Book Reviews: Giddens' Theory of Structuration: A Critical Appreciation, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age, on Heidegger's Nazism and Philosophy, Engels and the Formation of Marxism: History, Dialectics and Revolution, The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels: A Reinterpretation, Locke on Money, Economic Analysis of Property Rights, Contracting for Property Rights, A Theory of Property, The Right to Private Property, Democracy and Human Rights in Developing Countries, Arab Voices: The Human Rights Debate in the Middle East, The Palestinian Uprising: A War by other Means, Syria Unmasked: The Suppression of Human Rights by the Asad Regime, The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1969–1977, Majestic Failure: The Fall of the Shah, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, The West and the Third World, Conflict and Consensus in South/North Security, The Imaginary War: Understanding the East-West Conflict, Setting European Community Priorities 1991–2
| Author | Ian Harris,Joanna Spear,Judith L. Bara,Terrell Carver,Juliet Lodge,Andrew Reeve,Anoushiravan Ehteshami,David T. Mason,Bob Jessop,Sunil Khilnani,Michael Cox |
| Date | 01 September 1992 |
| DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-9248.1992.tb00712.x |
| Published date | 01 September 1992 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Political Stucfies
f
1992),
XL,
583-596
Book
Reviews
Christopher G.
A.
Bryant and David Jary (eds), Giddens’ Theory
of’
Structuration:
a
Critical Appreciation (London and New York, Routledge,
1991),
xii
+
252
pp.,
f35.00
ISBN
0
415
00796
8.
f
12.99
pbk ISBN
0
415
00797 6.
Anthony Giddens. Modernity
and
Self-identity: Self and Society
in
the Late Modern Age
(Cambridge. Polity Press,
1991),
viii
+
256
pp..
f29.50
ISBN
0
7456 0889 2, fl1.95
pbk
ISBN
0
7456 0932
5.
The moving target writes and, having writ, moves on. Anthony Giddens is one of a select
band of social theorists whose output is
so
prolific and whose scope
so
wide that, almost as
soon as a critique is penned,
it
is rendered redundant by the target’s further theoretical
elaboration and/or shift in focus. The two books reviewed here illustrate the problem very
nicely. The first is an edited collection concerned with Giddens’s so-called ‘theory’ of
structuration; while the second
is
Giddens’s latest book-length production. Among many
penetrating, well-argued criticisms in the former we find various reasons adduced for
Giddens’s inability
to
deal adequately with issues ofpersonality, identity, and
so
on; in the
latter, however, Giddens focuses precisely on the links between modernity and issues such
as personality, identity and
so
on. Faced with
a
moving target of such velocity and
versatility, the social
or
political theorist has several choices: practice a Comtean cerebral
hygiene by totally ignoring Giddens, read every second
or
third book to create time for
other issues, focus on one
or
two themes in Giddens’s work,
or
become a Giddens
specialist. His latest book appeared at the right moment to enable the reviewer to realize
the second strategy.
The Christopher Bryant and David Jary collection is one
of
three edited collections and
at least two monographs
to
have appeared in the last three years, signifying that Giddens
studies have come of age. It offers seven critical appreciations of one major theme in
Giddens’s work
-
the theory
of
structuration. This is meant to resolve the ‘structure/
agency’, ‘object/subject’ and
‘voluntarist/determinist’
dualities in the social sciences.
Overall the collection works well. An editorial introduction provides a useful biographical
sketch and brief account of Giddens’s structuration theory. Then Sica relates Giddens’s
success
to
his synthesis
of
American and European social theory, noting close affinities to
the Parsonian and ethnomethodological projects; Boyne attacks him for failing to address
the subversive implications of post-structuralism for the
sort
of
grand theoretical project
that Giddens is pursuing
-
especially regarding the inevitable indeterminacy
of
treating
the actor as structured
or
structuring; Kilminster suggests that structuration theory has
acknowledged affinities
to
the liberal world view since it is based on a philosophical
anthropology which stresses the knowledgeability and transformative capacities of the
individual; Bryant finds that structuration theory is too ambivalent and indeterminate to
justify the specific arguments on evolution and historical transformation that Giddens
advances; Urry suggests that his contributions to discussions of time and space are simply
part of a growing general concern with these issues and that Giddens’s use of these
categories is highly selective; and Jary shows how the normative implications of Giddens’s
work are rooted in the dialog-ical tradition rather than an intellectual enlightenment
or
0032-32 17/92/03/0583-14
0
1992
Politico1 Studies
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