you
as a famous Swiss man once said man is
born free and everywhere he is in Chains
this short quote goes to the heart of
one of the central phenomena study
within the social sciences that is the
idea of social order or structure and
its relationship to agency freedom and
the capacity to change this social
structure social institutions provide
the paths and roads in our lives
they are the default positions that have
already been created
they are the established institutions of
culture politics in the economy that
enable us to go further faster easier to
do more they enable us but they also
constrain us and they are the frameworks
through which power is exercised when we
take these pathways we give over our
agency and choices to travel along roads
that have already been created by
someone else someone else is defining
our choices along this path and in so
doing they have power over us in the
social sciences social structure is the
patterns of social arrangements in
society they are both emergent from and
determinants of the actions and
relations between agents as enduring
patterns of behavior and interaction
they define some form of order to the
overall system social structures are
typically complex and reoccurring
patterns of organization in contrast to
social structure social agency is the
capacity of individuals to act
independently and to make their own free
choices because social structure is
largely about order it is often treated
together with the concept of social
change which deals with the forces that
change the social structure and the
organization of society structures are
really designed to facilitate order but
social change requires some form of
individual initiative so we have to ask
how do we as individuals change the
social structure around us here we see
the interdependencies between the two we
need structures that often constrain the
individual but also we need
vigils in order to test and change the
structure so they can develop we need
order rules obedience and the structure
that they bring
but we also need individuals who will
sometimes break and test those rules in
order to make them manifest and so help
to develop them social structures or
organizations are a product of agents
coordinating their activities in some
fashion this coordination can only
happen by the individuals giving over
their agency their choices and actions
to that organization in people giving
over their agency they allow the
organization to make decisions on their
behalf they submit to following orders
and become obedient to the
organization's agenda without this
submission and coordination we have no
formal structure it is only by police
officers following orders that we can
incarcerate people it is only by people
choosing to go to work every day that we
get business organizations it is only in
our collective belief in money that it
has any value so the real question is
then why do people give over their
agency to organizations sociologists
have really found three answers to this
question we do it either out of coercion
meaning we give up our choices because
of the force that others exert on us or
we do it in exchange meaning that we
bind ourselves into organizations
because we perceive the benefit to us to
be greater than the cost or lastly we do
it for normative reasons meaning that we
form organizations and maintain them
because we see it as a process through
which to achieve some collective outcome
that we value each of these different
basis for giving over our agency create
very different social structures with a
different process of change so we'll go
over each of them separately coercive
organizations are driven by relations of
conflict military dictatorships are a
classical example of coercive
organizations power is based on force
you give over your agency because
ultimately
some fear that you have as humans we had
to use physical violence very rarely in
our interactions actually exercising
violence is often a very last resort
what we do use though is intimidation
displays of power manipulation
propaganda neglects of a mission etc
that are ultimately all trying to force
one into adopting certain actions and
out of this we get some form of order
and organization that is based on
coercion inherent the conflict theory of
social order is that conflict is the
normal state within a society not the
exception this is most famously captured
by Thomas Hobbes book that Aravind where
he posits the man in a state of nature
is in a continuous war of all against
all order is then seen to only be
maintainable through some powerful
centralized force this force is exerted
through some hierarchical structure as
we've already discussed relations of
conflict give rise to a microstructure
of one agent assuming a dominant
position over another a micro dynamic of
power and authority where one agent
assumes greater control over the agency
of the combined organization while
another assumes a subordinate position
with a lower level of representation
within the combined overall agency as
such the social structures that emerge
out of agonistic relations engender
various degrees of inequality within a
stratified hierarchical system where
power is exercised in a downward
direction in order to maintain the state
or order of the system
coercive social structures has strong
rules and follow a strict chain of
command through a hierarchical structure
that represents a systematic way to
integrate the activities of members with
divergent agendas by having a clear line
of command and thus automatic method for
resolving conflict in order to control
an organization in a hierarchical
fashion it has to be linearized
non-linearity is inherently
uncontrollable through a hierarchical
model by linearized I mean that you have
to define a closed system create a
boundary around it in order to constrain
inputs and outputs to a relatively low
level equally you have to reduce the
number of nonlinear interactions within
the system meaning you need information
to be primarily flowing up and down the
hierarchy and not horizontally because
this would empower the agents on the low
levels of the organization and have a
corrosive effect on the top-down
exercise of control there is of course a
strong dichotomy here between agents and
structure within coercive organizations
individual agency is not some natural
right though all members have members
are typically stripped of individuality
and forced to conform the culture is one
of strict obedience jails would be one
example of this membership is not
voluntary the individual is stripped to
their personal belongings and forced to
wear identical clothing they are
identified by a number instead of their
name all of this is to reduce the
diversity and individuality of the
agents and facilitate their manipulation
through the social structure agency
within these social systems is really
derived from your place in the social
structure for example with the feudal
system the individual had no enable
rights you got rights from your place in
the social hierarchy and there was very
little social mobility conflict theory
see social change is only achievable
through conflict these coercive social
systems are disease
to serve the interests of those in the
highest ratas of the system below some
level in the hierarchy the value of
being part of the organization is less
than it returns people remained in these
lower positions because of coercion and
dependency this creates some subsystem
that desires change but above this
theoretical line in the hierarchy agents
are receiving more than they're putting
in through exploitation this creates
another subsystem that desires the
maintenance of the social structure the
system then remains in its current
configuration as long as the upper
strata staff sufficient power and the
lowest routers are sufficiently
dependent but conflict theory goes on to
add that this does not last forever
at some point change happens though
through some abrupt revolution
when agents give over their agency based
upon their own perceived interests
within an exchange system we get what is
called a utilitarian organization people
engage in this type of organization
because they have something to gain
thus the culture is one of productivity
and efficiency legitimacy is based on
the organization's or person's capacity
to deliver in this exchange modern
industrial societies are dominated by
utilitarian organizations with the
enlightenment came the idea of reason
and people as rational self-interested
agents driven to maximize their utility
on this new understanding of the
individual we built a whole new set of
social institutions that are
fundamentally utilitarian in nature they
are designed to provide people with as
much return on their investment of time
energy money or freedom as possible this
is one way of understanding how
economics and the idea of the market has
become so dominant within modern society
as an exchange mechanism for creating
social order a good example of a
utilitarian organization would be a
business organization people consent to
join and give over their agency while
part of that organization in exchange
for some remuneration that is to say
they work in exchange for pay when they
feel this exchange is no longer a value
to them they can discontinue him the
idea of this social contract would be
another example of this the modern
theory of the social contract propounds
that individuals have consented either
explicitly or tacitly to surrender some
of their freedoms and submit to
governance in exchange for the
protection of their remaining rights we
are exchanging the constraints of our
agency for the agency that governments
give back to us in the form of rights
that they will protect in utilitarian
organizations order is maintained by a
network of relations between the mutual
interests of individuals and often
regulated by some kind of impartial
third party that
overseas the exchange like in a football
match we have two competing parties but
we also have the referee to mediate this
exchange and ensure the rules that
facilitate the exchange are upheld
utilitarian organizations are typically
bureaucratic in nature that is to say
that they have an organizational model
that is rationally designed to perform
complex tasks efficiently in a
bureaucratic business or government
agency officials deliberately enact and
revise policies to make the organization
as efficient as possible legitimacy and
status are based largely on one's
capabilities inefficiency bureaucratic
organizations are designed to be
impersonal there is a degree of
abstraction between the role and the
individual person that is fulfilling
that role at any given time and there
are formal methods to facilitate the
change process whether this is through
election or some employment process this
form of organization often involves
decisions made through what is called an
adversarial decision-making process the
use of a voting system to choose
candidates to hold political office is
an example of an adversarial
decision-making process this process
requires each candidate to convince
voters that they are more trustworthy
and will be more effective in the role
than the opponent everyone gets a vote
in this process but it does not require
consensus whoever gets the most votes
wins this process of decision-making
will sound very normal to us because
it's used in many modern organizations
lastly we'll talk about normative
organizations people join normative
organizations not out of coercion or
self-interest but instead to pursue some
goal that they believe has value in
itself these types of organization
include community service groups
political movements many charities and
we might include the new forms of
collaborative networked organizations we
see emerging in post-industrial
economies such as open-source software
or Wikipedia these organizations involve
high levels of positive interdependence
making cooperation and attractor these
relations of positive interdependence
create peer interactions of cooperation
with low levels of stratification in a
more horizontal Network structure
collaborative organizations really
emerge from self governance because the
individual is not joining out a coercion
or self benefit they are in no way
dependent upon the organization they
engage in the organization voluntarily
and thus the organization has no real
power over them through self governance
they themselves have chosen to constrain
themselves in order to coordinate with
that group and achieves some collective
outcome without the need to regulate and
control the members of the organization
we can do away with much of the
hierarchy within the first two forms of
social structure that were required to
simply ensure people's compliance this
means these organizations can likely be
much more agile order is instead
maintained through shared common
commitment to some collective function
the organization is an emergent
phenomena of the individuals pursuing a
goal or some interest that is a value to
the overall system within this form of
organization there is the possibility
for consensus decision-making which is a
group decision-making process in which
group members develop and agree to
support a decision in the best interests
of the whole it is used to describe the
process of achieving a decision that is
fully in
rusev through self-governance the
individuals agendas come to be aligned
with that of the whole and in this way
we get integration between agency and
structure but this is only because the
individuals have created some internal
structure of morals values ethics etc
thus they are called normative
organizations because they're really
governed by these personal normative
values the people have developed to
govern themselves personally in this way
the governance structure is not
something out there in some Constitution
or set of rules the needs be enforced it
is in the individuals culture
we should remember that almost all real
world social systems will involve some
combination of these three forms of
basis to their structure and order for
example many people go to work both out
of a profit motive and because they
believe in the value of what their
organization is doing or if we take the
military as another example we may see
all three forms people may join the
military out of some belief in the value
of securing their nation but also they
may join for personal financial benefit
and once they're there rules will be
enforced in a coercive fashion in
summary we've been talking about social
structure and agents of change we noted
how these two phenomena of agency and
structure are deeply into the pendant
with social structure emerging out of
individuals giving over and combining
their agency within organizations that
both enable the individuals and
constrain them we talked about the
different types of social structures and
how they can be understood in terms of
the conditions under which the agents
gave over their choices and actions
starting on the most basic level of
coercion the places an emphasis on
structure over agency in a rigid
hierarchical organization resistant to
change next we talked about utilitarian
organizations where agents partake in
exchange relations based on mutual
self-interest with the result being
bureaucratic organizations focused on
efficiency that have come to be dominant
in modern industrial societies finally
we talked about the normative
organizations we get when people
voluntarily coordinate towards some
collective function that is of a
normative value through an inclusive
decision-making process