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Sociological theories have long been distinguished from each other by their focus primarily on social structure or human agency or the extent to which people are shaped by their society, or vice versa. Anthony Giddens suggests that the process of structuration helps us to avoid focusing on either structure or agency. Examples we provide in the chapter are the way that communist regimes collapsed in the late 1980s and the 1990s and popular uprisings across the Middle East and North Africa in 2011–12 challenged the existing authorities.

Do your own research into both sets of events. What are the main similarities and differences between these historical revolts and their eventual outcomes? Can we say that there is always scope for changing the existing social structure? Are social structures really as malleable as structuration theory says? Does structuration theory pay too little attention to the power of existing authorities to resist radical change from below?