The Trend Towards the European Deregulation of Professions and its Impact on Portugal Under Crisis

R. Rego

• Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781137352743
• eBook ISBN: 9781137352750
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Social Sciences

For the first time, European professional deregulation is the focus of reflection by social scientists. This book explores how professional associations act as pressure groups and highlights the democratic regime that is prevailing and the potential convergence problems that Europe may face.

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European Patterns of Professional Regulation: National and International Theorizing

Julia Evetts

Abstract: The author stresses not only how the social sciences remain dominated by within-state theorizing but also, and taking into account the internationalization of markets, how such approaches must adapt to the new context. The ‘acquired regulation’ defended by the author is based on a two-tier model, that is regulation shared both by a self-regulating professional association and by the state framework. From this perspective, two key models are compared: the Anglo-American and the Continental. The author concludes that the Anglo-American sociology of professions is more widely applicable since there are more distant connections with the state bureaucracy and closer connections with professionalism.

Keywords: Professionalism, ‘acquired regulation’, European professional federations, theorizing

Rego, Raquel (ed.) The Trend towards the European Deregulation of Professions and Its Impact on Portugal under Crisis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. DOI: 10.1057/9781137352750.

The analysis of professions in social sciences has been dominated by within-state theorizing. This has been the case with explanations and interpretations of the historical development of particular professions and processes of professionalization, with debates about current challenges to professions posed by organizations and by ideologies of markets and managerialism, and particularly with comparative analysis of sectoral professional groups in different societies. In general, theories have been confined to explaining how professions are well-organized, elite occupational groups which within-states have been successful to different extents in maintaining elite administrator positions in state bureaucracies and public service organizations or, as in Anglo-American societies, in making regulatory bargains, closing markets and creating market shelters.

The markets for professional services are increasingly international, however. Professional practitioners in some sectors are being internationally mobile, seeking to practice in states other than the ones where they received their training and gained their licence. How, then, will analysis of professions and processes of professionalization need to be adapted?

How, and with which bodies, will elite positions and international regulatory bargains be negotiated? How will international markets be closed to unlicensed practitioners? It is also the case that a new category of international professional institutions is developing, namely the European professional federations. These federations are not regulatory bodies as such, nor do they currently aspire to be so. Nevertheless, they are a forum in which international professional regulatory needs are being discussed and where regulatory solutions are being suggested. A partnership is developing between state and European professional bodies in which the European professional federations are making recommendations which can then be (selectively) taken up and operationalized by professional associations in the different nation-states of Europe. This is resulting in a division of regulatory responsibilities between state and European bodies.

This chapter begins with a section on definitional and conceptual issues including an interpretation of the concepts of professionalism, regulation and the regulatory state. The chapter continues with a section on the European dimensions of professional regulation including the work of the European professional federations. The third section of the chapter considers the nation-state dimensions of professionalism, including the logics of the market and the organization in Anglo-American and European contexts for professional work.

Professionalism, regulation and the regulatory state

In sociological research on professional groups, three concepts have been used extensively in the development of explanations: profession, professionalization and professionalism. The concept of profession represents a distinct and generic category of occupational work. Definitions of ‘profession’ have been frequently attempted but sociologists have been unsuccessful in clarifying the differences between professions and other occupations and identifying what makes professions distinctive. Definitions of professions as institutional remain unresolved though particular generic occupational groups continue to form the case studies in which to examine and test sociological theories and explanations.

The concept of professionalization is regarded as the process to achieve the status of profession and has been interpreted as the process to pursue, develop and maintain the closure of the occupational group in order to maintain practitioners own occupational self-interests in terms of their salary, status and power as well as the monopoly protection of the occupational jurisdiction (Larson 1977; Abbott 1988). This interpretation was prominent in the field in the 1970s and 1980s and was associated with a critique of professions as ideological constructs (Johnson 1972).

This interpretation has declined in popularity recently (e.g. see themes of papers presented at recent international conferences) although sociologists interested in gender issues and differences continue to critique the idea of professionalization and profession as gendered (historical) constructs (Davies 1995; Witz 1992). Sometimes they also see a positive outcome, for example, as a process that has benefited particularly female-dominated occupational groups (e.g. midwifery) in competition with medical dominance (Bourgeault et al 2004). In addition, the concept of professionalization continues to be important in the analysis of newly emerging occupations (e.g. IT consultancy, human resources management, psychology and social care work) perhaps seeking status and recognition for the importance of the work often by standardization of the education, training and qualification for practice (Brint 2001; Ruiz Ben 2009).

A third concept is professionalism which has had a long history in the disciplinary sub-field. Professionalism was usually interpreted as an occupational or normative value, as something worth preserving and promoting in work and by and for workers. Then later developments interpreted professionalism as a discourse and, to an extent, this has combined the occupational value and the ideological interpretations. Certainly there are real advantages in the analysis of professionalism as the key analytical concept in explanations and interpretations about professional knowledge-based work, occupations and practitioners.

The concept of regulation also has a long history but it is a concept which is used increasingly and particularly in the context of professional work and practitioners. Essentially regulation is rule-governed activity in which the work of a professional group comes to be defined in terms of its extent and coverage. Regulation also extends to the education and training of practitioners as well as to the rights, demands and sometimes complaints of customers and clients.

Professions have been described as self-regulating occupations in that professional institutions have monitored education and training requirements, accredited institutional provision of training, awarded and renewed professional licences, controlled aspects of professional practice and disciplined recalcitrant members. These aspects of internal or self-regulation have been zealously guarded by professional bodies working to prevent intervention by state governments. This form of regulation has reflected the importance of trust and confidence in relations between professionals and their clients (Dingwall and Fenn 1987). It has also reflected trust between states and professions where aspects of the social control of practitioners and service work regulation could be decentralized and delegated, with confidence, to the professional institutions (Dingwall 1996). In addition, these forms of self-regulation have reflected the authority and legitimacy of professions and professionals to organize and run their own affairs.

In a paper published in Work, Employment and Society (Evetts 2002a), I argued that regulation of professionals and professional work has always been a mixture of external regulation (imposed by those outside the profession, if only by the procedure of establishing Charters, and so on) and self-regulation. Some writers on the professions have argued that the extent of self-regulation defined a ‘real’ profession. Currently the move is towards the increased vigour of regulation (of whatever type) and inspection of the actions of professionals. A number of different reasons are given, such as deregulation; or that professions generally have lost the ability to mystify or otherwise fend off unwanted enquiries into their members’ actions; or that we no longer trust professionals. It is claimed, for example, that the increased resort to litigation by clients against professional practitioners is indicative of a decline in professional authority and legitimacy in Europe as well as in North America, and Power (1997) has talked about audit as the technology of mistrust.

In the same paper, I also suggested that the term ‘acquired regulation’ was a better concept than the idea that external forms of regulation or external control mechanisms (such as government department, statutory body or quango) were increasing. The term ‘acquired regulation’ can better represent the balance of responsibilities between professions and states, and can incorporate international as well as state forms of authority and regulatory institutions. Acquired regulations can include state legislative and European directive requirements for professions as well as recom-mendations from European professional federations. State professional institutions continue to operationalize such acquired regulations.

The concepts I prefer to use, then, are ‘professionalism’ and ‘acquired regulation’. It should also be noted, however, that political scientists have been discussing the changing role of the state and, in particular, the rise of the regulatory state in Europe. McGowan and Wallace (1996) list the characteristics of regulation as rule-based behaviour; the use of institutions for scrutiny and enforcement; and the promotion of specific public objectives. They describe the regulatory state as one which attaches relatively more importance to processes of regulation than to other means of policy making (such as government as welfare provider, as strategic planner or as owner). The regulatory state, they argue, is a rule-making state, with an attachment to the rule of law and, normally, a predilection for judicial or quasi-judicial solutions.

Majone (1994) has argued that regulation has become the appropriate mode of governance both for individual European states and for collective policy management through the institutions of the European Union (EU). McGowan and Wallace (1996) focus on the ‘two-tier’ character of the process where ‘national regulation focuses on firms and citizens while the European level increasingly focuses on regulating the regulators’. This two-tiered system not only allows continued scope for national differences in style and substance of regulation but also gives the EU much of the character of a regulatory state in its own right.

Professional regulation fits well into this two-tier model. It can be seen as a prototype for a regulatory model of the state, with the state acting at arm’s length through its control of licensing powers rather than on its own initiative through bureaucratic employees. Professional regulation remains dependent on Member-State institutions and professional bodies for implementation, allowing continuing scope for national variation. On the other hand, the power to regulate increasingly derives its foundation from and is answerable to the European level of governance which relies overwhelmingly on regulatory means to control the activities of Member States and their institutions.

Professional regulation: the European dimension

One of the main objectives of the EU since its inception has been the harmonization of national regulations affecting the provision of goods and services in order to facilitate the free movement of products and labour in the European market. The professions, and the services they provide, are increasingly covered by regulations which define a common basis of competence for licensing and registration, as well as sometimes common standards of professional practice. In European states we are observing the weakening of professional controls over market entry and exit, the introduction of competitive practices, of external forms of market regulation and the restructuring of remunerations. It is important to emphasize that professions in the nation-states of Europe operate their own regulatory systems but only within certain regulatory limits.

So how are professions responding to these international challenges? The professions are not passive in these European processes; the professions are themselves internationalizing. An important development is the increasing number of European professional federations.¹

These federations, made up of representatives from state professional associations, meet to share experiences and to negotiate the professions’ responses both to EU directives as well as to the development of global processes and markets. Processes of deregulation of professions at the level of the nation-state are being accompanied by re-regulation at European levels. The European federations of professions are working to bring order into the delivery of professional services and the mobility of professionals in the international market. The discussions and negotiations are slow moving and sometimes cumbersome. European professionals are moving at different speeds and sometimes, it seems, in different directions; in this respect professions are displaying as much variation and variety as professions in states. In the face of such differences between professions, the more ambitious internationalization objectives (such as standardization and harmonization of licensing and regulatory practices) are being replaced by more realistic goals (such as bilateral agreements and mutual recognition of state education, training and licensing arrangements).

The relationships between state professional associations and the European professional federations are also highly complex and variable. Given the histories of state professional projects, professional powers and market closures, it could be expected that European/international agreements would be hard-fought and toughly negotiated. Where professions have been self-regulating or successful in their professional project and market closure, then agreements are only arrived at if state professional associations are able to maintain control over the operation of mutual recognition arrangements. It is also the case that different European federations of professions concern themselves with different responsibilities. This means that the divisions of responsibil...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  European Patterns of Professional Regulation: National and International Theorizing
• 2  The (De)Regulation of the Liberal Professions in the European Union
• 3  Portuguese Occupational Group Trends Running Counter to EU Policies
• 4  Deontological and Methodological Research Questions in Portuguese Sociology of Professions
• Conclusion
• Index