The Causal Power of Social Structures
Emergence, Structure and Agency

This book provides a solution to the problem of social structure and individual agency, an intense debate in the social sciences.

Dave Elder-Vass (Author)

9781107402973, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2011

234 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.3 cm, 0.35 kg

'Dave Elder-Vass has written a very useful book … the single most valuable feature … is that it begins with all three of the assumptions in place that are necessary for clear-cut debate regarding whether or not social structures can do things …' Ruth Porter Groff, Metascience

The problem of structure and agency has been the subject of intense debate in the social sciences for over 100 years. This book offers a solution. Using a critical realist version of the theory of emergence, Dave Elder-Vass argues that, instead of ascribing causal significance to an abstract notion of social structure or a monolithic concept of society, we must recognise that it is specific groups of people that have social structural power. Some of these groups are entities with emergent causal powers, distinct from those of human individuals. Yet these powers also depend on the contributions of human individuals, and this book examines the mechanisms through which interactions between human individuals generate the causal powers of some types of social structures. The Causal Power of Social Structures makes particularly important contributions to the theory of human agency and to our understanding of normative institutions.

1. Introduction
2. Emergence
3. Cause
4. Social ontology and social structure
5. Agency
6. Normative institutions
7. Organisations
8. Social events
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Social theory [JHBA], Sociology [JHB], Social & political philosophy [HPS]