The New Structuralism

Abstract In the early 1960s, the field of sociology underwent a major revolution, as it shifted away from a dominant view called structuralism. This view conceptualized society as a system of universal interrelated elements and fundamental structures. Critical in the shift away from structuralism was a reframing of social structure. One subsequent approach called new structuralism viewed social structure as being historically contingent and continually re-enacted by social actors in context. This was initially developed as a response to the critiques of the original structuralist framework, such as the ahistorical bent, the disregard of power, and focus on systemic stability instead of human agency. Unlike proponents of the companion approach called post-structuralism that emerged around the same time, the new structuralists continued to view social structures as both empirically observable and durable. The unique angle of the new structuralist approach was in reframing social structure away from the older arguments about universal deep structures and hierarchies across societies. This approach maintained a focus on social structure but saw it as being situated. As a dynamic and relational view, this showed how structures were continually reproduced through power relations of social actors embedded in networks built around systems of meaning. The impact of new structuralism can be seen in contemporary institutionalism and organizational analysis. This literature developed in a new structuralist direction by conceptualizing social structure as culturally embedded in institutional fields. As recognized areas of institutional life, fields contain sets of organizations that regularly interact and share both meaning systems and regulatory frameworks that enable concerns about legitimacy and isomorphism. Organizations are therefore deeply embedded in—and help to coconstitute—institutional fields. Fields contain organizations and social actors but also logics and norms. They provide important social boundaries, forming the medium that suspends social networks and the relational positions of actors. Embedded agency is local to fields, as actorhood is both enabled and constrained by institutional elements and configurations. In turn, these can evolve as actors interact over time.

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