ABSTRACT
Every theoretical framework for the explanation of action is linked to a conception of social structure. Action and structure form the conceptual pair that, more than any other, is at the basis of theoretical questions in sociology. The alternative conceptions of the relationship between the two concepts range from theories that deny social action a place within the reproductive mechanisms of the structure, which is seen as a system governed by a unitary ‘logic’, to theories that dissolve the structure in the interaction that links the subjects, who are considered as independent players, in a mobile and variable way. The approaches conventionally classified as action theories are to be found in the second half of this continuum. Action theory is usually taken to mean a theory that aims to explain behavior by subjective causes and by the relationship that, depending on the motives, the actor sets up between means and ends. No action theory of this kind is to be found in Emile Durkheim’s work.
