. It can be said as follows: exploitation and dependence are neither resources, nor rules. Labor
is not commodified in order to fulfill the requirement of rule. A
person’s sale of his/her labor, who is detached from means of
production is a compulsion imposed by objective relationships,
and as its sanctions are hunger and exclusion, there is a resemblance between the laborer’s compulsion and the compulsion
that makes water molecules to activate at a certain heat, albeit
not overlapping one-to-one. People, as the labor force potential, enter into the production process due to their being the resource of living labor, not because they are “resource”. Natural
resources acquire the nature of resource depending on the given state of productive forces and production relations: metals
like titanium, uranium and boron do not attract interest because of the strict processing rules. If certain structural conditions occur, even knowledge about their existence is not
formed. So, knowledge human agents possess should first be
shaped by structural conditions before they become important
in shaping social life in a stable manner. Let’s assume we have
acquired knowledge about these metals; this does not end
here. What lie behind the motivation of processing them are
the development level of productive forces and structural conditions arising from sovereign production relations in the given
social formation. After all, both exploitation and dependence are
asymmetric relations. That is to say, what makes the IMF powerful may the rules it lays down. But, what give power the IMF to
set forth rules are the exploitation and dependence relations.
Repeating once more, there are not rules that force the exploita-
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tion and dependence relations to be as they are; on the contrary,
the relations that create them produce independent causal effects that determine how rules are created and interpreted
(Wallerstein, 1974). Eventually, Giddens and his followers necessarily interfere in the structuration process of objective relations.
The motivation problem is an important point in comprehending the effect of structural conditions on subject/agent, i.e.
the relationship between structure and subject. The concept of
structure as rules and resources deprives us from ammunition necessary to investigate motivation: what are the reasons
for obeying, rejecting or failing to obey rules? Within which
framework will the activities related to setting forth, applying
and changing rules be evaluated? Why does a group want the
establishment of a set of rules while the others opposes to it? It
can be said at that at this point, the Giddensian thesis of duality
of structure, which sees the society as both the material cause
and the constantly reproduced output of human agent turns into tautology, a definition that explains everything, but cannot
be applied to any concrete situation and becomes invalid (Eagleton, 1996; 2004). Besides, the term “duality of structure”
claims to free the subject, which constitutes its implicit content,
from an absolute determination should also be noted. Interdependence between structure and event exists in Structuralism
as well. That is to say, Structuralism, with its form developed
(not in Giddens’s theorization, but) in Continental Europe, was
influenced by Saussure’s studies against the American schools
influenced by Bloomfiemd in linguistic studies (Hawkes, 2004;
Eagleton, 2004a). A language may be studied along two axes,
one langue and the other, parole. These two axes Saussure
named the diachronic and the synchronic. Saussure conceptualized language as a system that embodies a full inventory of its
components and the rules comprising the combination of these rules. Besides, oral or verbal declaration is the use, which
individuals make of the total resources of the language they are
born into. It is actual utterance, in speech or in writing. If
langue is a structure, than parole is an event. Without the
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
17
events there would be no way in which we could know of or investigate the structure, and without the structure the vent
would be formless and without meaning (Sturrock, 2003). That
is to say, the detection of interdependence against structure
and event - interdependence, which the thesis of the duality of
structure refers to - is not a new idea. What makes it appear to
be new is the thing not Giddens added, but excluded: the
point, which Giddens excluded from this old thesis is that
structure (rules of language) already exists before it turns into
event, or emptiness (silence) is shaped at the axis of rules of
structure.
At the point reached, the connection between Giddens’s
thought and constructivism should also be discussed. The reason is that Giddens’s theory of structuralism enters international political economy studies or international relations theory
mostly via constructivism. Wendt (1999), one of the major writers of constructivism, following Giddens’expansions, attempts
to overcome the consequences of the structure subject problem sometimes by rejecting the reality of physical social relations
and sometimes by rendering it secondary (Copeland, 2006: 3).
In conclusion, constructivism argues actors act based on the
meanings they ascribe to objects and that these meanings are
socially constructed (Alexander, 1995). It is not possible to say
that the constructivist school, whose understanding of structure is founded on Giddens’s thoughts, is directly influenced by
Saussure. However, there is no doubt that the theory of Constructivism, as all approaches asserting that meanings do not
derive mechanically as an outcome of direct impositions of external world, is influenced by the Structuralism’s response to
linguistics in the 19th century.
According to structuralist linguistics, the thought that language gives expression to some relationships as a necessity is
totally wrong: It is impossible to find a two language systems
that regulates the world in the same manner. There is not a
structure of structures that determines the structures of all languages (Benton and Craib, 2008; Eagleton, 2004a). From this
point of view, the conclusion (which overlaps at some points
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with post-structuralism) reached by the constructivism that the
meanings ascribed by actors to the objects are arbitrary is supported by a wrong interpretation of basic distinction of the
Saussurian linguistics (Sturrock, 2003: 35-36). That is to say:
Saussure, while proposing that sign must be examined in two
pars, signifier and signified, constructed sign as an abstract object. This abstract object is the object of language and it is not to
be confused with something in the world; it is arbitrary. That is
to say, it is not determined by the thing it is the sign of, or referent. The proof of this is the enormous variety of signs to be
found can be found in different languages for the same referent. These signs could have taken a different form from that
which they in fact have. However, it has to be realized that the
arbitrariness of the signs of a language does not set the users
of that language free to change them. The basic defects of
constructivism or post-structuralism lie in its ignorance of the
distinction between the sign and the referent (Sturrock, 2003:
35-36). In that case, while asserting that actors act according
to the meanings they ascribe to object and that these meanings are socially constructed, we cannot overlook the coerciveness of referent (the effect of extra-discourse on discourse): social construction processes cannot be understood by replacing
a set of norms by another one, i.e. by using statements like “it
can happen this way or that way”. First, it should be asked
“why not that set of norms, but this one?”. The name given to
small cattle may in every language. We may know that while in
the societies, where ownership over mobile production means
(small and big cattle) is determinant (or once it was), these animals bear numerous names according to their age, gender
and many other characteristics, in the societies, which have
nothing to do (or had nothing to do in the past) with these animals, only one or two names for all of them. Social construction processes, if not names we give to small cattle, are related
with the development level of production relations and productive forces in a given society and in a given time. Even though
one does not determine the other, it is not possible to put forward an idea about social construction processes without taking into consideration the production relations (without fully
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
19
comprehending the importance of the referent). In brief, whatever name you give to train, don’t stand on the rails while train is
passing!
Let’s repeat again: Once the distinction set forth in the paragraph above (distinction between sign and referent) is omitted, the relationship between extra-discourse and discourse becomes invisible: in every language, signs are formed arbitrarily
(without any necessity). But this situation does not produce an
effect on the materiality of sign and the thing implied (referent).
That is to say, a shepherd may give a thousand names to an
ox. But if these people use an ox as a means of production;
milk it and eat its meat and make shoes from its skin, the
meaning of ox will exist independent from its names – e.g. as a
universal equalizer that will allow for exchange. In this context,
those who refer may not have existed before those referred.
However, this rule cannot apply to referent: it is predecessor of
both referring and referred, and it always includes extradiscourse in the theoretical calculations as a criterion of the
consistency of discourse. The continuous repetition of the confusion mentioned (confusion between referent and sign) brings
us to the fetichism of multiplism, which is formed based on the
impossibility of determining the absolute truth among discourses. If a criterion cannot be developed in order to consider
different structures, aside from structure and if a truth cannot
be imposed on anyone it will be a virtue to incorporate all differences together. Then, on which platform will this togetherness realize? Is the holiness of private ownership on the production means lie on its base? Given the indispensability of the
base, is there a multiple juxtaposition, or a hierarchical array
added on the particular? As it is seen, the thing presented as
multiplism is in fact presuming a particularity.
Marxism and Structure
This study, which focuses on the effects of the concept of
structure from the perspective of the discipline of political
economy, investigates the Continental European approach.
The second issue that will be examined under the sub-title of
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Continental Europe is the Marxist conceptualization of structure. Given the distinguished place of the concept of structure
within the Marxist theory, it is not possible to assert that Marxism involves a monolithic definition of structure. While examining the Marxist conceptualization of structure within the scope
of this study, firstly, the basic elements (its foundation in terms
of architectural metaphor) of the Marxist understanding of
structure will be scrutinized; then the tasks assigned to the
concept of structure in different Marxist conceptualizations.
However, while doing this, the Althusserian perspective and the
Critical Realistic School, which could achieve to develop a holistic epistemology, though deeply influenced by Althusser, will
be primarily and predominantly discussed. This analysis involves a non-eclectic combination of the achievements of both
schools.
Before arguing that social structures have an existence outside the activities they manage, first, the foundation of the
Marxist concept of structure should be investigated. The foundation of the Marxist concept of structure is composed of a
number of theoretical concepts. The major ones are the concepts of mode of production, productive forces and social relations of production. It should be noted that while considering
the mode of production, both structure and action are included
in this concept and that the representation of this combination
simply by the base structure/superstructure metaphor is not
possible for today (see: Akın, 2005; Balibar, 1994; Bordieu,
1977; Creaven, 2000; Woodiwiss, 1990). In other words, it can
be said that the mode of production is both a configuration of
social structures and a product of foundation-based social
practices. In this context, the mode of production involves the
labor process (and dependence relations inherent in these relations) and the relations with forces of nature on the one hand,
(see: Braverman, 1994) and other social relations, which actors
enter into (especially activities developed for reproduction and
constantly repeated primitive accumulation) by considering
them in a process and space (see: Harvey, 2004; 2008). As it is
appreciated, within this scope, it is not possible to produce
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
21
static schemes from a relationship map. According to Bourdieu
(1977), use of cognitive devices we use in constructing our
knowledge, such as metaphor, synopsis and analogy, may
damage the content of thought to the extent it strengthens its
conveyance. The metaphor use, for example, the physical metaphor of base structure/superstructure provided certain facilities in conveying the social production relation and social circulation of its knowledge. On the other hand, it also caused apparent and recognized difficulties in the analysis of complex
social institutions (law, justice, etc.) and organizations (ideological devices of the state, oppression devices of the state) and
in the implementation of revolutionary strategies. Synopsis,
which can be defined as a brief summary of a complex
knowledge condensed in statistical models, representative
schemes, diagrams or a combined reference has also adverse
effects. It is highly probable that the entities, which diagrams
have simplified and moved to a timeless and two-dimensional
plane, and the relations between them will not fit to the real social relations plane. These diagrams almost always cause problems in the construction of perception of time and space.
Then, it should be very careful in the application of cognitive
devices and it should be prepared for the theoretical drawbacks of the sense of “a false clarity” (Bourdieu, 1977).
Bourdieu’s concept of “false clarity” that resembles Althusser’s
(2002) concept of “self-evidence” often turns into counter
means in the hands of dominant ideologies. Therefore, the theoretical construction of reality should always be put before
schemes or diagrams. Here lies the importance of the concept
of mode of production. In this respect, the corpus developed
by Marxism on the concept of structure assumes great importance in explaining complex social reality and numerous
strings of relations comprising it. In the subject-structure dilemma, structure is he target of explaining social world, and
subject is the focus target of understanding the same world.
Marxism is directed towards both objectives of explaining and
understanding. However, it should not be overlooked that while
understanding has a retrospective aspect, explaining is rather a
future-oriented act. Although the Marxist theory cannot aban-
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don any of these objectives, when a political activity is in question, most of the Marxists are directed towards the objective of
explaining, while the Marxisms employed by reformist projects
are shaped at the axis of the act of understanding, - of course
not in every case. The structural implication of mode of production (mode of production as a structure) makes reference
to the accumulation of material wealth (institutional and organizational accumulation), the capacity of knowledge to develop
and to be used in the production process, the state of productive forces in a given time and space, distribution of means of
production, the processes of obtaining subsistence (equipment
and accumulation required by reproduction), in brief, numerous determinants that shape class statuses. The actional implication of mode of production (mode of production as set of actions) applies to the productive actions of subjects both in the
field of reproduction and the production processes, and at the
same time, to the actions of subjects developed at the axis of
exploitation as well their predatory actions during the acquisition of pre-produced surplus value (primitive accumulation).
The other distinctive feature of the Marxist understanding of
structure is the holistic effect, which the concepts of “productive forces” and “production relations” create in reciprocal relationship.10 These two concepts, which acquired different
meanings in different temporal and spatial practices of the
Marxist theory, can be set forth in terms of their relationship. In
their relationship, the order of precedence changes according
to the different periods and spaces of the Marxist theory. Let’s
begin with the content of the productive forces: the productive
forces are based on the togetherness of a series of elements
having material, social and intellectual aspects. The material
and social elements of these forces are comprised of the organized and institutionalized forms of common social actions of
working women and men in order to meet the requirements of
production and reproduction. That is to say, the material and
10
The studies of Aglietta (1979), Balibar (1994), Creaven (2000) and Saad-Filho (2006)
were referred to for the analysis of the concepts of productive forces and production relations.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
23
social elements of the productive forces involve a certain work
organization and social and technical division of labor that corresponds to it. In this context, while material elements involve
concrete raw materials, means of production and energy facilities, social elements refer to the types of forming relationships
and relations represented by the concepts such as organization, institutionalization and efficiency. Intellectual elements include: a-Technical and scientific knowledge needed to carry
out a certain activity; b-Organizational knowledge used to perform the combination of labor and means of production. However, the relationship of cognitive abilities, which comprise intellectual elements with other cognitive abilities that ensure organized class violence and the manufacture of social consent
and with movements made mostly unconsciously (habitus) is
complicated. The boundary between the dominant ideology
and the types of knowledge, which is considered valid (selfevident) in a given society is usually vaguer than it is thought
to be.
Production relations correspond to the dominant political
and economic structures of the society. More specifically, relations of production are those that govern the control of the
production process and the distribution of products. In capitalist societies, these relations predetermine unequal distribution
of means of production and thus, the conditions of the exploitation of surplus value. That is to say, wherever a part of society
possesses the monopoly of the means of production, the laborer, free or not free, must add to the working-time necessary
for his own maintenance an extra working-time in order to produce the means of subsistence for the owners of the means of
production (Marx, 1986). Adding to the working-time for the
owner of means of production refers to the collective social aspect of the phenomenon of exploitation, i.e. its inheritance in
the social structure. Exploitation is the acquisition of part of labor of men and women excluded from the control and/or possession of means of production by another social class. When
this relation takes center stage in social production and reproduction (when becomes dominant), it determines formations of
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social class in such away so as to also include workers, who do
not produce surplus value in the production process and those
unable to work. However, the functions of relations of production are not limited to this: these also play major role, along
with the exploitation of surplus value as the leading form of the
capitalist exploitation, in the shaping of domination relations
existing in other modes of production and formation of primitive accumulation processes.
Thus, the fundamental elements of the Marxist understanding of structure have been examined. The remaining part of the
study will investigate the common points of tasks assigned to
the concept of structure in different Marxist modalities of conceptualization. The inclusion of independent causal effect of
social relations constitutes the axis of the Marxist thought of
structure. At this point, Marxism has a shallow common center
with the Durkheimian sociology (or Marx has a deep influence
on Durkheim): Both approaches take the relation as basis.
However, while the Durkheimian approach defines structure as
a set of law-like regularities among social facts, the Marxists derive social structure from relations of production (Benton and
Craib, 2008). The Durkheimian understanding does not deem
the content of the elements of structure very important (for the
sate of the theory) as long as the structure of relations is preserved. Marxism has always showed determination to trace the
non-discourse (the content of social domination) even at times
it accepted the deepest influences from non-Marxist Structuralism (mainstream). The inclusion of the issues such as the materialization of capitalist production, the analysis of its conditions, primitive accumulation, labor force and reproduction of
all types of domination that keep labor force out of possession
and/or control of means of production in the analyses forms an
ocean of analyses, which transcend the horizon of self-evident
Durkheimian conceptualization of structure. In this context, social structure mostly makes reference to the axis on which the
relations between social classes develop. Social class is defined
as collectives of individuals, who are distinguished according to
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
25
their status in the relations of production in a given society and
time.
The question of what is considered and what is not considered cause for the Althusserian Marxism11 and Critical Realism
that are regarded as Structuralist, contrary to their founders’
will, which we primarily examine here, is specifically important.
The Structuralist Marxist approach does not welcome the inclusion of a cause that has currently no effect in the theoretical calculations: If there is no effect, then there is no cause. In this
context, causes, which histography derives from the texts, in
more general sense, efforts of the historicist approaches towards diachronic interpretation of causes they derive from arbitrary correlations among the points they choose from history
cannot find a place for themselves in the Structuralists’ conceptualization of cause (see: Althusser, 2007b: 346). The thought
developed in this manner does not consider structure as the
environment, where actors, in ontologically a priori circulation, act. Moreover, an ontology consisting of the synchronic relationship among the elements of structure excludes psychologism as well. Thus, the constructive effect, entirely differing
from that of Giddens’s idealistic approach, who we have introduced with his emphasis on norms, becomes the trademark of
the Structuralist Marxist understanding of structure. In this
case, while “structure” used by the US-based approaches has
11
The founders of the Structuralist Marxism never accepted being defined as structuralist. Therefore, structuralism remained as a term used by the criticals or external interpreters. In the meantime, structuralism passed into the political science literature, a
literature owing its the major part of its foundation terminology to structuralism, as a
coat, which its supporters cannot or would not like to take off to the extent it cannot
ignore structuralism. Today, the meaning structuralism has assumed, following its
loss of credibility as a political philosophy, involves more pejorative images than ever.
This term will be used anyway. The reason is that the views produced by Althusser
and friends could not be seriously refuted over their own internal consistencies. The
“knowledge effect” they have produced (their style of taking concrete reality into their
possession) in the context of ideology-science distinction non-human-centered
(which human does not inscribe his own social relations in the knowledge of the object it examines) continues to be in a constant motion due to its structure, whuch is
open (that knows to exclude the narrative, which the members of the related society
have developed in order to explain themselves) and, which does not absolutize
knowledge (that can distinguish concrete reality and the concrete in thought
(Özdemir, 2008: 43-44).
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merely constraint effect, “structure” of the Structuralists will be
deemed to have both constraint and constructive effect.
The Marxist sociology involves the theoretical means of production that will serve for comprehending the interaction of elements comprising a social system. In Marxism’s interpretations of Structuralism or in Critical Realism, mechanisms12 used
in theoretical explanation constitute a non-empirical plane of
reality: the only way to understand the reality of entities is not
the database created by our emotions. From this perspective,
not only the criteria acceptable in the establishment of reality,
but also the meaning and content of causal analysis change.
Causal analysis now is not only interested in how events are
correlated (by saying there is causality if always event B comes
after event A), but also in power possessed by mechanisms. In
this way, causality transforms into a form of explanation that
can be achieved at the end of the analysis of potential (constraint and or/capable sword) power of the relevant structure. It
can be observed that in Marxism’s variants influenced by positivist epistemology, reality is approached on an absolute empirical plane. Against the tendencies of investigating social reality merely on empirical plane, different solutions were produced
in Marxism’s Structuralist variants and variants of Critical Realism, which was deeply influenced by the Marxist variants.
The structuralist variant, while rejects a concept of almighty
structure, which is external to social relations, but which imposes itself to them - contrary to the mainstream Structuralism
- on the one hand, propounds, starting from the fact that not
relations, but their causes can be empirically observed in certain cases, the investigation of structures that sometimes coexist (usually in transition processes) on the other hand (Althusser, 2007a: 58-63). On the other hand, the Critical Realist
variant makes a distinction between empirical (experiences and
emotions), actual (interpretation of events and relationships,
12
Mechanism is the name given to the moving, effective and driving part, process or element within the system of concrete relations that constitutes the effect of structure;
in its narrow sense, which is mostly used in the field of science, it refers to the process or technique that ensures the achievement of the desired state or result.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
27
i.e. actual objects of direct experience) and non-actual (the
enduring structures, mechanisms and tendencies) planes
(Bhaskar, 1978). It should be noted that in both cases – as
mostly misunderstood - , we face not with the denial of the role
of the empirical one in knowledge production, but with the ascertainment that the empirical one does not constitute the
whole of reality. If there is any plane or planes of reality other
than the empirical plane, then how will be the interplane relations conceptualized? Just because deep structures involves
the actual one, for example, will it be possible to explain societies with the terms of the previous plane and to reduce them
to the aggregate of accumulation of psychological and biological knowledge about human beings? According to Critical Realism, although more complicated forms and planes of reality
include more basic or less complicated planes (for example,
societies include people), more complicated form cannot be explained by reducing it to less complicated one (societies cannot
be explained based on people). Even though more complicated and complex involves the previous one, it has specific features: something new has emerged. This solution is close to
that of the Structuralist Marxism. The Structuralist Marxism explains the intransitivity between the two planes by the concept
of overdetermination13. Both approaches underline the need for
13
According to Althusser, the idea of conflict in general sense (that can also be said to
be Hegelian) is to block a theoretical explanation, rather than clear the way for it. Instead, there are contradictions, some of which are heterogeneous. “of different origins, different sense, different levels and points of application – but which nevertheless ‘merge’ into a ruptural unity, we can no longer talk of the sole, unique power of
the general ‘contradiction’ (Althusser, 2002:123). This means that if the ‘differences’
that constitute each of the instances in play ‘merge’ into a real unity, they are not ‘dissipated’ as pure phenomena in the internal unity of simple contradiction. The unity
they constitute in this ‘fusion’ into a revolutionary rupture is constituted by their own
essence and effectivity, by what they are, and according to the specific modalities of
their action. In constituting this unity, they reconstitute and complete their basic animating unity, but at the same time they also bring out its nature: the ‘contradiction’ is
inseparable from the total structure of the social body in which it is found, inseparable
from its formal conditions of existence, and even from the instances it governs. “Contradiction is determining, but also determined in one and the same movement, and
determined by the various levels and instances of the social formation it animates; it
might be called over-determined in its principle” (Althusser, 2002: 124). Overdetermination is the common social product of these contradictions, whose existence becomes the product of their activities.
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explaining the plane under discussion by purifying it from the
terms of the previous one.
Once it has been established that society cannot be reduced
to people, the condition of any intended social action should
be sought in non-individual actors and social forms. Logically,
society and social forms come before the individual. That is to
say, all social activities depend on the existence of social forms.
In this context, it will be possible to speak about an autonomy
specific to social forms. The reality of social forms can be derived from their causal power (see: Aglietta, 1979). All social
practices are positioned both in actional and structural
d6imensions. The subject-structure dilemma is shaped based
on the emphasis laid on the determinant element in the reciprocal interaction of action and the structure it is included in.
Different solutions to the subject-structure dilemma are determined according to your stance about social ontology. In this
context, studying social objects and facts will be possible primarily by analyzing the enduring relations among different
planes of action, which not only constitute social life, but also
influential on it. For example, the worker-employer relationship
will be meaningful only if when the relational status of the one
against the other and the capitalist production relations they
both are involved in are taken into consideration.
The ontological difference and interdependencies between
people and structures constitute the basic starting point of the
variety in the Marxist analyses. Our social existence is constructed by relations, and our social actions presume the existence of these relations. This network of relations constitutes
the structure of the relevant society, and maintains its existence
- by constantly transforming by the effect of dynamics of
change and new network of parallel relations that emerges as a
response to new situations – even though the individuals, who
occupy positions. The Structuralist Marxism shunts aside the
search for deep structures/canons that will help us to follow the
transformation in the network of relations, and gives prominence
to the synchronic study. Other Marxisms highlight diachrony as
well. If the subject is a thing, which is formed or constructed by
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
29
the effect of objective relations it takes part in it will not be possible to wholly separate the subject from the structure it is included in, or to analyze their relationship considering them ontologically preestablished. Now we are at a point far from the
US-based structural sociology. Moreover, when we emphasize
the connection of social construction with the capitalist production relations, and design social construction as a posteriori function, we have also moved away from Giddens and his
followers’ sociology, who give prominence to the meanings (the
cultural ones) that are socially formed and are ascribed by actors to the objects against the material one.
We have two interdependent, but separate theoretical objects: subject and structure. The ontological separation between people and structures constitutes the basis of the relation and separation of these two concepts: people are not relations: societies cannot be considered human-like organisms.
They are not whole like a living being; they not become sister
or brother, enemy or relative. In order to achieve a perfect
analysis, the relationships between society and individual,
and structure and object should be given prominence. While
the Structuralist Marxism tends to accept individual as an entity, which is constructed by the system of social relations and
which is the supporters (Trager) of these relations14 (Althusser,
2007b: 465-466), Critical Realists (though they accept that
the individual is constructed in a discoursive manner) assert
that the individual is a self-contained entity, which enables
him/her to think about the relationship between fragmented
subject and discourse; this state of being self-contained involves the potential of making decision freely about future ac14
“the fact that the structure of the relations of production determines the places and
functions occupied and adopted by the agents of production, who are never anything
more than the occupants of these places, insofar as they are the ‘supports’ (Träger) of
these functions. The true ‘subjects’ (in the sense of constitutive subjects of the process)
are therefore not these occupants or functionaries, are not, despite all appearances,
the ‘obviousnesses’ of the ‘given’ of naïve anthropology, ‘concrete individuals’, ‘real
men’ – but the definition and distribution of these places and functions. The true ‘subjects’ are these definers and distributors: the relations of production (and political and
ideological social relations). But since these are ‘relations’, they cannot be thought
within the category subject” (Althusser 2007b: 465-466).
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tions; so, it is not possible to consider a person merely a supporter (Wight, 2006: 209-210); therefore, we need concepts
that will serve as mediation between structure and subject
(Bhaskar, 1979: 147). Critical Realists, who have adopted this
Bhaskarian approach that influenced the sociology in a different way15, emphasize that person/agent can neither be regarded
as the resource of social relations, nor the product of social
constraints externally imposed, thus claming that they have
cracked the door for a theory of subject free from essentialism
(Porpora, 2001: 284). The validity of this assertion depends on
the fact that the intermediate concepts used serve the comprehension of mutual interdependence between the aspect of subject shaped via relations of production and the state that structure can become active only through the actions of agents.16
Bhaskar searches for a connection point between subject
and structure, an explanatory for the positioned practices
(1979: 51). There is a close unity of discourse, method and
purpose between Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and Bhaskar’s
“positioned practices”. The concept of habitus, which Bourdieu
developed to overcome Structuralism’s Trager, and the concept of social field should be considered together. Social field
makes reference to the network of objective relations among
objectively defined positions. In this context, social field refers
to the structured system of social positions occupied by individuals and social forms. Their nature defines the state of their
supporters/occupants. Habitus (positioned practice) constitute
the connection point, where the mediation between subjective
world of individual and the socio-cultural world the individual is
15
Giddens did not include social relations in his conceptualization of
structure.
16
Even though the thesis of mutual determination of structure and subject
(duality of structure) is helpful in overcoming some theoretical constraints, in practice, it turns into a tautology that undermines the act of explaining, which can be summarized by the formula “that determines that,
this determines this”. Therefore, the concept of overdetermination as a
concept, which emphasizes the difficulty of calculating close to impossible, due to the plurality of factors determining subject, but which does not
block the theory, seems more appropriate.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
31
born into and shares with others. Here, the actor acts with the
help of directly conscious actions as well as semi-conscious
patterns of behavior such as habits. The source of habits and
actions made without thinking lies in the socialization process
that starts from the individual’s early childhood. Not direct education, but experience plays major role in learning patters
of behavior that fall within the scope of Habitus. Here, routines rather than integrated knowledge are determinant: habitus, in this aspect, can be seen as the space of internalization
of social structures and externalization of internal world. Structure re-expresses itself in the realization process of the action
formed in itself. Then, let’s ask: “Isn’t there structure, if there is
no action?”17
The answer of the question presented in the previous paragraph depends on whether or not social structures exist other
than in the actions they manage. The answer of this question is
very important, as it determines the boundary between the
Giddens sociology-oriented approach known as constructionism and Marxism. The assertion that social structures do not
exist except in acts/actions they manage implicitly involves the
claim that things that are not actualized, put into action or applied in social world cannot exist as well. At the first sight, the
definition that derives the productive forces from the organized
and institutionalized forms of social action - as given above seems to support this approach. Likewise, defining relations of
production as the relations governing the control of the production process and distribution of products also seems consistent
with the assertion that social structures do not exist except in
actions they manage. It was also maintained in theoretical practice that the Gramsciah approaches to international relations
comply with the definition of constructive structure (Wight,
2006: 138).
17
Despite a wide range of references for Bourdieu, for a comprehensive
and clear explanation of the issue discussed in this paragraph, see: Bourdieu (1977; 2003).
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The constructive approach’s argument is after all same
with saying “If you have not fired a gun, you cannot assert that
that gun has the power to kill”. Yet, the potential to kill itself,
i.e. power that has not been tried is a power by itself. If you
have a gun, under convenient conditions, you can get many results, which you normally cannot achieve even without drawing
it from its holster. From the same vein, there is also a connection between the forms of social explosions and reactions and
the powers, organization and attitude of the police. In states of
stability or sustainable instability, states keep a capacity of violence, which they do not use, in their institutional stocks. Even
though this capacity is not used, it produces effective results as
in the gun example. Social structures incorporate unactualized or unapplied powers, and these powers are effective
means of social order (via actual implications arising from their
potential of applicability). This situation indicates that structure
can exist by itself - apart from as the outcome of actions.
Up until now, the Marxist approaches to the concept of
structure have been examined. In conclusion, structure is inherent in relations of production, which themselves also correspond to a certain stage of the development in the productive
forces (or vice versa). The class-based production relations,
while gathering the ownership of certain means of production
or control technologies apart from ownership in the hands of
few number of non-producer position holders, grant these
people the capacity of possessing surplus value, (and in its
forms as formulated by the post-World War II Marxist theorizations) social surplus - on top of that, without being restricted to
the boundaries of national state -. The power exercised by capitalists and their allies over living conditions and physical activities of others as well as on the products of these activities
comes, according to your place in the Marxist theoretical tradition, from the ownership-oriented control of means of production in general, thus, the power gained over the organization
and coordination of production, the privileged representations
of the interests of capitalists within the social forms, the control
capacity of this class over knowledge production, or the social
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
33
structure that allows for all these powers and capacities (from
the effects of structure). However, whatever tradition you prefer,
class struggle is the product of the objective structure of class relations. This structure exists outside the action as well. Then, it
can be said that an idea of an objective structure free from action is inherent to Marxism. Tendential laws such as “every
time a capitalist society emerges, these tendencies will prevail” gain meaning only in this context.
The thought of objectivity of structure does not denote the
denial of the basic difference between knowledge of social
world and knowledge of nature. Objectivity of structure refers
to the existence of social relations independent from the views
of those interpreting and inquiring them. That is to say, - even
though social sciences produce concept-dependent analyses objects of social sciences exist independent from the views of
those, who interpret and inquire them; they are intransitive
(Bhaskar, 1979). Accordingly, though meanings given by individuals to their actions are very important in terms of certain
theoretical traditions,18 they will not be determinant in respect
of the effects of structure. Many people are unaware that they
produce contradictory propositions within themselves on the
conditions of domination and exploitation that determine their
life. On the other hand, a consistent explanation by the Marxist
Theory to these people on the said conditions does not spontaneously create desire for revolution. First of all, the transformative practices, which we call revolution or reform, are not
issues that are only related with political or educational activities. Numerous structural elements ranging from the conditions related to production and circulation of knowledge to irrational factors that shape class struggle step in this process.
Even though the role of agent in the reproduction of structures
cannot be overlooked, the concept of intransitivity can be used
as the indicator of self-contained existence of structure.
18
Along with constructionism, hermeneutic tradition also remained incapable in drawing conclusions from the wrongness of the thoughts and concepts that constitute the
basis for the thoughts of the acts of the subject (see: Eagleton, 2004a).
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Self-contained existence of structure determines the position
the Marxist theory takes in the relation, which it establishes with
reality: it is possible to say that the Marxisms’ emphasis on
the self-contained existence of structure takes them to the
line of ontological Structuralism. The Marxist theory’s emphasis targets capitalism and structure consisting of capitalist production relations, rather than local or international political system. The fields of politics and culture are not simple derivatives
of this structure. However, this structure determines their specific development axis. The theory, even when primarily speaking about alliances, blocs and thus, the autonomy of politics,
presumes a structure, where all these chains of agents and actions find opportunity. In that case, it can be said that when
subject is emphasized, then we face with a specific combination of historical and structural explanation.19 As a result of the
use of the said combination in the theory, dialectic is placed
at the center of the Marxist effort to interpret and explain.
Marxism, in its structuralist variants, rejects the elements specific
to Hegelian interpretation of dialectic such as essence and telos.
Here, contradictions (that determine the evolution of an essence from the past to the future) are addressed with a dialectic approach that underscores, rather than the idea of telos, the
capacity of social relations to form unlimited combinations and
the founder role of contradictions arising from capitalist production relations in this combination (overdetermination).
At the point, where dialectic meets with the logic of structure, another material inherent to Marxism emerges:
change/transformation. In this stage, we can leave aside the
debates on whether change requires a continuity or discontinuity. But, it should be noted briefly that here, the Marxist Structuralism leaves the linguistic model, from which it is deeply in19
For example, the concept of historical structures comes into prominence in the studies of Bieler and Adam Morton, who produced solutions for the subject-structure problem, following the footsteps of Robert Cox (Bieler and Morton, 2004). The historical
structure involves a method that positions the connections between the material world,
which restricts the things people are capable to do and their thoughts about the related
activity and spiritual/intellectual framework that enables social actors to enter into practice.
The Concept of Structure in Social Sciences
35
fluenced: while the linguistic model is limited to the internal
analysis of all relations comprising structure, arguments of
Marxism have never excluded the intervention of external structure relations. Otherwise, the concepts, which are related with
relations of production as much as with capitalist production
relations like socialist international division of labor and unequal development, (thus, the effect of extra-discourse) could
not be included in the theoretical calculations. Therefore, it
seems not possible to assert that the Marxist concepts of structure read the structure of capitalist system as the outcome of
the positioning of ontologically pre-existing units. As a result of
the existence of dialectic thought, in none of the Marxisms is
structure considered as the environment, where actor is subjected to effects he cannot change: It rather gives the impression of a set/sets of relations involving necessary capacities for
action, which transforms with materialization of action. At this
point, it should be underlined that actors can be essential or
constructional/derivative according to the relevant Marxist
approach.
CONCLUSION
Your manner of conceptualizing structure is important. The
ideas generated on structure have meaning beyond being
merely a macrosociological exercise. Conceptualizations of
structure have a wide variety of consequences from changing
the world to providing the existing disciplines with content in
the field of social sciences. Arguing from the very beginning
that the effort of changing the world is not meaningless or is
meaningless; once being involved in such effort, identifying the
elements significantly contributing to the maintenance of inequalities of the current system; being able to take and to assign
responsibility require a certain type of conceptualization of
structure. If you do not want to change the world, but to analyze, explain or understand it, again, you face the same chain of
obligations: what is the influence of international corporations
on global policies? In what ways does ideology interfere in the
order of everyday life? Looking from the perspective of international relations theory or international political economy, is
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possible to render the state and government equal? What is
subject/actor? Is the state a subject or structure? How can be a
discipline of international relations, where the state is not considered subject? Can we address the state both as a structure –
comprising of structures – and subject under the same approach? If the state cannot be subject, what will happen to the
distinction between the political science and international relations? When the answers to all these questions are directly affected by the qualities we ascribe to the concept of structure, in
most cases, the contents of the concept of structure are overlooked.
Knowledge (including knowledge of structure) is a social
product, which is put into circulation after being produced
within physical conditions. Even though we will always maintain
our epistemic doubts arising from its time and space dependence, we have still ground for speaking about the science of
the society in the face of objectivity of structures. Production of
subject by structure does not prevent subject to return and become effective in the production of structure within its own actions: the prominence of Structuralism may not always result in
an intensive determinism. Even in the Structuralist approaches
that reduce subject to the status of supporter (trager), the concept of overdetermination causes the charge of determinism to
become objective. What makes a systematic effort of
knowledge production a science is not its procedures (inspectors) for finding the truth, contrary to the assertions of positivism, but the openness of its procedures for producing solutions
to public evaluation and its determination to meet the criterion
of consistency in the face of the knowledge of its age. The tendency to enrich the explanatory content is the sign of deficient
but constant efforts of a discipline to access knowledge. In scientific research, this effort should be prominent, rather than
method.
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