Agency, Modernity and Social Policy

Abstract

The focus of this article is upon the recent revival of interest in human agency within both sociological and social policy debates. There is a striking resonance between the increasing attention paid to individual behaviour within normative debates about welfare and the concern of some sociologists with the moral and ethical dilemmas that confront the individual in contemporary society. These two sets of arguments are not compatible. Indeed the analyses they present are contradictory. Moralists such as Etzioni, Field and Mead share a belief in the need to restructure welfare in ways that encourage and reward responsible behaviour. In contrast, sociologists such as Bauman, Beck and Giddens suggest that such endeavours could prove to be both futile and dangerous.Attempts to address issues of agency face formidable obstacles and arouse genuine fears that they will serve to endorse a punitive and atavistic individualism. It is these fears, however, which have constrained and confined the debate about welfare in the post-war years. The revival of agency creates opportunities for a social science which is more sensitive to the activities of poor people whilst reflecting more fully the difference and diversity which characterises contemporary British society.

Conceptualising the active welfare subject: welfare reform in discourse, policy and lived experience

“…Counter model understandings of the active welfare subject also relate to agency in social policy (Deacon, 2004;Deacon and Mann, 1999). In this case, 'agency' usually refers to 'purposive 2 human action or behaviour' (Deacon, 2004: 447), involving the study of motivations, decisions and the causes and consequences of personal action or inaction.…”

The effortful citizen: Discursive social psychology and welfare reform

“…However, although some authors have explored the way in which welfare policy has embodied certain assumptions about human nature and behaviour (e.g. Deacon & Mann, 1999;Le Grand, 1997), there is as yet no exploration of the role of constructions of the psychological, and the use of specific psychological terms, in everyday discourse about welfare. In the present paper, I want to argue that social actors can use psychological terms in order to deal with issues of accountability on several levels in relation to welfare.…”

Understanding the exercise of agency within structural inequality: the case of personal debt

“…To focus on social policy, moralists such as Etzioni, Field, Mead and Murray argue that welfare needs to be restructured in ways that encourage and reward responsible behaviour. They are all highly critical of the non-judgementalism of intellectuals who refuse to identify and condemn behaviour which does not promote the common good (Deacon and Mann, 1999).…”