AGIL

Talcott Parsons's AGIL schema summarizes the four functional requisites or imperatives of any system of action: adaptation (A), goal attainment (G), integration (I), and latent pattern maintenance (L). Also known as the four-function paradigm, the AGIL schema specifies for structural-functional theory the needs of any living system and how that system maintains order in relation to both its external environment and internal organization. Parsons argued that the AGIL schema could be employed in the analysis and study of both abstract systems of action and actually existing, concrete societies. Parsons, in collaboration with Robert F. Bales and Edward A. Shils, first formulated the AGIL schema in the Working Papers in the Theory of Action (1953).

One must first locate the AGIL schema at the highest level of abstraction found in structural-functional social theory, the general theory of action. One key tenet of the general theory of action states that any complex of actions or behaviors may be characterized as a system of action in which the parts interact with one another and with the external environment of the system. Each part of the system performs certain functions for the maintenance of the system as a whole. Some of these functions involve the relationship of the system to its external environment, while [Page 7]others involve the interrelationship of the parts of the system to each other and to the whole. In addition, functions may be characterized as either consummatory or instrumental. The former describes functions concerning the determination of the ends or goals of a system, while the latter describes functions concerning the means with which the system pursues its ends. Four functional requisites of any system emerge from the superimposition of these two distinctions:

• Adaptation is an instrumental function by which a system adapts to its external environment or adapts the external environment to the system.
• Goal attainment is a consummatory function that defines the goals and ends of a system and mobilizes resources to attain them. Goal attainment is generally oriented externally.
• Integration is a consummatory function that manages the interrelationships of the parts of a system. The integration function maintains internal coherence and solidarity within the system.
• Latent pattern maintenance is an instrumental function that supplies all actors in the system with a source of motivation. It provides normative patterns and manages the tensions of actors internal to the system.

Parsons and his colleagues argued that any system of action could be further broken down into subsystems of action, each of which corresponds to one of the AGIL functions. The behavioral organism performs the adaptation function, and although it is the subsystem that adapts to and transforms the physical world, Parsons devoted much more energy to analyzing the other three subsystems. The personality, or personality system, performs the goal attainment function insofar as it defines objectives and mobilizes resources for the pursuit of ends. The social system performs the function of integration by means of generating solidarity and loyalty, defining acceptable and unacceptable actions, granting rewards, and enforcing constraints. For Parsons, the social system consists of manifold interactions between ego and alter, norms and values, sanctions, statusroles, and social institutions. Parsons insisted that social theorists could analyze many phenomena—from firms to entire societies—as social systems. The cultural system performs the function of latent pattern maintenance by supplying motivation to actors through ordered sets of symbols and institutionalized patterns to the system as a whole. Parsons placed a great deal of emphasis on the importance of the cultural system for the stability of action systems.

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