Notes Introduction: Anthony Giddens – Social Theory and Politics 1. To clarify, ‘his Third Way’ refers to the cluster of texts forming his political project, whilst The Third Way denotes the specific book (1998a). 2. A close relationship has been pointed out between Giddens and Weber’s class analysis (Weber, 1947; Loyal, 2003: 98). 3. Giddens’ adversarial stance towards Foucault is especially clear in The Trans- formation of Intimacy (1992). As I note subsequently, this adversarialism is unfortunate, as synergies between these two authors are in fact feasible, with promising scope. 4. For a systematic contrast between Giddens’, Beck’s and Bauman’s analyses of late modernity, see Dawson (2013) and Archer (2014). 5. Finlayson (2003) opts for an even broader perspective, considering also cultural influences. 6. Loyal (2003) is a key exception: he notes that an integrated reading of Giddens can yield new insights because his work as a whole represents at some level a comprehensive project. However, his analysis focuses largely on Giddens’ earlier work, exposing a continuous struggle to sociologically accommodate liberal values. Loyal’s focus on Giddens’ attempt to balance various standpoints and traditions to uphold a certain set of values reveals some important points, but ultimately says more about those traditions than about the political relevance and utility of Giddens. Indeed, his book con- cludes with hardly any points on utility, and is as such relevant mainly to theoretical rather than practical concerns. 7. A notable exception to this is Leggett (2005, 2009), who endeavours a recon- struction of New Labour, based in part on Giddens. But whilst this signals acknowledgement of multiple political paths from Giddens’ work, critical engagement centres on his Third Way, whilst his pre-Third Way work is generally taken at face value. 8. This phrase originally stems from Beck (1992: 93). As I note at various points in this book, his assessment of individualization is similar to Giddens in many ways, and this phrase succinctly encapsulates the implications of their observed social transformations for the constitution of the self. 9. I hope this brief definition will avoid any confusion when I use this term. Varela (2007) is among the few authors who use it. It is slightly more com- mon in German, for instance, in Kiessling’s Kritik der Giddenschen Sozialtheorie (1988). These two authors use the term differently from me and indeed from each other. 10. Giddens notes that establishing a dialogue and becoming able to influ- ence high-level political movements and decisions is a challenge many have underestimated, including himself: a robust analysis with fit- ting political implications and conclusions is unlikely to gather much 173 174 Notes support – highlighting issues that already have visible salience and iden- tifying agents willing and capable of addressing them are additional and essential tactical elements of such endeavours, as are translation from schol- arly language into salient and politically digestible messages, as well as sufficient networking (Giddens, 2007c). 1 Critical Foundations – Structuration and System Transformation 1. Similar points are also made by Gregson (1997) and Urry (1997). 2. Bryant and Jary’s (1997) four volumes of Critical Assessments provide an excellent collection, but for an impressively concise summary of criticisms, see Mestrovic (1998). 3. At one point, he even implies mortality as a source of structural constraint, an indication of just how wide the definition of ‘rules’ might be (1984: 175). 4. This shows an important separation between constraint and domination on the part of Giddens, where the two are nevertheless still part of the same framework. 5. It is therefore not by chance that structuration theory has been used success- fully for research in areas such as management and policymaking, and less on subject matters where social conditions are such that individual scope for transformation intuitively seems more limited. 6. Lockwood’s (1964) distinction between social and system integration poten- tially presents an alternative way of understanding simultaneous presence of enabling and constraining aspects of structure. However, in Giddens’ analysis, this distinction is not evident: constraining and enabling features can derive from one and the same structural property. For a discussion on Lockwood and Giddens, see Mouzelis (1997). 7. This approach to critical theory is not unique to Giddens: O’Kane notes that others have referred to ...the miutic approach [to critical theory], which aims to engender the realization of emerging tendencies towards the good life. (O’Kane, 2009: 5) 8. Nevertheless, he notes that he still finds the concept of utopian realism important in some of his most recent contributions (Giddens, 2005, 2009). 9. There is the additional issue here that subjectivity already enters into play when the researcher chooses which aspects of social life to study in the first place. The point is not to ignore the implications of the researcher’s subjec- tivity and situatedness altogether but to mediate it as far as possible within these parameters. 10. I do not infer here that Giddens’ approach necessarily leads to moderation of political views. The given example could just as easily be the other way around. 11. There have in recent years been claims about a ‘crisis of sociology’, owing in part to a lack of coherence between these different aspects of the discipline (Lopreato and Crippen, 2002). Giddens’ ontology of critique may well present a helpful perspective in this context. Notes 175 2 Utopian Realism – Late Modernity Revisited 1. Giddens does not give an exact timeframe for when late modernity is sup- posed to have begun, until 2003, when he notes as a starting point the ‘marriage of satellite and information technology that dates from the early 1970s’ (2003: 24). However, in Beyond Left and Right, he notes that many of the processes he talks about have taken place ‘over no more than the past four or five decades’ (1994: 4). McCullen and Harris (2004) note that ‘the year of the first satellite TV broadcast [is] sometimes identified as a water- shed’ (ibid: 48–9), although they give no reference for this. We may thus infer that the supposed beginnings of late modernity can be placed roughly in the 1950s at the very earliest but likely somewhat later. 2. Expressed amongst others by O’Boyle (2013). 3. For a similar synopsis of Giddens’ late modernity thesis, see Leggett (2005: 16–17). I note the point of caution around attributing a linear character to Giddens’ perspective, as Leggett and others have a tendency to do so, when Giddens’ work, in fact, contains little ground for such inference (Anderson, 1995). In my view, this in itself has not resulted in any problematic conclu- sions about Giddens, yet it is worth keeping in mind that his late modernity thesis is, for lack of a better word, messier than the linearity inferred by others suggests. 4. Whilst time and space are previously discussed abstractly, Giddens now contextualizes them, explaining how they have become standardized and conceptually altered, citing concrete examples such as clocks, time-zones and maps (Giddens, 1990: 17–21). For the first time in Giddens’ work, the reader is therefore given an understanding of how time and space are to be understood, how these elements must be viewed specifically in the present age and thereby affect the agent’s perception of the social world, thus shaping the sociological character of our time. 5. Not least because the rise of science and especially literacy provides means by which to counter long-established norms and claims around sexuality and intimacy propagated most notably by religious faith. Giddens, of course, stands in considerable contrast here to Foucault (1976), who attributes a more damaging role to science in relation to sexuality. Yet, it is worth not- ing that the two positions are not mutually exclusive: whilst science can be a tool to classify and standardize sexuality, it can likewise be the vehicle through which formally constraining norms in this domain are overcome. The two authors each make salient points in their own right, and Giddens’ structuration theory can provide us with a rationale where the two are not contradictory. Scientific knowledge can be viewed as a structural feature of modern societies, which has been drawn on to both positive and destructive effect in relation to sexuality and intimacy. 6. It has been argued that Giddens’ reading of Foucault is poor in this respect. For a more detailed account of what some critics may indeed term ‘misrepresentation’, see Boyne (1997). However, although the charges of misrepresentation are significant, they do not matter for the point here: whether he is misrepresenting Foucault or not, it is evident that he is design- ing his theory explicitly in opposition to a structure-centred theoretical approach. This misrepresentation of Foucault is unfortunate nevertheless: as 176 Notes I noted in Chapter 1, structuration theory is in fact capable of accommodat- ing a Foucauldian dimension, and, as noted earlier, Giddens’ and Foucault’s positions are not as adversarial as they may at first seem. More broadly, in my view the two figures could be combined to fruitful effects, in a framework that might, for instance, respectively expose and then connect enabling and disempowering facets of discourse, information and social reality. This, however, would be the topic of a separate book altogether. 7. For further discussion