Agency (and Intention)

Abstract

Sociology and related disciplines have long theorized agency, an individual's ability to act on their intentions via their free will, within the context of social life. Sociological inquiry documents our highly patterned social lives, and how and why our abilities and willingness to act on our intentions are constrained by social forces. Simultaneously, the very core of liberal humanism and democratic citizenship upholds cultural values like free will, personhood, subjective rights, and moral responsibility. Debates about who agency should be preserved for, how, and to what extent are at the core of timely and deeply debated social issues like reproductive rights, prison reform, social welfare programs, affirmative action, citizenship, voting rights, and reparations. This entry reviews classical metatheoretical explanations of these tensions, including rational choice, agency versus structure, micro versus macro frameworks (and the inter‐relatedness of the two), and contemporary analysis afforded by feminist and critical race theories.