Anthony Giddens

Anthony Giddens is a British sociologist best known for developing structuration theory, an attempt to overcome the long-standing opposition between theories that emphasize social structure and theories that emphasize individual agency. In The Constitution of Society (1984) he argued that social structures are both the medium and the outcome of the practices they organize, so that agents continually reproduce or transform structure through their own action. Giddens, a former director of the London School of Economics, also wrote influential work on modernity, globalization, and reflexive self-identity, and on the political program known as the Third Way.