Structure and Agency - Statecraft – Theoretical and Development

Statecraft – Theoretical and Development

2.5 Structure and Agency

The structure-agency debate has become one of the most prominent subjects for political science in recent years, and statecraft’s engagement with it has been one of the principal sources of critical attention directed at the approach (see Bulpitt, 1996a, pp. 518-519 and Buller, 1999, p. 701 and for a wider discussion of the issue see Carlsnaes, 1992; Hay, 2002, pp.83-134; McAnulla, 2002). It is commonly regarded that the statecraft approach emphasizes the agential, and ignores structural

factors to the extent that it has been accused of “giving the impression of a band of politicians who always end up achieving their objectives in the end” (Buller, 1999, p. 701).¹²

However, it will be argued that Bulpitt did not ignore structural considerations, nor is statecraft an agential approach to political science. That said, there are difficulties with the statecraft framework, and in part these originate from Bulpitt’s desire to provide limited detail on the methodology of the approach, which ultimately left many questions unanswered, and a partial account even heightened some criticism. Yet, the case will be made that there is a degree of disconnect between some of the critical attention Bulpitt’s theoretical work has received, and the empirical work he produced: in other words, by reading between the lines, some of descriptions of statecraft’s problems are seen to be less serious.

Despite being an important area of debate within political science, some have questioned the importance the issue is given. Bulpitt, however, was not one of these academics; instead, in all his work he makes a point of briefly outlining the assumptions and limitations of his approach (see for example: 1986, pp. 21-23; 1988, pp 183-185; 1996, p. 518). He did seem to imply that he didn’t want an abstract discussion about structure and agency to dominate his work, and at one point does refer to the structure and agency debate as ‘otiose’ although it is argued this refer to attempts to treat it as a resolvable issue, rather than its utility as a way of rendering research assumptions explicit (see Bulpitt, 1996a, p, 1095). This may have also been compounded by a desire to concentrate on empirical work. If anything, his attempts to answer his critics by giving a little more detail about the assumptions underpinning the statecraft approach proved counterproductive as it left many questions unanswered.

However, as it is argued at several points in this chapter, Bulpitt’s original statecraft work emerged in the early 1980s at a time when the formal discussion of structure and agency was still in its

12 This is a particularly remarkable assertion given that Buller refers to Bulpitt’s treatment of the first Thatcher government as an example of this; yet Bulpitt is known as one of the first to highlight the incoherence and inconsistencies and u-turns that are one of the defining features of the period (see Kerr, 2001; Marsh and Rhodes, 1992; Marsh et al, 1999). It demonstrates an unwillingness to read between the lines.

infancy (see Giddens 1984; Wendt, 1897, pp. 339-341). His early, and arguably most influential works on the statecraft approach do not contain explicit discussions of structure and agency, but those from 1988 onward do, presumably in response to criticism, and Bulpitt’s attempts to counter charges of intentionalism (see Buller, 1999, p. 701 and Rhodes, 1988, pp. 31-34).

However, as even the most powerful advocates for the importance of questions of structure and agency acknowledge that it has always been present in political science, but it was largely implicit and poorly conceptualized until authors like Giddens, Archer, and Jessop sought to advance and formalize various dynamic conceptions of the relationship which went beyond the dualism of structure and agency (see for example Giddens, 1984; Archer, 1995; Jessop, 1990; Hay 2002, pp.

83-90). Many dualisms have featured prominently in political science debate, and whilst strictly structuralist or intentionalist accounts have been rare, in the 1970s contemporary Marxist theory witnessed a polarization between positions, which Giddens in particular sought to transcend with a dialectical approach to questions of structure and agency (Giddens, 1981, pp. 26-48; and see Hay, 2002, pp. 116-119).

It is argued that both implicitly in his empirical, and later explicitly in his conceptual work, Bulpitt makes it clear that he rejects an agential or structural approach to political science. If anything, in various guises, Bulpitt was always interested in the dynamic relationship between things, whether that be central and local government or Britain’s relationship with Europe¹³ and the wider world (see in particular, Bulpitt, 1983; Bulpitt, 1992). In his article on the first Thatcher administration the

“crucial question is in what ways has the Conservative Party sought to gain office, govern satisfactorily and retain office within the British structure of politics?” (1986, p. 21). Later he says,

“party leaders operate within a structural framework which...yields both constraints and opportunities” (1988, p. 185).¹⁴

13 The term Europe is used principally in with reference to the European Economic Community or the European Community and later the EU.

14 The omission of a small part in the middle of this sentence is because this work refers to foreign policy analysis, not to conceal or alter the meaning of the sentence, and it is a theme that is repeated throughout Bulpitt’s work.

As a consequence, it can be inferred that a principle interest of Bulpitt’s analysis was on agents but he regards the ‘agent’ as the Conservative Party as led by Mrs Thatcher, not Thatcher herself:

although both can be classed as agents for the statecraft analysis.¹⁵ However, that doesn’t seem to imply that Bulpitt attributes a causal primacy to agents in the practice of politics he is actually studying; the reason people assume he gives agents causal primacy is because he mentions 'intentions', 'strategy' and 'rationality' which are discussed below.

Attempting to locate the statecraft approach within the current debate surrounding structure and agency is likely to be contentious. If we accept Buller’s assertion that statecraft is potentially compatible with a realist approach, which he convincingly argues, then this may help because it fits with, and has influenced the main ways structure and agency is currently conceived (Buller, 1999, pp. 705-707). If anything, it could be argued that going a little further than Buller, and locating the statecraft approach within critical realism could advance the discussion further.

Briefly, realism is grounded upon the foundationalist ontological assumption that there is a real world, that it exists independently of an individual’s knowledge of it and that structures have causal powers (Marsh and Furlong, 2002, pp. 30-31). When it comes to studying these structures, some cannot be directly observed or worse still, it is possible that what can be observed may offer a misleading picture of the structure or its implications and impact (Hollis and Smith, 1990, pp. 205-207; see Marsh 2002). Despite this limitation, there is still utility in inferring or positing the existence of structures that are not directly observable as this leads to “inference to the best explanation” (Hollis and Smith, 1990, p.207).

Marsh and Furlong go on to outline how the modern critical realism goes further, and recognizes that our understanding or interpretation of structures or social phenomena impacts upon outcomes and this may also be fallible, misleading and ‘theory laden’ (Marsh and Furlong, 2002, p. 31). They

15 It is also important to see that the Conservative Party can also act as a structure. It quite obviously provides constraints and opportunities for its leaders, and Bulpitt refers to party divisions in this way (see Bulpitt, 1986, pp.

33-36).

go onto to highlight how this leads to a notion of structures which constrain and facilitate rather than determine outcomes, which again, is in line with Bulpitt’s own stated position (Bulpitt, 1996a, pp.

1095-1096). This is important in the context of this thesis on a number of levels. In, acknowledging that both ‘reality’ and the way reality is constructed are important contributes to a more sophisticated notion of structure and agency, that informs the subsequent chapters of this thesis. It helps with the understanding of how politicians’ actions can be fallible, and counters the notion that statecraft is intentionalistic.

In realist and critical realist circles, there are two dominant approaches to dealing with the assumptions researchers make about questions of structure and agency. The morphogenetic approach developed by Margaret Archer, but based on the work of Roy Bhaskar and the strategic relational approach developed by Jessop and subsequently Hay show many similarities. They both praise the work of Giddens, which also merits consideration here. His attempt, to go beyond the traditional and competing positions on the scale of structuralism versus intentionalism with his preference for viewing structure and agency are internally related forming a duality (Hay, 1995, p.

197). Giddens’s structuration approach is premised upon this duality of structure: notion that structures provide both constraints and opportunities and that society is produced and reproduced by agential action: “Social structures are both constituted by human action, and yet at the same time are the very medium of this constitution” (Giddens. 1976, p. 121).

The problems with Giddens’s approach have been well documented, and largely revolve around the assertion that the claims he makes for his approach, are not borne out by his notions of structuration, the duality of structure and in particular the methodological bracketing he adopts. Methodological bracketing is necessary because Giddens holds that it is rarely possible to capture the complexity of structural and agential factors at once, so he requires the researcher to ‘bracket off’ one whilst examining the other (see Hay 1995, pp. 197-199). Further to this, the way Giddens treats structure and agency as ontologically intertwined or mutually constitutive is difficult to operationalize, if one has to be bracketed of from the other for analysis. As Hay says, this means his attempt at creating a

duality, has to be reduced to an analytical dualism (2002, p. 120 and 124). In contrast, for others the very notion that structure and agency are mutually constituted serves to conflate the two which makes analysis of the relationship between them problematic (McAnulla, 2002, p. 279).

In statecraft terms, it seems likely that Bulpitt was influenced by the early development of a formalized dialectical approach which was what Giddens claimed to offer when he referred to the underlying assumption of the statecraft approach seeing structures as offering both constraints and opportunities (1988, pp. 185). However, most of Bulpitt’s empirical work is rich in detail of the interaction and interrelationship of what can be called structure and agency, and the very purpose of his macro and historical approach to political science is to counter those who abstracted political phenomena from its context (1996a, pp. 1095-1098). This hardly seems compatible with the process of methodological bracketing, for example, the context, or structure and it’s interaction with agential action is key for Bulpitt’s analysis of the way political leaders have sought to win office or govern.

Assessing how statecraft might relate to either the morphogenetic or the strategic relational approach is more problematic, and indeed, there are similarities between the two (McAnulla, 2002, p. 285). It is likely that a case could be made for statecraft being compatible with either approach, although doubtless such a claim will raise objections from some quarters. The morphogenetic approach is premised on a distinction between structure and agency; they should not be conflated but instead it is the interrelationship of the two over time that is important (McAnulla, 2002, p. 285). Archer’s morphogenetic cycle begins with a pre-existing structural context which is the product of previous interaction between structure and agency. This acts to influence significantly agential action and interaction but it does not determine it, rather it provides the constraints and opportunities for social interaction to occur. The result of agential action serves to change the structural conditions, which Archer calls structural elaboration, whether this be to a tiny barely noticeable extent, which resembles no change at all; or at other times, it may result in significant change; either way this forms the structural context for the cycle to begin again (Archer, 1995 and see McAnulla, 2002, pp.

286-287).

In many ways, Archer’s approach seems to fit quite well with statecraft, it stresses the importance of time, and the deeply structured political environment in which politicians act and seek to grapple with, whilst acknowledging all of the limitations associated with the critical realist about how well agents can understand their structural context (Hay, 2002, pp. 124-125). In his critique of the morphogenetic approach Hay highlights a tendency for the cycle to present a somewhat agency-centred sequence at one point, but later that it implies “a residual structuralism punctuated only periodically yet infrequently by a large and unexplicated conception of agency” (see Hay 2002, p.

125 and 125). However, if anything, the statecraft cycle, and perhaps Bulpitt’s notion of the natural rate of governability, which it is argued, offers a notion of continuous interaction between structure and agency could work to overcome Hay’s criticism of Archer’s episodic and disjointed view of agency, and presumably agential interaction with structures (Hay, 2002, p. 127 but see Archer, 1995, pp. 247-257). Alternatively, it may just serve to reinforce it.

In this sense, party leaders find themselves in a deep, complex, and densely structured environment which provides constraints and opportunities. However, it also offers a way of acknowledging the importance of factors such as ideas and ideology because Archer attributes importance to these by distinguishing culture from structure as a way of avoiding the conflation of the material and ideational (Archer 1995; and see McAnulla, 2002, pp. 287-288). In the way the statecraft framework is used in this thesis, and drawing on the work of Buckler and Dolowitz, one of the interesting aspects of studying party leaders in action is the difficulty they have resolving ideological and what could be termed cultural issues facing the party (internally and externally) with the wider political structural conditions confronting it. The statecraft cycle may also offer a way of framing a morphogenetic cycle because in the right circumstances it provides a guide to a start and finishing point of the analysis (usually elections).

However, whether the way morphogenetic approach sees structure and agency separate and distinct entities is compatible with the way a statecraft analysis charts the continual interaction of structure and agency is questionable. In particular, operationalizing the morphogenetic cycle in the study of

party political interaction and government poses many questions about the selection of where the various points of the cycle begin and end. It also raises questions about whether such an approach can really cope with the constant dynamic nature of such a subject area. The party political and governing landscape is almost constantly dynamic, even if this is usually only to a relatively modest extent.

There are many factors such policies, announcements, ‘events’, mistakes, scandal, and the interaction of political parties that could be regarded as almost constantly altering the structural conditions party leaders face. The research would have to be careful to ensure that the selection of the time frame for the cycle of analysis to ensure that it adequately captured the way social interaction led to structural elaboration. Conversely, the morphogenetic cycle may offer something to statecraft analysis because it could clarify the way political leaders can at times appear to struggle with the form structural elaboration takes. It can be argued that a significant part of the literature on statecraft has been concerned with party leaders and governments coming to terms with a changing structural environment, whether that be in relation to Britain’s place in the world following World War II, relationship with Europe, or the change in British governance (for example Buller, 2000;

Bulpitt, 1988; Bulpitt, 1992). Coming to terms with what Archer terms structural elaboration has often proven problematic for party leaders, although there may be a multitude of reasons for this, from a lack of understanding of the situation to the difficulty of dealing with a multi-layed structural environment.

The strategic relational approach developed by Bob Jessop and later Colin Hay is third of the prominent ways of conceptualizing the relationship between structure and agency. Rather than see structure and agency as ontologically separate, the distinction is just analytical, as one cannot exist independently of the other (Hay, 2002, p. 127). For the researcher, a strategic relational approach places the emphasis on the dialectical relationship of structure and agency, and although they may be separated for analytical purposes, they are viewed through their relationship with each other

(Hay, 1995, pp. 200-2001). Furthermore, as Hay puts it, “what constitutes a structure is entirely dependent upon our vantage point” (1995, p. 200).

Once again, it is an approach built upon critical realist foundations, and as with the other approaches discussed here, structures serve to create both opportunities and constraints, and agents will have imperfect knowledge of them. However, Jessop and Hay refer to the strategies and options that may be prefered by the structural environment in which agents act, and that structures can “conceived of as nested hierarchy of levels of structure that interact in complex ways to condition and set the context within which agency is displayed” (Hay, 1995, p. 200; Jessop, 1990, p. 129). In combination, this is seen as creating a strategically selective context, within which there are agents who pursue strategic action- and it is the dialectical relationship between the two that is the novel and interesting focus of attention for the strategic relational approach (Hay, 2002, p. 129; Jessop, 1990, pp. 259-261).

Hay asserts that:

"In one sense, this is obvious. A government seeking re-election is likely to find itself in a position of strategic choice as an election approaches (relating not only to the campaign it might fight, but also for instance, whether it should seek to engineer a pre-election boom). Yet, given the nature of the (strategically selective) environment in which it finds itself (given what we know, for instance about its tenure in office, the state of the economy, the strategic choices made by contending parties…), certain strategies are more likely to be rewarded at the polls than others" (2002, p. 129).

Hay goes on to assert that despite this seeming obvious, it is “scarcely acknowledged in the existing literature on structure and agency” (2002, p. 129). This may very well be true, but the case could be made that this is a feature of the empirical work of Bulpitt (and many others). Even if it’s not explicitly stated in his summary of the assumptions on which statecraft is based, and indeed Hay does acknowledge that Jessop use of the strategic relational language in built upon what may be

“sociological truisms” (2002, p. 129). Potential examples are mentioned elsewhere in this chapter, but whether that is the way the Conservative Party has engaged with Europe at various times proactively because it was viewed as offering strategic advantages to the party and country; or a more recalcitrant attitude towards it at other times when the reverse has been true (see Bulpitt, 1992;

Buller, 2000). Another example could be the development of British central-local government relations. The timeframe of this that Bulpitt covers witnesses considerable changes in the size, extent and role of the British state, yet it remains a centrally dominated structure, and even today with discussions of localism and increasing regional and local autonomy, the centre seems set to continue its dominance (Bulpitt, 1983 and cf. Bradbury, 2010).

Interestingly, whilst the emphasis of statecraft’s critics is usually on the agential side of these examples, and this is important, but equally the political environment could be seen to be strategically selective. In the case of Britain’s relationship with Europe, and the Conservative

In document A statecraft analysis of the Conservative Party: 2001 to 2010 (Page 65-94)