Realist Social Theory

The book presents Margaret Archer's morphogenetic approach, focusing on the relationship between structure and agency in social theory. It emphasizes that both elements have distinct emergent properties that cannot be reduced to one another. Archer critiques common conflation methods and introduces a new debate contrasting elisionary theorizing with emergentist theories grounded in a realist ontology. This framework rejects both methodological individualism and collectivism, offering valuable insights for social analysts while promoting a non-conflationary perspective on social reality.