Half Title Page
The Future of Agency
Series Title Page
Current Perspectives in Social Theory
Series Editor: Harry F. Dahms
Previous Volumes:
| Volume 1: | 1980, Edited by Scott G. McNall and Garry N. Howe |
| Volume 2: | 1981, Edited by Scott G. McNall and Garry N. Howe |
| Volume 3: | 1982, Edited by Scott G. McNall |
| Volume 4: | 1983, Edited by Scott G. McNall |
| Volume 5: | 1984, Edited by Scott G. McNall |
| Volume 6: | 1985, Edited by Scott G. McNall |
| Volume 7: | 1986, Edited by John Wilson |
| Volume 8: | 1987, Edited by John Wilson |
| Volume 9: | 1989, Edited by John Wilson |
| Volume 10: | 1990, Edited by John Wilson |
| Volume 11: | 1991, Edited by Ben Agger |
| Volume 12: | 1992, Edited by Ben Agger |
| Volume 13: | 1993, Edited by Ben Agger |
| Volume 14: | 1994, Edited by Ben Agger Supplement 1: Recent Developments in the Theory of Social Structure, 1994, Edited by J. David Knottnerus and Christopher Prendergast |
| Volume 15: | 1995, Edited by Ben Agger |
| Volume 16: | 1996, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 17: | 1997, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 18: | 1998, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 19: | 1999, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 20: | 2000, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 21: | Bringing Capitalism Back for Critique by Social Theory, 2001, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 22: | Critical Theory: Diverse Objects, Diverse Subjects, 2003, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 23: | Social Theory as Politics in Knowledge, 2005, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann |
| Volume 24: | Globalization Between the Cold War and Neo-Imperialism, 2006, Edited by Jennifer M. Lehmann and Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 25: | No Social Science Without Critical Theory, 2008, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 26: | Nature, Knowledge and Negation, 2009, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 27: | Theorizing the Dynamics of Social Processes, 2010, Edited by Harry F. Dahms and Lawrence Hazelrigg |
| Volume 28: | The Vitality of Critical Theory, 2011, by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 29: | The Diversity of Social Theories, 2011, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 30: | Theorizing Modern Society as a Dynamic Process, 2012, Edited by Harry F. Dahms and Lawrence Hazelrigg |
| Volume 31: | Social Theories of History and Histories of Social Theory, 2013, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 32: | Mediations of Social Life in the 21st Century, 2014, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 33: | Globalization, Critique and Social Theory: Diagnoses and Challenges, 2015, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 34: | States and Citizens: Accommodation, Facilitation and Resistance to Globalization, 2015, Edited by Jon Shefner |
| Volume 35: | Reconstructing Social History, Theory, and Practice, 2016, Edited by Harry F. Dahms and Eric R. Lybeck |
| Volume 36: | The Challenge of Progress, 2019, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 37: | Society in Flux: Two Centuries of Social Theory, 2021, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 38: | Mad Hazard: A Life in Social Theory, 2022, Edited by Stephen Turner |
| Volume 39: | The Centrality of Sociality: Responses to Michael E. Brown's The Concept of the Social in Uniting the Social Sciences and the Humanities, 2022, Edited by Jeffrey A. Halley and Harry F. Dahms |
| Volume 40: | Planetary Sociology: Beyond the Entanglement of Identity and Social Structure, 2023, Edited by Harry F. Dahms |
Editorial Advisory Board
Editor
Harry F. Dahms
University of Tennessee – Knoxville (Sociology)
Assistant Editor
Anthony J. Knowles
University of Tennessee – Knoxville (Sociology)
Associate Editors
Robert J. Antonio
University of Kansas (Sociology)
Lawrence Hazelrigg
Florida State University (Sociology)
Timothy Luke
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Political Science)
Editorial Board
Amy Allen
Pennsylvania State University (Philosophy)
Kevin B. Anderson
University of California, Santa Barbara (Sociology)
Molefi Kete Asante
Temple University (African-American Studies)
David Ashley
University of Wyoming (Sociology)
Robin Celikates
Free University Berlin (Philosophy)
Pradeep Chakkarath
Ruhr University Bochum (Social Psychology)
Steven P. Dandaneau
Colorado State University (Sociology)
Norman K. Denzin
University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign (Sociology)
Tina Deshotels
Jacksonville State University (Sociology)
Arnold Farr
University of Kentucky (Philosophy)
Nancy Fraser
New School for Social Research (Political Science)
Martha Gimenez
University of Colorado – Boulder (Sociology)
Robert Goldman
Lewis and Clark College (Sociology and Anthropology)
Elizabeth Goodstein
Emory University (English and Comparative Literature)
Mark Gottdiener
State University of New York at Buffalo (Sociology)
Jeffrey Halley
University of Texas – San Antonio (Sociology)
Reha Kadakal
California State University – Channel Islands (Sociology)
Douglas Kellner
University of California – Los Angeles (Philosophy)
Daniel Krier
Iowa State University (Sociology)
Lauren Langman
Loyola University (Sociology)
Eric R. Lybeck
University of Manchester (Sociology)
Sarah Macmillen
Duquesne University (Sociology)
John Levi Martin
University of Chicago (Sociology)
Paul Paolucci
Eastern Kentucky University (Sociology)
Ilaria Riccioni
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano (Sociology)
Lawrence Scaff
Wayne State University (Political Science)
Steven Seidman
State University of New York at Albany (Sociology)
Jon Shefner
University of Tennessee – Knoxville (Sociology)
Helmut Staubmann
Leopold Franzens University, Innsbruck (Sociology)
Alexander Stoner
Northern Michigan University (Sociology)
Michael J. Thompson
William Paterson University of New Jersey (Political Science)
Stephen Turner
University of South Florida (Philosophy)
Title Page
Current Perspectives in Social Theory Volume 41
The Future of Agency: Between Autonomy and Heteronomy
Edited by
Harry F. Dahms
University of Tennessee – Knoxville, USA
United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China
Copyright Page
Emerald Publishing Limited
Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL
First edition 2025
Editorial matter and selection © 2025 Harry F. Dahms.
Individual chapters © 2025 The authors.
Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-83608-979-7 (Print)
ISBN: 978-1-83608-978-0 (Online)
ISBN: 978-1-83608-980-3 (Epub)
ISSN: 0278-1204 (Series)
About the Editor
Harry F. Dahms (New School for Social Research, 1993) is a Professor of Sociology, a Codirector of the Center for the Study of Social Justice, and a Cochair of the Committee on Social Theory at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He also has taught at Florida State University, University of Göttingen (Germany), and University of Innsbruck (Austria) and is the editor of Current Perspectives in Social Theory, the director of the International Social Theory Consortium, and a task force member of the AI TENNessee Initiative. In 2021, he received the Senior-Level Excellence in Teaching Award (UTK College of Arts & Sciences). A collection of essays, The Vitality of Critical Theory, appeared in 2011. Dahms also edited and coedited numerous volumes and special issues of journals. Among his current book projects are Modern Society as Artifice: Critical Theory and the Logic of Capital (Routledge) and a monograph on Adorno, Beyond Regression: Adorno's Sociology of Late Capitalism.
About the Contributors
Emre Amasyalı is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Institut Barcelona d'Estudis Internacionals (IBEI) in Barcelona. His research examines topics in political sociology, comparative historical sociology, and history and is substantively concerned with nationalism and processes of nation-building over long periods. He has published in Social Science History, the International Journal of Comparative Sociology, and the European Journal of Sociology. At IBEI, he is involved in Ethnicgoods, a 5-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant.
Robert J. Antonio (PhD Notre Dame) is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas and specializes in social theory, globalization, macroscopic sociology, economy and society, and climate change. His writings have focused on Marx, the Frankfurt School, Weber, Dewey, Habermas, and others in the classical and continental tradition. In recent years, he has focused on the global neoliberal regime and inequality, financial instability, and ecological degradation. Among his many publications are Marx & Modernity (2002), “When History Fails Us: Immanent Critique of Capitalism to the New Right and Beyond” (2021), “Social Theory in the Anthropocene: Ecological Crisis and Renewal” (2020; with Brett Clark), and “The Climate Change Divide in Social Theory” (2015; with Brett Clark).
Eric Allen Hanley (PhD UCLA) is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Kansas and specializes in economic, environmental, and political sociology. His recent research focuses on political behavior in the United States, specifically the rise of white nationalism. Other projects also include analyses of the anti-mining movement in Peru and the political and economic processes contributing to land degradation in western China. Recent publications include “State Corporatism and Environmental Harm: Tax Farming and Desertification in Northwestern China” (with KuoRay Mao, Journal of Agrarian Change, 2018) and “The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?” (with David Smith, Critical Sociology, 2018).
Daniel M. Harrison is a Professor of Sociology at Lander University in Greenwood, SC. His BA degree is from New College of the University of South Florida, and his MS and PhD degrees are from Florida State University. He is the author of Making Sense of Marshall Ledbetter: The Dark Side of Political Protest (University Press of Florida, 2014) and Live at Jackson Station: Music, Community, and Tragedy in a Southern Blues Bar (University of South Carolina Press, 2021). His essay “Sociology at the End of History: Profession, Vocation, and Critical Practice” was published in Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 36: The Challenge of Progress (2019, pp. 133–155).
Steven Hitlin is a sociological social psychologist whose work spans morality, self and identity, the life course, and social theory. Before his faculty position at Iowa, he was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is an author or coauthor for several books and academic articles including The Science of Dignity (Oxford), Unequal Foundations: Inequality, Morality and Emotions across Cultures (Oxford), and Moral Selves, Evil Selves: The Social Psychology of Conscience (Palgrave Macmillan).
Anthony J. Knowles is a lecturer in sociology and a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee – Knoxville. He was also a guest researcher at the University of Bielefeld for his dissertation research, which involved a comparative historical and theoretical analysis of automation and technological displacement in the United States and Germany. His research interests include automation and transformations of labor, critical theory, basic income, queer theory, and political theory and democracy. His work has appeared in Current Perspectives in Social Theory and Social Justice, and he is preparing a book manuscript based on his dissertation research for publication by Brill, within their series, New Scholarship in Political Economy.
John Levi Martin teaches Sociology at the University of Chicago. His most recent book is The True, the Good, and the Beautiful: On the Rise and Fall and Rise of an Architectonic for Action, in press with Columbia University Press. He is also the author of The Explanation of Social Action, as well as other books and articles on sociological theory.
Garry Potter is a social theorist and a filmmaker at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, ON. He is the author of Dystopia: What is to be Done? (New Revolution Press, 2010); The Philosophy of Social Science: New Perspectives (Routledge, 2017), and The Bet: Truth in Science, Literature, and Everyday Knowledges (Routledge, 2020). He is also the writer, producer, and director of more than 20 films, including: Luxury Eco-Communism (2020); Sociology at the End of the World (2018); Contract Faculty: Injustice in the University (2016); Ideology: Marx, Althusser, Gramsci (2015); Marx's Theory of Alienation and Species Being (2013); and Whispers of Revolution (2012).
Sandro Segre (born in 1945) was a Professor of Sociology and Sociological Theory at the University of Genoa (Italy) before his retirement in 2017. He received a PhD in Sociology in 1978 and a Master of Arts in Sociology in 1972 (both from New York University, Dept. of Sociology). In 1970, he received a “Laurea in Economia e Commercio” from the Università Bocconi of Milan. His recent publications (2008–2023) include several books, articles, and contributions, such as Bauman, Elias and Latour on Modernity and Other Options (London: Anthem Press, 2020); Business Groups and Financial Markets: A Weberian Analysis (London: Routledge, 2018); Contemporary Sociological Thinkers and Theories (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014) – Italian edition: Le teorie sociologiche contemporanee (Carocci, 2020); Introduction to Habermas (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012); Talcott Parsons: An Introduction (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2012); A Weberian Analysis of Business Groups and Financial Markets: Trade Relations in Taiwan and Korea and Some Major Stock Exchanges (London: Ashgate, 2008).
David Norman Smith is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas. He publishes widely under two broad theoretical rubrics, the critique of political economy, on the one hand, and the critique of political psychology, on the other hand. Work on the former topic revolves around the concepts of commodity, money, and capital fetishism. Work on the latter topic, the subject of “Authoritarianism from Below” in this volume, encompasses inquiry into charismatic authority, authoritarianism, antisemitism, ethnocentrism, genocide, and the Rwandan genocide. With Eric Hanley and Robert McWilliams, Smith successfully proposed the inclusion of Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) items in the 2012–13 American National Election Study (ANES) and, with Hanley, the inclusion of RWA items in the 2016 ANES survey. With Kevin Anderson, he successfully submitted a proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) which enabled the transcription of hitherto unpublished late texts by Karl Marx on patriarchy and ethnology that appeared, in 2024, in digitized online form, in Vol. 4/27 of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA).
Stephen Turner (1951) is a Distinguished University Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of South Florida, where he is also a director of the Center for Social and Political Thought. His degrees, in Philosophy and Sociology, are from the University of Missouri. He was an Honorary Simon Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester, and he has held fellowships from the US National Endowment for the Humanities and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Studies. He has written on action explanation for many decades. His more writings in this area include essays collected in Brains/Practices/Relativism: Social Theory after Cognitive Science (2002) and Understanding the Tacit (2014). He more recently published Cognitive Science and the Social: A Primer (2018), Teoria social e Cienças Cognitivistas (2021). A memoir, Mad Hazard: A Life in Social Theory (2022), and a festschrift edited by Christopher Adair-Toteff, Stephen Turner and the Philosophy of the Social (2021), also discuss action explanation.
Axel van den Berg is a Professor of Sociology at McGill University where he has taught since 1984. His research interests include social and labor market policy, sociological theory and the relation between sociology and economics. He has participated in several multi-nationally funded research networks conducting cross-national comparative research on current transformations of the welfare state. His most recent book, coauthored with several graduate students, is Combating Poverty: Quebec's Pursuit of a Distinctive Welfare State, published in 2017 by the University of Toronto Press. His work on sociological theory has dealt with, and criticized, various aspects of Marxist theory, critical theory, grand theory, public sociology, and rational choice theory. He is currently working on a systematic examination of whether and how widely held “post-positivist” tenets in sociological theory are integrated into or accommodated by actual sociological research practice. The first paper from this project, entitled “Cutting Off the Branch on Which We Are Sitting? On Postpositivism, Value Neutrality, and the ‘Bias Paradox’,” written with Tay Jeong, was published in December 2022 in Society. It examines how authors manage the tension between epistemological relativism and rejection of “value free” social science on the one hand, and their own validity claims on the other.
