Why Do We Need to Discuss Agency?

Responding to Martin, Turner, and Hitlin, we clarify possible misunderstandings of our two papers on “agency.” First, they do not presume or commit us to any form of universal determinism. We merely assume that the job of sociologists is to try and causally explain as much as we can of the variations in social life. Though our best efforts leave huge amounts of variance unexplained, there is no good reason for calling this unexplained variance “agency,” and there are several good reasons for not doing so. Second, we acknowledge our use of “structure” is quite a loose one, simply referring to the combination of environmental and personal factors that can help us explain social phenomena. Our notion of “causation” is, admittedly, no less “slipshod” than that used by most social scientists. We are happy to leave questions as to the true nature of causation to the philosophers. Third, we do not see in what way using the notion of “agency” to describe, much less account for, novelty (Martin), or to help “organize” the potentially infinite number of forces in play (Hitlin), advances our understanding or explanatory power. The normative and voluntaristic connotations of the term only serve to muddy the explanatory waters. Fourth, this doesn't preclude empirically examining the sense of “agency” and its causes and consequences. Even if the current wave of enthusiasm for “agency” is waning, a thorough conversation remains worthwhile if only to help avoid the same confusions popping up again in the future.