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In the glossary included in The Constitution of Society (p. 377) Giddens defines a social system as "the patterning of social relations across time-space understood as reproduced practices". This definition correctly establishes the centrality of praxis in the constitution of systems, and it also implies a concern for spatio-temporal articulations (via modes of social and system integration) through which the morphological patterns of systems are generated and maintained. But in other respects the definition is incomplete, especially since it makes systems appear as if they just happen to be patterned and reproduced in certain ways. But the patterning of systems is by no means a fortuitous matter. Social systemic patterns not only are reproduced in and through social praxis, they also are organised by means of institutionalised forms of conduct. Given that human beings harbour no inborn instincts to organise social systems in determinate ways, capabilities to do so must be regarded as one of the basic human potentials with which structuration theory is concerned; potentials which may be realised in a variety of different ways. The present chapter is devoted to how structuration theory conceives the principal ways in which the organisation of systems is achieved and maintained through the exercise of these potentials in the constitution of social life.

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-20255-3_5

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