Moving beyond the substantialist foundations of the agency-structure dichotomy: figurational thinking in international relations

Bucher, Bernd

doi:10.1057/jird.2015.12

Cited by 7 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…From an international perspective, culture is dependent upon human behaviour patterns, although these behaviours and their inferred meanings may change across cultural boundaries (Uemura, , p. 360). With regard to the necessary dialogue between constructivism and other approaches, such as agency theory, foreign policy decisions require a good understanding of individual and social constructions (Houghton, ) through figurations (Bucher, ).…”

Section: Agency Problems In International Business: Unsolved Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Corporate social responsibility and multiple agency theory: A case study of internal stakeholder engagement

Calvo

2018

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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Employee engagement via corporate social responsibility (CSR) involves conflicts of interest between firms, employees, and political institutions. We examined the international transfer of employees of an airline company as a case study of a CSR strategy based on human resource management. From the dual approach of multiple agency theory and a resource‐based perspective, we found that by increasing worker mobility costs, the European Union hindered the firm's CSR strategy of employee engagement. This contrasts with the stated aim of the European Union to promote worker mobility.

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Section: Agency Problems In International Business: Unsolved Problemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…the necessary dialogue between constructivism and other approaches, such as agency theory, foreign policy decisions require a good understanding of individual and social constructions (Houghton, 2007) through figurations (Bucher, 2015).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Corporate social responsibility and multiple agency theory: A case study of internal stakeholder engagement

Calvo

2018

Corp Soc Responsibility Env

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“…As we have seen above, such a diagnosis applied to much of the IR literature of the late 1990s. By asserting that agents and structures are mutually constitutive, structurationist IR scholars tended to reify both agents and structures as entities of distinct ontological qualities (Bucher 2017;Jackson and Nexon 1999 Emirbayer's (1997) call for a 'relational sociology', Jackson and Nexon (1999) proposed to put 'relations before states' and drew out the contours of a relational IR.…”

Section: Beyond the Dualism Of Agent And Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…These bodies of literature highlight how social practices produce 'subjects', 'roles' or 'actants'. Important differences notwithstanding, they share a view of agency as relational, situational and reflexive (Bucher 2017;Emirbayer 1997;Jackson and Nexon 1999). While Ringmar, in the comment that concludes this issue, emphasizes the differences between these three traditions of social thought, we read them -for the purposes of this article -as contributions to a common agenda.…”

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confidence: 99%

Rethinking agency in International Relations: performativity, performances and actor-networks

2018

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Abstract:The academic discipline of International Relations (IR) has long pondered the questions of what it means to act in international politics and who can do so. However, the particular way in which IR has approached the problem of agency has somewhat masked important dynamics in international politics. By approaching the question of agency as an analytical problem that needs to be resolved before engaging with empirical material, IR has failed to see that who can act is often uncertain and contested. This special issue examines the emergence of international agency as an empirical phenomenon. Rather than analysing what given agents do, the contributions study how practices, performances and networks create and transform agency. In this introductory article, we prepare the ground for this distinct approach to studying international politics. We review how IR has addressed the problem of agency, and we discuss three social-theoretical traditions that see agency as an emergent phenomenon: poststructuralism, performance studies and actor-network theory. Finally, we highlight four insights that emerge from the contributions and challenge how IR has traditionally imagined agency.

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“…The primary objective of my discussion is to offer a renewed understanding of agency and how its multiplicity can be empirically reconstructed. Too often in the study of international relations, agency is either neglected at the expense of structural arguments, or simply taken for granted (Bucher 2017). In particular, we frequently speak of states or international organizations as actors, without actually having understood what kind of agency these forms imply and what they depend upon.…”

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confidence: 99%

Performing piracy: a note on the multiplicity of agency

Bueger

2017

J Int Relat Dev

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Moving beyond the substantialist foundations of the agency-structure dichotomy: figurational thinking in international relations

Cited by 7 publications

References 51 publications

Corporate social responsibility and multiple agency theory: A case study of internal stakeholder engagement

Corporate social responsibility and multiple agency theory: A case study of internal stakeholder engagement

Rethinking agency in International Relations: performativity, performances and actor-networks

Performing piracy: a note on the multiplicity of agency

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