I have written about this subject in connection to the Intentionalist-Functionalist debate when it comes to discussions of the Holocaust before and there also is an upcoming episode of the podcast where I discuss this at length but taking it into a more theoretical direction, I think one of the most useful quotes on this subject comes from Karl Marx: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past."

Modern historiography, having moved away largely from the Great Man model of history, i.e. the idea that is great men and only great men shaping the course of history, tends indeed to focus heavily on this interaction between structure and the individual in its agency as well as how structure shapes agency.

I'm certain there will be people disagreeing with me and I hope this might lead to fruitful discussion but one of the most useful ways I have been thought at university to work with these concepts was from a Neo-Gramscian who infused Gramsci's concept of hegemony with post-modern theories of discourse. The idea of historical actors finding themselves in a structure that is concerned with its constant renewal and creating incentives for the historical actors to perform the perpetuation of hegemonic structure is imo a useful way of delving into history.

I'd like to re-post something I wrote a long time ago about the role of structures and agency in history. It didn't really get any responses, so perhaps it will get a few more here:

I want to talk about historical inevitability. Particularly, I want to argue that I think it is OK to sometimes speak of certain historical outcomes as inevitable.

When we talk about historical inevitability what we're ultimately talking about is the relationship between people and structures. In the words of William Sewell, Jr. structures are "mutually sustaining cultural schemas and sets of resources that empower and constrain social action and tend to be reproduced by that action." In other words, structures are, to a large extent, the organizing ideas that govern human action.

Historians run into trouble whenever they give too much agency to structures over people. This was the problem with Whig historians who saw history as the inevitable progress of liberalism and capitalism. We've also seen it in more recent decades to describe the inevitability of the Cold War (Communism's inherent expansionist tendencies ensured the Cold War would happen) and the Holocaust (the inherent, virulent form of anti-Semitism in Germany ensured the Holocaust would occur). All of these interpretations, with perhaps an exception for the one regarding the Cold War, are rightly discredited by most historians. The problem with these interpretations is that they give little to no historical agency to people, or put in another way, give way too much importance to contemporary structures.

In response to these historians, I've seen many other historians go in the complete opposite direction, arguing that nothing in history is inevitable or, in other words, that people always have the ability to break free of the contemporary structures that guide their worldview. I think this is an equally dubious intellectual leap to make. While there may be some chance for people to do so, it is highly improbable. (As a sidenote, I will say that I am using inevitability in a loose sense. Obviously, nothing is impossible, although some outcomes are so highly improbable that I believe it is acceptable to still refer to them as impossible). Sometimes, contemporary structures are so prevalent and so ingrained that they can override a person's or group's ability to make certain choices. In this sense, structures can constrain human agency. In some cases, those structures are so strong as to constrain human action to make certain outcomes inevitable or highly likely. This is an argument made by Melvyn Leffler in his book on the Cold War, For the Soul of Mankind. Leffler argues that, although the creation of the Cold War was not inevitable, insecurity and ideology forced the continuation of the Cold War until it ended when it did. Likewise, John Prados has made a similar argument in his recent book, Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable War, 1945-1975.

To make sure I'm being clear I want to repeat what I tried to say in the previous sentences: Structures can constrain human action and, in some cases, make certain historical outcomes inevitable. I don't believe too many people would actually disagree with this, even though I hear many on this sub-reddit speak about how it is ahistorical to speak of inevitability. To believe that inevitability is ahistorical is directly contrary to another popular line of reasoning on this sub-reddit: that we cannot place contemporary values, or for that matter any other value system, on individuals other than the one in which they lived. Why do we follow this idea? In large part, because we recognize that in many cases historical actors are unable to break free of contemporary structures. These two beliefs then--that historical inevitability is ahistorical and that we cannot displace a historical individual from the value system in which he lived--seem to be paradoxical. We cannot accept that historical inevitability is an invalid concept while at the same time arguing that individuals are unable to step beyond their contemporary structures and worldviews.

How then do we correct the two poles of historical thought--the one that gives too much influence to structures and the other that gives too much influence to human agency? In my opinion, historians must come to use historical frameworks that give a more equitable relationship between structures and human agency, frameworks that, in the words of William Sewell, Jr., understand that "Structures shape people’s practices, but it is also people’s practices that constitute (and reproduce) structures.”