On Butler’s Theory of Agency

Abstract

This essay addresses the notion of agency in Judith Butler’s work. Its central claim is that her political philosophy revolves around a specific understanding of agency, even a theory of agency, which has not as yet received due attention. The first part of the essay examines two main thought traditions in which agency became an operational notion, through the lenses of intentionality and constraints, voluntarism and determinism. The second part elaborates on the centrality of the body, the social, and the power in Butler’s understanding of agency, conjoining agency with performativity. The essay argues that agency in Butler exceeds freedom, autonomy, and liberation, and has a potent political meaning of its own.