ABSTRACT

This article explores a key difference that Elder-Vass has identified between critical realism and pragmatism: their divergent views on the viability of the concept of social structure. Noting that this is also a point of dispute between critical realists and Actor-Network Theorists, I try to contribute to the debate about social structure by focusing on the question of whether organizations are structures, drawing on the views of a pragmatist-leaning ANT - Bruno Latour - to evaluate those of a critical realist - Dave Elder-Vass. I suggest that Latour's arguments can be used to identify two challenges for Elder-Vass's approach, questioning both whether an organization has a singular structural form and whether organizations have determinable powers and impacts. I then consider whether Latour's approach is vulnerable to critical realist arguments that perspectives which deny the existence of social structure cannot account for long-term stabilities, fail to connect different cases, and are individualistic in character.

摘要

本文探讨了埃尔德-瓦斯确定的批判现实主义和实用主义之间的一个关键区别：他们对社会结构概念的可行性的不同看法。注意到这也是批判现实主义者和行动者网络理论家之间的争论点，我试图通过关注组织是否是结构的问题，借鉴实用主义倾向的 ANT 的观点，为关于社会结构的辩论做出贡献——布鲁诺·拉图尔（Bruno Latour）——评价一个批判现实主义者——戴夫·埃尔德·瓦斯（Dave Elder-Vass）的观点。我建议拉图尔的论点可以用来确定Elder-Vass方法面临的两个挑战，即质疑组织是否具有单一的结构形式以及组织是否具有可确定的权力和影响。然后我考虑是否拉图'