Professionalism, Participation and Policy Work

Panel Chairs:

Hal Colebatch, Public Health and Policy Studies, University of New South Wales, h.colebatch@unsw.edu.au

Abstract:

A major focus in discourse about policy has been 'policy making' - a term which sees policy as an artefact, created by the exercise of authority, which is usually preceded by various forms of bureaucratic activity labelled as 'policy analysis', 'policy development' and 'policy advising'.  The emergence of critical and interpretive approaches to policy has challenged this framing in a number of ways.

• the recognition that the articulation of policy is part of a continuing interplay among interested players - 'stakeholders' or 'the policy community' - who have to be seen as active participants, and not simply as 'advisers' to the 'real' policy makers, or 'implementers' of the policy that they have made;
• the emergence of policy as a form of specialised practice, with named positions, organisational forms, professional qualifications, and increasingly-specified norms of 'good policy practice', which raises questions about how these 'policy workers' would construct the process in which they are engaged, particularly when they are working (as they often are) for organisations outside the bureaucratic state structure;
• the growing demand that policy should be (more ?) 'participative', with the involvement of non-official voices, which is matched and fuelled by the emergence in non-government organisations of professional policy workers who can match the skills and engage in the discourses of their counterparts in the state bureaucracy;
• the wave of regime change in the 'transition states' of eastern Europe, where 'policy' has become a vehicle for civil society organisations to interrogate and contest the working of the state bureaucracy.

This panel will address the way that the work of policy is being constructed is different settings, and in particular, in the way that the contrasting themes of 'professionalism' and 'participation' are drawn upon to shape, explain and validate practice, especially -

• among policy specialists in government
• between 'technical professionals' and 'policy professionals'
• in the policy work of non-government organizations
• in the mobilisation of 'policy' in the transition states in eastern Europe.