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The discipline of International Relations (IR) has repeatedly discussed the problem of agency, though not always using the term.

A central preoccupation of IR since its inception is the question of whose actions shape international politics: who possesses agency. Starting from a rather state-centric perspective, IR initially considered only states and their leaders as relevant actors. Agency was thus closely linked to the notion of state sovereignty and the idea that “great” men (and occasionally women) make history. Over the years, and no doubt reflecting changes in the actual practices of international politics, IR has gradually considered more and more actors as possible agents: international organizations and their bureaucrats, corporations, NGOs, expert communities and professions, celebrities, insurgent groups and so on. The focus has for the most part been on demonstrating that the new actors actually make a difference rather than explaining how they acquired their agency.

A more explicit theorization of agency was initiated when Alexander Wendt introduced the agent-structure problem into IR and proposed a “structurationist” perspective that conceives of agents and structures as mutually constitutive but ontologically distinct entities. Other scholars working in the constructivist tradition have examined how the mastery of particular repertoires of politics, such as diplomacy, expert governance or advocacy and activism, can confer agency on different actors. They have also shown how agency depends on its recognition by other actors and can be undermined if such recognition is denied. Critical, feminist and postcolonial scholars have emphasized that agency is still unevenly distributed, with certain courses of action open to some actors but not to others, depending on their positioning within power relations. It then becomes clear not only that the question of agency is a highly political one, but that, in writing about agency, we cannot escape its politics.

(Tobias Wille. Elgar Encyclopedia of International Relations. March 2025. Adaptado)