Political Agency in a Globalizing World:

Abstract

Theories of globalization have tended to privilege structural explanations of change, whereas agency-centred approaches have either over-emphasized the potential autonomy of ideas and rule-writing or focused on relatively incremental changes. This article attempts to develop a structurationist analysis — i.e. not only that structure and agency are mutually constituted, but also that different types of structures interact with different types of actors in analytically distinct, ideal-type modes as well as in real time. A two-dimensional typology of structuration processes is postulated, in which the coherence of structures is said to be either loose or tight and the orientations of actors either structure-bound or transformational. Such a heuristic model, however, must be expanded to cover real-time structuration processes, which are highly complex and unpredictable. This is especially true of globalization, given its scale and scope, its many levels of interaction and types of actors, and its complex iterated character: globalization generates multiple equilibria. Consequently, structural variables involved in the globalization process do not merely constrain actors but also create structurally significant opportunities for some actors to enlarge their action repertoires within an expanding and increasingly complex playing field (transnational opportunity structures). Thus different categories of actors may develop greater potential capacity to exercise disproportionate leverage in shaping the contours of longer-term change. Three stylized categories of actors are briefly examined — economic, political and social — and a first cut is made at generating hypotheses about the potential differential impact of each. Three globalization scenarios are posited, and hypotheses are generated concerning (1) the potential scope available to each category of actors for shaping wider globalization processes and (2) the possible alternative ways each category might effectively alter the balance of convergence and divergence in a globalizing world, leading to different systemic outcomes.