Abstract
The conceptualization of human agency is one of the oldest and most debated challenges in political theory. This essay defends the continuous relevance of this endeavour against a proliferating theoretical pessimism. Instead of engaging the much rehearsed structure–agency debate, the author conceptualizes agency in relation to discourses. However, such an approach inevitably elicits suspicion. Is discourse not merely a faddish term, destined to wax and wane with fleeting intellectual trends of the postmodern and poststructural kind? Does the concept of discourse, as many fear, suck us into a nihilistic vortex and deprive us of the stable foundations that are necessary to ground our thoughts and actions? Not so, argues this essay, and defends an anti-essentialist stance as the most viable chance for retaining an adequate understanding of how people situate themselves as agents and influence their socio-political environment. The ensuing analysis, which focuses on everyday forms of resistance, demonstrates how the very acceptance of ambiguity, often misrepresented as relativism, is a crucial precondition not only for the conceptualization of human agency, but also for its actual application in practice.
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2This essay expands on arguments first presented in my monograph Popular Dissent, Human Agency and Global Politics (Bleiker, 2000, CUP). I have greatly profited from colleagues who have kindly offered supporting criticisms at various stages: Tony Burke, David Campbell, Bill Connolly, Jim George, Paul Patton, Jim Richardson, Christine Sylvester and two anonymous referees for Contemporary Political Theory. Thanks as well to the United States Institute of Peace and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for supporting my research.
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Bleiker, R. Discourse and Human Agency. Contemp Polit Theory 2, 25–47 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300073
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.cpt.9300073