ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 is concerned with exploring the extent to which accounts of contemporary modes of political behaviour are shaped by an underpinning concept of agency – and how certain assumptions limit those accounts. To explore this, the chapter renders explicit the concept of agency in a selection of examples from the literature on political participation beginning with Hay (2002, 2007), before moving on to Stoker (2006) and Norris (1999, 2011). To address shortcomings in this literature, the chapter then turns to the theoretical literature on agency, to show its key insights and limitations. This chapter fleshes out a range of dominant conceptions of agency to draw out their implications for conceptions of the political actor. It starts by critiquing Archer’s concept of agency and her over-emphasis on reflexivity. The chapter then turns to Giddens, showing how he provides a much more complex conception of agency, but a limited conception of structure. Next, the chapter discusses rational choice theory, showing how it has shaped and continues to provide a dominant frame for thinking about agency, but is problematic for different reasons. The chapter ends with a discussion of social structure, emphasising that agency cannot be comprehended without taking structure into account if we are to understand how actors navigate a socially structured socio-political world.
