Rethinking the Agency–Structure Dialectic Through the Pull of the Future: Toward a Magnetic Sociology

AbstractWhile the agency–structure dilemma has been extensively addressed—most notably throughAnthony Giddens’ theory of structuration—the future dimension of time has rarely beenconceptualized as a constitutive causal category within this relationship. This article advancesMagnetic Sociology Theory (Acar, 2026) as a theoretical intervention into the agency–structure debate. Drawing on Gabriel Tarde’s insight that “the past pushes us, the future pullsus,” the theory reconceptualizes the future as an active structuring force operating in thepresent. The central argument is that agents, through socially produced desires and anxieties,construct circulating future images—promises and negative promises—which, onceinstitutionalized, acquire relative autonomy and begin to organize action. In this process, theagent shifts from constituting subject to object of a magnetic field they have helped generate.The article elaborates this dialectic, reconceptualizes resistance as both obstacle andtransformative force, and illustrates the model through the historical transformation ofvirginity and the dynamics of digital dating platforms.“Magnetic Sociology proposes rethinking the structure–agency debate from the perspectiveof temporal causality.”