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BUILDING INSTITUTIONS FOR PUBLIC SECTOR PROFESSIONALISM
IN CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE 
Alexander Kovryga1 and Sherman Wyman2
“Man Owes What He is to Union with His Fellow Man” O.V. Gierke
This paper is premised on the assumption that the scope and quality of public sector professionalism
critical to healthy political-administrative relations in any developing or developed democratic state.
Initially we will explore the nature of professionalism and profession and then turn to a selective
review of the development of public sector professionalism in both developed and developing
countries throughout the world. From this review we will attempt to identify key institutions, functions
and roles appropriate to professionalization in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE).

Both authors acknowledge J. William Fulbright Program of USIA, which enable to deepen an understanding of
professional developments of public sector both in the U.S. and in CEE transitional countries. As LGI Fellow A. Kovryga
acknowledges support for this research from the Local Government and Public Reform Initiative of Open Society Institute
and International Renaissance Foundation and Earhart Foundation for funding of participation in the annual conferences of
American Association of Public Administration and International Society for New Institutional Economics. Thanks to
Bohdan Krawchenko and Jerzy Regulsky for their useful comments on subject and research development.
1
Senior Fulbright Scholar, University of California at Berkeley ([email protected])
2
Professor, University of Texas at Arlington ([email protected])
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Approach
The Formative Context I: The Overall Picture
Institution and Institutionalism
Why Change Through Professionalization?

A Brief Sketch of the State of the Study of Professions

Profession and Professionalization in the Context of Social and Economic Re-engineering

Profession as an Agency of Moral Regulation

Ethical Regulations and Trust

Trust-building and Credentialing

Professionalization as a Policy Issue: Western Models vs. Eastern Reality
The Formative Context II: What Is Inherited and What Is Embedded

The Marginal Status of Profession and Professionalism
The Theory: Ontological Assumptions on Profession and Professionalization
The Dangers of Professionalization:

Professionalism, Administrative Bureaucracy and Building of Institutions of Modern
Governments
Putting It All Together
Conclusion: The Tasks Ahead
Further Steps
References
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Approach
This paper is guided by the principle of methodological determinism. This principle means if we are
about to be practical and realistic in social and economic reformation in transitional countries, we
must possess a methods and instruments that complement and compatible with the object of our
activity.. The ability of change agents to intervene in the transitional processes is directly connected
with whether or not they are armed by appropriate means. Thus, the deliberate building of open
democratic societies and market-driven economies (DSMDE) is possible if we are armed both
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
conceptually and instrumentally with an appropriate vision of what must to be done, and equipped with
effective methods and processes.
Among the variety of different topics and lines of enquiry established during the course of the CEE
transition are two quite complicated and less developed issues: 1) the processes of public sector
professionalization and 2) building institutional infrastructure for public sector professionalism
(IIPSP). We assume that the CEE transition is, a reality of institutional transformation and institutional
building.3 In this context we have to concentrate on conceptions which reflect the entire construction
of the process of societal reproduction and are therefore capable of capturing the elusive reality of
transition in form adequate for operationalization and practical interventions. Our study built on the
hypothesis that the profession is such a conception and a proper set of polymorphous institutions. We
also assume that the complexity of IIPSP demands extensive multi-disciplinary research, complex
public policy changes and well-grounded re-formations.4
Naturally we need to check and verify its very basic questions such as the following: What are
the contemporary institutions, which are adequate to the history, culture and modern situation? Which
As it was recently emphasized a number of times by leading economists and social scientists, “If we only had a better
theory of organization and institutions, the agonies … of economic reform in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union
would be much relieved” – Williamson, Oliver E. (1996). The Mechanisms of Governance. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, p. 375; “We all have much to learn about the process of large-scale institutional restructuring,” Furubotn, Eirik G.
(1992). Eastern European Reconstruction Problems: Some General Observations. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical
Economics (JITE), Vol. 148, pp. 201-206. “What is new in the new institutionalism in sociology is the aim to study the
emergence, diffusion and transformation of institutional arrangements. … In Weber’s causal story, agents act according to
mental models shaped by cultural beliefs that encompass conceptions of self-interest that are culturally bound by ideology
and religion. This is seen in Weber’s classic account of the diffusion of rational capitalist practices and institutional
arrangements,” Strange, D. and Meyer, J.W. (1993). Institutional Conditions for Diffusion, Theory and Society, Vol. 22, pp.
487-512.
3
4
Institutional myopia and insensitivity to institutions were chief characteristics of social and economic engineering both
generated by the western experts and advisors (uncritically leaned on taken for granted domain conceptions) as well by the
local policy-makers of CEE countries. Thus, recently increased attention of scholars, policy-makers and international
advisors to the institutional aspects of transition posses a great methodological meaning – the necessity to fully recognize
the particularities of the formative contexts and inquire institutional environment of reforms. It is also renovated cultural
dimension of transition - “Analysis of the institutional context emphasizes the role of cultural understandings in
determining what diffuses and what fails to spread” in Nee, V. and Strang, D. (1998). The Emergence and Diffusion of
Institutional Forms, JITE, Vol. 154, No. 4, p. 706. Welsh, E. and W. Wong. (1998). Public Administration in a Global
Context: Bridging the gaps of Theory and Practice between Western and Non-Western Nations. Public Administration
Review, January/February, vol. 58, No. 1, pp. 40-49; Riggs, F. (1976). The Group and the Movement: Notes on
Comparative and Development Administration. Public Administration Review, Vol. 36, pp. 648-654. “Ethnocentrism is a
normal human condition from which we can only escape by exposing ourselves to cultures quite different from our own,”
in Fred, W. Riggs. (1998). Public Administration in America: Why Our uniqueness is Exceptional and Important, Public
Administration Review, Vol. 58, No. 1, p. 24. See advanced developments on the importance of comparative study of
institutional and formative contexts by Donald E. Klingner and Charles W. Washington: Donald E. Klingner and Charles
W. Washington. (2000). Through the Looking Glass: The Benefits of an International and Comparative Perspective on
teaching Public Affairs. Journal of Public Affairs Education, 2000, Vol. 6, No. 1, January, pp. 35-44.
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
institutions can serve as real vehicles in the transmission of our cultural heritage, cope with nowadays
technological and managerial revolutions, and fit into extremely demanding frameworks of up-to-date
political and moral requirements?
The Formative Context I: The Overall Picture
The context for the institutionalization of professional public administration in transitional countries is
the globalization of institutional markets and processes for accelerated change in public management.
We have to deal with the transnational macroprocess of re-institutionalization and search for new
forms of relations between state, regional and local institutions, socio-cultural, economic, and political
traditions.5
A major reshaping of systems of governance and public administration (GPA)6 in developed as
well as in transitional countries, has accelerated during the mid-eighties and nineties. These
phenomenons are captured by a number of social scientists and theoreticians. 7 They require a
5
Kanter, R. M. (1995). World Class: Thriving Locally in the Global Economy. - New York: Simon & Schuster; Minogue,
Martin, Charles Polidano, and Hulme David (eds.). (1998). Beyond the New Public Management: Changing Ideas and
Practices in Governance. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar; Gurkov, I. (1997). Management Development In Russia.
International Labour Organization. Working Paper IPPRED-3; Saint-Martin, Denis. (1998). Management consultants, the
state, and the politics of administrative reform in Britain and Canada. Administration and Society, Vol. 30, No. 5
(November), pp.533-568.
We assume as an important to take into account the differences between the prevalent meanings of notions of ‘public
affairs’,’ public administration’,’ public policy’ and ‘public management’ in Anglo-American tradition and its notions in
the context of continental Europe and particularly in CEE transitional environment. We suppose it will be more correct here
to use ‘governance and public administration’ (GPA) as a more general term, which emphasizes its references to ‘stategovernmental’ and historical context and corresponds to the whole sphere of public administration/management activity.
Closed developments presented in the “theory of moral institutions” and its concept of reflexive responsibility - Selznick,
Philip. (1992). The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley: University of
California Press, and Dorbeck-Junk, Bärbel. (1998). Towards Reflexive Responsibility: New Ethics for Public
Administration. In Hondeghem Annie. (ed.). Ethics and Accountability in a Context of Governance and New Public
Management. European Group of Public Administration Yearbook. Amsterdam, IOS Press, pp. 45-59. Philip Selznick
distinguishes management and governance as modes of activity. He assumes that management reflects more rational, goaldriven and efficiency-tended organization-managerial and administrational activity, and governance is more holistically
oriented, value-loaded, focused on objectives and guided by principles. “To govern is to accept responsibility for the whole
life of the institution. Governance takes account of all the interests that affect the viability, competence, and moral character
of the enterprise,” – Selznick, Philip. (1992), p. 290. However, management and governance are complementary modes of
organization-managerial and administrational activity: they coexist and interact within communities, institutional and
organizational settings.
6
Thus Peter Drucker, for example, noted that the “division of power, the division of tasks, the division of responsibilities
and accountabilities between the various levels of this post-capitalist polity are still to be defined: What is to remain the
domain of the nation-state? What is to be carried out within the state by autonomous institutions? What is to be “supernational”? What is to be “trans-national”? What is to be “separate and local”? Resolving these institutional design-andbuilding questions will be central agenda for development of public administration for decades to come. Drucker, P. (1992).
The post-capitalist world, The Public Interest, 109 (Fall), p. 96. The same kind of concerns expresses by Charles Goodsell
in his Stone Lecture at the ASPA’s 60th annual national conference – Goodsell, C. Finding or way in the new century.. A
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
revolutionary change in public administration involving a paradigm shift form the historically
dominant Weberian model of bureaucracy to the new public management (NPM). NPM is set of
management ideas, which has been heavily influenced by values and governance techniques derived
from economics.8 NPM has played a major role in the administrative reforms of many OECD
countries.9 These attempts to reshape and improve public administration and governance produced in
the U.S. and Europe what has been called a ‘movement to reinvent government in public
administration’ and a 'new public management revolution'.10 The primary efforts here focused on:
reducing the size of government through programs of privatization, restructuring of government
departments, productivity programs, and retrenchment and retraining of public servants. These
programs, often driven by the World Bank/IMF structural adjustment loans, are reflected in the CEE
countries in EC PHARE and TACIS programs, TRANSFORM, etc. Thus, the dramatic political and
economic changes in the CEE transitional countries have been joined with externally driven mandates
for institutional reorganization and new institutional capacities. The deficiency of competence, low
effectiveness and functional inadequacy of existent systems in CEE countries, major parts of which
were inherited from the soviet times, are a leading cause for the movement for professionalization. The
speed and success in transition to DSMDE considered as largely depended on the professionalization
Paper presented at the ASPA 60th national conference. Orlando, FL, 1999; Savitch, H.V. (1998). Global challenge and
institutional capacity: Or, how we can refit local administration for the next century.. Administration and Society, Vol. 30,
3 (July), pp. 248-273.
See for example analysis of the nature of public sector governance developed from the ‘transaction costs economics”
perspective, Williamson O.E. (1999). Public and Private Bureaucracies: A Transaction Cost Economic Perspective.
Journal of Law, Economics and Organization, Vol. 15, No.1, pp. 306-342.
8
9
Boston, J. (ed.). (1991). Reshaping the state: New Zealand bureaucratic revolution. Auckland: Oxford University Press;
Aucoin, P. (1990). Administrative reform in public management: paradigms, principles, paradoxes, and pendulums.
Governance, 3 (2), pp. 115-137.
10
Osborn, D. and Gaebler, T. (1992). Reinventing governments: How the entrepreneurial spirit is transforming the public
sector. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley; March, J.G. and Olsen, J.P. (1989). Rediscovering institutions. New York: free
Press; Amin, A. and Thrift, N. (1994). Globalization, institutions and regional development in Europe. Oxford, UK: Oxford
University Press; Heeks Richard. (1999). 'Reinventing Government in the Information Age', Educator’s Guide. Institute for
Development Policy and Management, University of Manchester, http://www.man.ac.uk/idpm/rgiaeduc.htm.. See also
excellent Internet resources on the topic: the Alliance for Redesigning Government, http://www.alliance.napawash.org/
alliance/index.html and National Partnership for Reinventing Government, http://www.npr.gov/.. Although this reforms
and NPM approach originated in developed countries, firstly in the United Kingdom and the United States, during the
nineties it has been expended throughout the transitional and developing countries as well: Gray, A and Jenkins, W.
(1995). ‘From Public Administration to Public Management: Reassessing Revolution’, Public Administration, No. 73, pp.
75-99; Moe, R.C. (1994). ‘The Reinventing Government Exercise: Misinterpreting the Problem, Misjudging the
Consequences’, Public Administration Review, Vol. 54, No, 2, pp. 114-122; World Bank. (1996). World Development
report, 1996: From Plan to Market, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Collins, P. (1993). ‘Civil Service reform and
Retraining in Transitional Economies: Strategic Issues and Options’, Public Administration and Development, No. 13, pp.
323-344.
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
of GPA.11 We therefore argue that public sector professionalism is a if not the key instrument in reform
and cultural policy of the CEE.
Institution and Institutionalism
Walton Hamilton coined the term institutionalism in 1916. He provides one of the most deep wording
of idea of an institution which “connotes a way of thought or action of some prevalence and
permanence, which is embedded in the habits of a group or the custom of a people… Institutions fix
the confines of and impose form upon the activities of human beings. The world of use and wont, to
which imperfectly we accommodate our lives, is tangled and unbroken web of institutions.”12
Our culture is a synthesis or an aggregation of institutions, at the same time the approach and
way of knowledge itself should be considered as an institution. Moreover, among the different ways of
knowing is the institutionalism. “Institutes as the ordained principles of a realm of learning or of life
have long existed; they are known to theology, law, education and all subjects ruled over by
dialectic… The institutional method had to wait until the idea of development was incorporated into
academic thought and the mind of the inquirer became resigned to the inconsistency which attends
growth.”13
The main points of the institutional approach can already be found, for example, in the works
of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. He criticizes Hobbes, Locke and others for their assumption on the nature
of the behavior of possessive individuals in a particular historical and social context. He argues that socalled “men's natural preferences and traits of all human beings” are products of particular social and
institutional environments. “Rousseau viewed preferences, such as the desire to accumulate property,
11
See, for example the reports of extensive studies of World Bank, The State in a Changing World. (1997). World
Development Report, 1997. The World Bank. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; and other professional enquiries,
Kickert, W.J.M. and Stillman, R.J. II. (1996). Changing European States; Changing Public Administration. Public
Administration Review, Vol. 56, No. 1, January/ February, pp. 65-67; Promoting Performance and Professionalism in the
Public Service.. (1997). SIGMA papers: No. 21. Paris; Newland, C. A. (1996). Transformational Challenges in Central and
Eastern Europe and Schools of Public Administration. Public Administration Review, Vol. 56., No. 4, July/August, pp.
382-389.
12
Hamilton, Walton H., (1932). Institution, in Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: The MacMillan Company,
Vol. 3, p. 84; also see his earlier work - Hamilton, W.H. (1919). The Institutional Approach to Economic Theory, American
Economic Review, No 9 (March), pp. 309-318.
13
Hamilton, Walton H., (1932), p. 89.
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
not as universal postulates upon which one could found a scientific theory of politics, but as products
of society-- its norms and its institutions.”14
The institutionalism as an approach to study in social sciences rooted into works of Wilhelm
Roscher, Gustav Schmoller and others of German historical school or Historismus.15
The
Methodenstreit – as a methodological discussion on meaning of history and epistemological
approaches in social sciences between Austrian and German schools gave the birth and the core
“spirit” of this approach.16
Although some aspects of institutional approach could be found in works of such early figures
as Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and Henry Sidwick, the beginning of “proper” institutionalism in
economics attributed to the first works of Thorstein Veblen.17
In recent studies Sven-Erik Sjöstrand considers institution “as a kind of infrastructure that
facilitates – or hinders – human co-ordination and allocation of resources. Institutions thus function as
a kind of rationality context, which simultaneously emerges from and governs human interactions.
Consequently institutions are public goods, relevant to and shared by many, and they are in principle
characterized by non-excludability. Institutions simplify action choices; they are not separate from, but
part of, the individual (inter)actions. Thus, institutions not only define and delimit the set of actions
available to individuals; they are simultaneously shaped by individuals and make individual interaction
14
Ellen M. Immergut, (1996). The Normative Roots of the New Institutionalism: Historical-Institutionalism and
Comparative Policy Studies, in Arthur Benz and Wolfgang Seibel, (eds.). Beiträge zur Theorieentwicklung in der Politikund Verwaltungswissenschaft, Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/Verwiss/Immergut/
publications/ kon3.htm.
For important reviews on institutionalism, see for example James G. March und Johan P. Olsen, (1989).
Rediscovering Institutions. The Organizational Basis of Politics, New York: The Free Press; Paul J. DiMaggio und Walter
W. Powell, (eds.), (1991). The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press;
Steinmo, Sven Kathleen Thelen, und Frank Longstreth, (eds.), (1992). Structuring Politics. Historical Institutionalism in
Comparative Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
See also Richard W. Scott, (1987). "The Adolescence of Institutional Theory,” Administrative Science Quarterly,
Vol. 32 (December), pp. 59-89; R. Kent Weaver und Bert A.Rockman, (1993). "Assessing the Effects of Institutions,” in
Weaver and Rockman, (eds.). Do Institutions Matter? Government Capabilities in the United States and Abroad,
Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, pp. 1-41; Grendstad, Gunnar and Per Selle, (1995). "Cultural Theory and the
New Institutionalism,” Journal of Theoretical Politics, Vol. 7, No. 1, p. 6.
A good introduction to the German historical may be found in Schumaker, Hermann. (1968). ‘The Historical School,’
Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, New York: Macmillan, Vol. V, pp. 371-377. See also Jurgen Herbst. (1965). The
German Historical School in American Scholarship. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, chapter 6.
15
As noted by Ludwig von Mises, one of the main figures in the Methodenstreit, “The real issue was the epistemological
foundation of the science of human action and its logical legitimacy,” Ludwig von Mises. (1966). Human Action: A
treasure of Economics, 3rd ed. Chicago: Henry Regnery, p. 4.
16
17
Veblen, Thorstein. (1898). Why is Economics not an Evolutionary Science?, Quarterly Journal of Economics, (July), pp.
373-397. And the most fundamental volume issued right after this manifest - Veblen, Thorstein. (1899). The Theory of the
Leisure Class: An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. New York: Macmillan.
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
possible. Institutions … continuously (re)produced by individuals in their daily activities and
(inter)actions on the micro level.”18
Different types of institutions have been described by scholars as embedded and stored in a
time and space by a diverse number of means. They could be embedded in concrete empirically given
organizations, establishments and forms of human activity and in the sign’s forms and ideas and
concepts.
Sjöstrand pointed further that “Institutions are related to human expectations… Normative
expectations, or norms, stabilize human (inter)action and make individual behaviour more
predictable… Norms can be found in formal and articulated forms, as well as in forms that are more
informal or tacit. Many concepts have been used by scientists to cover the whole range of possible
‘groupings’ of norms. Designations such as laws, regulations, rules, routines, conventions, traditions,
customs, myths, and habits have been used. These (groupings) of norms often simultaneously express
instrumental (i.e., define efficiency) and values (i.e., provide meaning).”19 Eventually Sjöstrand
defined institution as a “social construct for a coherent system of shared and enforced norms.”20
Examples of institutions could include the family, the church, the corporation, the property rights, the
university tenure, etc. However, there are many problems arise in interpreting the idea of institution.
The institution is not something out there. “Rather, it is a way of subdividing the social and cultural
organization of society into components meaningful to the participants in that society, and hence to
observers and to analysts of the society. In a broad way institutions implies an observable
arrangements of people’s affairs that contrasts with characterizations of people’ activities deriving
from assumptions, intuitions, or introspections. The term also implies specificities of time and place
and contrasts with universals (or general characterizations).”21
Economic sociologist Andrew Schotter beliefs that the creation and existence of “social
institutions” directed by and connected with arisen of economic problems.22 Richard Scott, one of the
Sjöstrand, Sven-Erik. (1995). ‘Toward a Theory of Institutional Change,’ In Groenewegen John, Pitelis Christos and
Sjöstrand Sven-Erik, (eds.), On Economic Institutions: Theory and Applications. p. 19.
18
19
Ibid., p. 24.
20
Ibid., p. 28.
21
Neale, Walter C. (1988). Institution, In Marc R. Tool. (ed.). Evolutionary Economics. Volume I: Foundations of
Institutional Thought. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., p. 231.
“Economic and social systems evolve the way species do. To their survival and growth, they must solve a whole set of
problems that arise ad the system evolves. Each problem creates the need for some adaptive features, that is, a social
institution. … Every evolutionary economic problem requires a social institution to solve it,” Schotter, Andrew. (1981). The
Economic Theory of Social Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1-2.
22
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
leading contributors to institutional theory and student of institutions and organizations from the
sociological perspective, states that “Institutions consist cognitive, normative, and regulative structures
and activities that provide stability and meaning to social behavior. Institutions are transported by
various carriers – cultures, and routines – and they operate at multiple levels of jurisdiction.”23
Among the crucial and, at the same time, most difficult questions are the dynamics of
institutional evolution and development – the emergence, reproduction and dissociation of institutions.
All these questions addressed by the attempts to develop the theory of institutional change.
24
In the
conclusion he just briefly mentioned the role of institutions as facilitators of “the application of reliable
knowledge to the performance of the continuing activities which a community has come to regard ad
significant… The application of knowledge is often primary reason for the existence of an institution
and for any changes that occur in it.”25
We consider the environment of creation (production) and transfer of knowledge as a basic and
framework reality which made possible the origins, emergence and existence of any kind of sociocultural institutions. The deliberate intervention into complex processes of institutional evolution by
the means of “institutional design,” “institutional building” and attempts of cross-national and crosscultural “institutional transfer” became the most sophisticated fields of human activity during the XX
century. As Walter Neale asserts, “An institution does not stand alone. It fits into the system of
institutions, so that changing the rules of one institution means that the rules of other institutions must
adapt and so change.”26 Each institution exists in a web of different and interweaving relations with
other institutions. Such a feature and “past-binding” nature of institutions lead to many difficulties in
any kind of institutional changes, institutional design and institutional building. This is a vast area to
study, and the transition of CEE countries provides both tremendous opportunity to build up what is
desired and unprecedented challenges as well.27 It is our strong belief that the success of transitional
23
Scott, Richard W. (1995). Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., p. 33.
Good review of contributions to the theory of institutional change presented by Bush, P. (1987). ‘The Theory of
Institutional Change,’ Journal of Economi Issues, Vol. XXI. No. 3, pp. 1075-1116, and Gustafsson, B. (ed.). (1991). Power
and Economic Institutions, Aldershot: Edward Elgar.
24
25
Ibid., p. 42.
26
Neale, Walter C. (199). Institution, In Marc R. Tool. (ed.). Evolutionary Economics. Volume I: Foundations of
Institutional Thought. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., p. 245.
“Individuals may design or modify institutions (frequently through some type of collective choice) with the intention of
performing, or performing better, some function. At the same time, institutions may arise and persist in an underdesigned
fashion, as the unintended results of intended actions. That institutions may be deliberately designed and enforced or may
evolve in unplanned “spontaneous” processes is recognized in both the old and new institutionalism.” - Rutherford,
27
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
transformation and future development democratic and prosperity of CEE countries depends upon
improvement of knowledge on the nature of institutions and techniques for their deliberate
construction/modification.
Why Change Through Professionalization?
Although, even though Plato in The Statesman many centuries ago presented the idea of ‘government
professionals’ weaving the future with the help of knowledge, a comprehensive vision of what this
means, what and how we can/should professionalize the public sector has yet to be developed.28
As a general framework, we probably can consider this “trend” toward professionalization as
one of the crucial axis of cultural-historical development of human social activity. The professions and
processes of professionalization of activity serve as a kind of bridging mechanism and a method for
developing, matching and coordinating core processes of the human universe: the production-andreproduction of activity, and transfer of culture and experience; the processes of functioning and
changes and development; and the processes of organization and governance. Not everything would
and should be professionalized, but certain features of human thinking have since the earliest
civilizations been anticipated as “professional” and processes and passed on to those who follow.
A Brief Sketch of the State of the Study of Professions
During the last quarter of 20th century the profession become a subject of rather scrupulous analysis
practically in all social sciences. The rapid and ultimate advancing of knowledge-based economy and
society brought deep and practical interest in “structural and cultural understanding of the
institutionalization of expertise.” 29
However, the development of schemes and mechanisms to capture the rise of the professions
were often ”the province of nostalgic amateur recollections or laudatory chronicles of progress in
Malkolm, (1994). Institutions in Economics: the Old and the New Institutionalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, p. 82.
28
See for example resent discussion in Cigler, B. (1990). Public Administration and Paradox of Professionalism. Public
Administration Review, Vol. 50, November/December, pp. 637-653.
Jarausch, K.H. (1990). ‘The German Profession in History and Theory,’ in Geoffrey Cocks and Konrad, H. Jarausch
(eds.), German Professions, 1800-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 10.
29
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
individual disciplines.”30 Among the main causes of neglect of research in Europe was the dominance
of basic conceptual ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber who directed the mainstreams of scholars’
attention to concepts of social classes, power and authority, economy and bureaucratization.31 At the
same time the study of the history and socio-economic meaning of professions were among the core
topics of British and American scholars. The earlier recognition of significance of the professions in
twenties and thirties gave birth to the whole tradition and development of theoretical conception of
profession and professionalization.32 Professionalism as an organizing principle has been thoroughly
elaborated by Harold Perkin.33 He connected professional development with the industrial revolution
and considered processes of the building of professions as crucial in British social history. An earlier
studies in Britain and the USA, the existence of profession as an institution was “taken for granted”
and considered not as a human creature but rather very natural to the social organization.34
30
Jarausch, K.H. (1990)., p. 10.
Marx considered professional classes primarily in terms of “unproductive labor” and their negative contribution to
surplus value. Marx, Karl. (1969). Theories of Surplus Value (Vol. IV of Capital), translated by Emile Burns. London, part
I, chapter IV, ‘Theories of Productive and Unproductive Labour,’ pp. 152-304.
32
“Intellectual interest in the professions has a long tradition in the English-specking world. Substantial commentary
extends back into the nineteenth century. Until the 1940s, the most important voices were British,” Friedson, Eliot. (1986).
Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge. Chicago: Chicago University Press, p.27.
The first most comprehensive and thorough analysis was made by Alexander Carr-Saunders in Carr-Saunders,
Alexander M. (1928). The Professions: Their Origins and place in Society. Oxford: The Clarendon Press; Parsons Talcott.
(1939). ‘The Professions and Social Structure,’ Social Forces 17, pp. 457-467; Bledstein, Burton (1976). The Culture of
Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education in America. New York: W.W. Norton;
Collins, Randall. (1979). The Credential Society: An Historical Sociology of Education and Stratification.. New York:
Academic Press, Perkin, Harold. (1989). The Rise of Professional Society in England Since 1880. London, New York:
Routledge; Schon, Donald A. (1982). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, Prest,
Wilfrid. (ed.). (1987). The Professions in early Modern England. London: Croom Helm; Abbot, Andrew. (1988). The
System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago: Chicago University Press; Torstendahl, R. and
Burrage M. (eds.). (1990). The Formation of Professions: Knowledge, State and Strategy. London: Sage Publications, Inc.
The review of literature can be find at the Bowman, J.S., Elliston, F.A., and Lockhart, P. (eds.). (1984).
Professional Dissent: An Annotated Bibliography and Research Guide. New York: Garland.
Recently, at the end of eighties and beginning nineties the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in the Social
Sciences published several volumes of works profound an understanding of the processes of professionalization in the
western world: Burrage, Michael and Torstandahl, Rolf. (1990). Professions in Theory and History: Rethinking the Study of
the Professions. London: Sage Publications.
31
33
Perkin, Harold. (1989). The Rise of Professional Society in England Since 1880. London, New York: Routledge; Perkin
Harold. (1996). The Third Revolution: Professional Elites and Modern World. London, New York: Routledge.
34
In fact, as we found it throughout the literature of this research domain, all the conceptions on professions, its role in the
societal universe and their problem settings for the further development, etc. reflect authors’ very basic vision on freedom,
relations to the state and their primary value systems.
Such relations fixed by Donald Schon: “Views of reality are both cognitive constructs, which make the situation
understandable in a certain way, and instruments of political power. In the larger societal conversation with the situation,
problem setting, problem definition, and interpretation of the situation’s “back-talk” are always marked by intellectual
inquiry and by political contention” in Schon Donald A. (1982). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in
Action. Basic Books, New York, p. 348.
11
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Ideologically, the professional communities with the greater meaning of professional autonomy and
self-governance were seen among the basic constituencies of British and American societies and its
socio-cultural reality.35 Talcott Parsons asserted that the “professional complex … has become the
most important single component in the structure of the modern societies.”
36
This vision was further
supported by other prominent social scientists reflecting the advancements of recent capitalism and
social constructions for its future.37
Profession and Professionalization in the Context of Social and Economic Re-engineering
The idea of profession and professionalization became a powerful instrument in social engineering and
politics. A good example is the Thatcher Government is use of “… the ideas and actuality of
professionalization as an instrument to define and improve both market morality and efficiency” in
order to reorganize and privatize in a number of governmental service areas.38 In this case the concept
of profession has been used by the state “… as agents of economic surveillance and enforcers of
commercial morality.”
39
The British insolvency reform of 1986 was a means to create “publicly
accepted reasons” for liquidation, reorganization and privatization of unprofitable public enterprises. It
also was intended to infuse basic elements of business practice to create competence and
competitiveness.
Thus, the key works in Anglo-American tradition of study of profession, described professions among their
highest values of these societies. The most influential approach, which was in use as a basic paradigm, at least to the midnineties was developed by Talcott Parsons. Within this tradition the professions interpreted as ethically governed and
service oriented activity.
35
Bledstein, Burton. (1976). The Culture of Professionalism: The Middle Class and the Development of Higher Education
in America. New York: W.W. Norton.
36
Burrage, M. (1993). Professional Self-Government in the Deep Structure of English Life. Institute of Governmental
Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Working paper 92-11.
37
Bell, D. (1976). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society.. New York, p. 374.
38
Halliday, Terence G. and Carruthers, Bruce G. (1996).. The Moral Regulation of Markets: Professions, Privatization and
the English Insolvency Act 1986. Accounting, Organization and Society, Vol. 21, No. 4, p. 371. The British Government
elaborated special concept and principle of enterprise’s directors disqualification. The White Paper on this matter includes,
for example, following measures: “all directors of any company that become insolvent – through involuntary liquidation –
would automatically be disqualified from acting ad a director for three years.” Insolvency White Paper, 1984, Chapter 2.
39
Ibid., p. 371.
12
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
By appropriating and modifying innovations advanced by Cork’s Committee, the government
also set in place a complex, graduated system of sanctions.40 The Insolvency Act can thus be seen as
institutionalization of “market morality.” Moral reconstruction entailed a dual approach. The more
visible efforts at professionalization, as form or modern occupational ordering, were directed at
liquidators and insolvency practitioners. Coincidentally, however, the ethos of professionalization
permeated discussions of business morality. In its efforts to develop and enforce ethical and practice
codes, the Government consciously mimicked those features of conventional professionalization –
codes of ethics, self-regulation, modes of socialization – that would be acceptably to the new
enterprises. However, without exclusive control over a body of knowledge, 41 nor some capacity to
restrict entry42 this initiation of professions had severe limits.43
The Insolvency Review Committee was chaired by Sir Kenneth Cork, Britain’s most prominent insolvency practitioner
and later Lord Mayor of London.
40
41
As emphasized by Andrew Abbot, the “only a knowledge system governed by abstractions can redefine its problems and
tasks, defend them from interlopers, and seize new problems … Abstraction enables survival in the competitive system of
professions,” in Abbot, Andrew. (1988). The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor. Chicago:
Chicago University Press, p. 8.
42
Berlant, J. (1975). Profession and Monopoly: A Study of Medicine in Great Britain and the US. Berkeley: University of
California Press; Larson, M.S. (1977). The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis.. Berkeley: University of
California Press; Friedson, Eliot. (1994). Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy. Chicago: Chicago
University Press. By the Ernest Greenwood, the ideal type of professions consists of five components: (1) A basis of
systematic theory. (2) Authority recognized by the clientele of the professional group. (3) Broader community sanction and
approval of this authority. (4) A code of ethics regulating relationship of professional with clients and colleagues. (5) A
professional culture sustained by formal professional associations. Greenwood, Ernest. (1962). Attributes of a Profession,
in Sigmund, Nosow and William, H. Form. (ed.). Man, Work, and Society, New York, Basin Books, pp. 207-218.
43
Halliday, Terence G. and Carruthers, Bruce G. (1996). The Moral Regulation of Markets: Professions, Privatization and
the English Insolvency Act 1986. Accounting, Organization and Society, Vol. 21, No. 4, p. 389.
The most frequently cited student of the professions Wilensky, has offered following scheme of seven-steps of the
professionalization process: (1) Full-time activity at the task, (2) Establishment of university training, (2) National
professional association, (3) Redefinition of the core task, so as to give the "dirty work" over subordinates, (4) Conflict
between the old timers and the new men who seek to upgrade the job, (5) Competition between the new occupation and
neighboring ones, (6) Political agitation in order to gain legal protection, (7) Code of ethics. In Wilensky, Harold L. (1964).
The Professionalization of Everyone? American Journal of Sociology, 70, No. 2 (September), pp. 142-146.
"With respect to knowledge, seven major characteristics affect the acceptance of an occupation as a profession.
They are: 1. Ideally, the knowledge and skills should be abstract and organized into codified body of principles. 2. The
knowledge should be applicable, or thought to be applicable, to the concrete problems of living. (Note that metaphysical
knowledge, however well organized, may have no such applicability). 3. The society or its relevant members should believe
that the knowledge can actually solve these problems (it is not necessary that the knowledge actually solve them, only that
people believe in its capacity to solve them). 4. Members of the society should also accept as proper that these problems be
given over to some occupational group for solution (thus, for example, many do not as yet accept the proprietary of
handling over problems of neurosis to psychiatrist) because the occupational group possesses that knowledge and others do
not. 5. The profession itself should help to create, organize, and transmit the knowledge. 6. The profession should be
accepted as the final arbiter in any disputes over the validity of any technical solution lying within its area of supposed
competence. 7. The amount of knowledge and skills and the difficulty of acquiring them should be great enough that the
members of the society view the profession as possessing a kind of mystery that it is not given to the ordinary man to
acquire, by his own efforts or even with help." Wilensky, Harold L. (1964), pp.277-278.
13
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Profession as an Agency of Moral Regulation
Professionalism – suitably modified to suit Thatcherite philosophy – provided a promising solution to a
powerful instrumental conundrum. For the Government, a substantially professionalized enterprise
offered much: (1) guarantee of minimal competence; (2) a self-regulatory apparatus to ensure proper
levels of technical and moral performance; and (3) a measure of disinterestedness. Moreover, to
classify an occupation as a “profession” conferred upon it the dignity and respect well institutionalized
in English social life, thereby helping solve the moral deficit often associated with the market. Most
important, private professions would not require government resources or administration.44
The creation of the British “insolvency practitioner’s profession” serves as both a good
example of occupational upward mobility and an example of how different forces can be joined in the
process of professionalization. It generated a new set of polymorphous professional structures.
The institutionalization of a new profession by the Insolvency Act resulted from several major
factors. One of the most important was the elite insolvency practitioners themselves. The ‘Insolvency
Practitioners’ Association was created in 1974. Its top strata aspired to increase its social prestige and
reputation. “Professions may erect monopolies of practice, but for clients they also solve certain
problems in common with governments – guarantees of competence, some hope of self-regulation,
some modicum of disinterestedness. If the issue for practitioners was reputation, the principal concern
of clients was competence.”45 The civil service also welcomed a well-regulated profession in the
private sector. The professionalization of insolvency practitioners created a profession to which was
transferred the work of the Department of Trade. This process increased public confidence in
insolvency practitioners by reinforcing their commitment to high technical and moral standards.
Among the other important features of this profession-creating activity in Britain was its
unconventional organization. “Rather than the conventional fit between a single professional
association and its constituent members, whose only powers are derived from the association, the new
Insolvency Act created a new insolvency practitioners’ profession and endowed regulatory
The discussion of major characteristic of professions see at William J. Goode. (1969). ‘The Theoretical Limits of
Professionalization,’ in The Semi-Professions and their Organization, (ed.). Amitai Etzioni. New York: The Free Press, pp.
266-313.
44
Halliday, Terence G. and Carruthers, Bruce G. (1996), p. 402.
45
Halliday, Terence G. and Carruthers, Bruce G. (1996).. The Moral Regulation of Markets: Professions, Privatization and
the English Insolvency Act 1986. Accounting, Organization and Society, Vol. 21, No. 4, p. 403.
14
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
responsibilities on six major professional associations. Three were pre-existent accounting bodies, two
were pre-existent lawyers’ bodies (the law Society and the Bar) and one was a new professional body,
the Insolvency Practitioners’ Association. The seventh, and most startling addition to this regulatory
pantheon, was the Government’s own Departments of Trade and Industry.”46
The important lessons from this case are:

how a State can effectively employ professions to serve as agents of the State and its policy;
and

how State and profession can become a partners in such matter as a ‘trust-building’, which is
crucially important for all CEE transitional societies.47
The case of Insolvency Act 1986 shows as well how the professionalization can serve as an
effective instrument for legitimation of governmental innovations.
Ethical Regulations and Trust
The professionalization of public services also can serve as a generator and primary guardian of
values.48 In the transitional context, where the shift of values appears as one of the dominant
dimensions in changes in the relationships and culture of public services, the further development of
processes of professionalization will facilitate and even drive changes of value system. The profession
is an important “trust building” institution – an extremely crucial issue in the context of transition.
Ethics is traditionally one of the key dimensions and crucial sources for governance of
professional activity and assigning norms of professional conduct.49 As institutional and governance
46
Ibid., p. 404.
47
Granovetter, M. (1985). Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness, American Journal of
Sociology, pp. 481-551.
48
Montgomery, Van Wart. (1998). Changing Public Sector Values.. New York:. Galland Publishing, Inc.
49
Émile Durkheim, in his Professional Ethics and Civic Morals.(1957) C. Brookfield (trans.). Boston: Routledge and
Kagan Paul, was an early contributor to this theme and believed that communities based on membership in professional
association will prevent civic moral in the context of fragmenting division of labour. This issue is long recognized in
several seminal works: Barnard, C.I. (1938). The functions of the executive.. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press;
Simon, H.A. (1947). Administrative behavior. New York, NY: Macmillan Co.; Waldo, D. (1948). The administrative state.
New York, NY: The Ronald Press Co. The most comprehensive recently published compendium of Codes of Professional
Ethics, Corlin, Rena A. (Ed.) 1999. Codes of Professional Responsibility: Ethics Standards in Business, Health and Law..
BNA Books, The Bureau of National Affairs: 59 codes of ethic-most in full text. It reveals how 52 professional associations
across 25 professions are addressing questions about confidentiality, conflicts of interest, accountability, competition,
lobbying, fees, research, plagiarism, competence, advertising, self-regulation, telecommunications, referrals, peer review,
misconduct, independence, discrimination, and sensitive issues specific to particular professions, among many other vital
topics, http://www.bna.com/bnabooks.
15
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
structures both in public and private sector become more complex and vulnerable to different kind of
“market” forces and influence, it has become quite fashionable to decry the deficit of ethics in the
performance of different public and private agencies. This, in turn, has generated a number of different
studies on strategies to restore the ethical climate and behavior.50 Professional and general social ethics
serve as a framework, an infrastructure to keep professional activity acceptable and admissible by the
professional culture and the society it serves.51
 
  

Figure 1.
The use of such intellectual functions and processes as reflection and human reflexivity 52 can serve as
a basic foundation for ethics management, organization and governance of professional activity.
According to Lefevre, one of the leading students of human reflection, the real professional is a
subject, a person, “which possesses both the image of himself and the ideal of a professional.” 53 These
reflective relationships are pictured here on the Figure – 1, (adapted from Lefevre, V.A. 1991). In
order to keep the members of a professional community in associative, ordered and manageable
relationships the profession should invent special reflective institutions which will provide them with
50
Williams, Russell L. (1999). The Gordon Knot of Public Workplace Ethical Climate: Metaphor and Empirical Analysis.
A Paper presented at the ASPA 60th national conference. Orlando, FL., Theobald, R. (1997). Enhancing public service
ethics: More culture, less bureaucracy. Administration and Society, Vol. 29, No. 4, pp. 490-504; Lewis, C.W. and Catron,
B.L. (1996). ‘Professional standards and ethics.’ In Perry, J.L. (ed.). Handbook of Public Administration. (2nd ed.), San
Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, Inc., pp. 699-712, Bruce, W.M. (1996). Codes of ethics and codes of conduct: perceived
Contribution to the Practice of Ethics in Local Government, Public Integrity Annual, pp. 23-30, Brumback, Gary B. (1991).
Institutionalizing ethics in government. Public Personnel Management, Vol. 20, No. 3, pp. 353-364.
51
For more information on ethics and ethical codes see an earlier paper prepared for the PAR Working Group of NISPAcee
”Western Experience and Eastern Reality. A Literature Review of Professionalization and Professionalism in the Public
Sector Service”, C. Chia and S. Wyman, School of Urban and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington,
TX, October, 1999. On modern approaches to teaching public-sector ethics and values see in James S. Bowman and
Donald C. Menzel. (eds.). (1998). Teaching Ethics and Values in Public Administration Programs: Innovations, Strategies,
and Issues. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
52 Dorbeck-Junk, Bärbel. (1998). Towards Reflexive Responsibility: New Ethics for Public Administration. In Hondeghem
Annie. (ed.). Ethics and Accountability in a Context of Governance and New Public Management. European Group of
Public Administration Yearbook. Amsterdam, IOS Press, pp. 45-59; Soros, D. (1994). The Theory of Reflexivity, In The
Alchemy of Finance: Reading the Mind of the Market. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
53
Lefevre, V.A. (1991). The Formula of Man: An Outline of Fundamental Psychology.. School of Social Sciences,
University of California, Irvine. As noted by Donald Schone, “Unreflective practitioners are equally limited and destructive
whether they label themselves as professionals or counter-professionals,” Schon, Donald A. (1982). The Reflective
Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books, p. 290.
16
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
professional values and ideals, train them to reflect through a particular prism that guides them on
professionally determined subjects toward further professional development, and create particular
supportive institutions which will permanently facilitate reflective exercises and both individual and
collective capacity to reflect. In the CEE emerging efforts to create reflection-supporting institutions in
the sphere of GPA include for example in Poland there are considerable attempts to introduce “… new
structural institutions shaping the ethical infrastructure include: regulations governing the conduct of
members of Parliament, as contained in the Code of Deputies' Ethics; the establishment of a system of
government offices, … , which are responsible for developing ethical administrative conduct …,”
54
the development of independent, non-governmental foundations, public administration training centers
and policy research agencies,55 building professional associations such as Association of Municipal
Financial Officers in Slovakia, professional media and competitions.
Trust-building and Credentialing
Among the basic institutional settings critical to modern societies, with their diverse economic,
political and socio-cultural actors and heterogeneous systems of values, should be the mechanisms of
trust production. The credibility problem is particularly important for the transitional societies where
in the course of the 20th century the discreditation of public institutions has happened several times.
Although the shift toward more public service professionalism in the 20th century can become an
impediment to democratization and involvement of citizens in public policy-making, the deliberate and
thorough development of complex professional institutions can enhance accountability, openness, and
facilitate the development of high trust professionalism in public agencies.56 By the building of
adequate professional institutions we will support to the recreation of the entire system of credentialing
in all transitional societies of CEE.
54
Kudrycka, Barbara. (1999). The Ethical Codes of Polish Public Officials. Discussion Papers, No. 8. Budapest: Local
Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute.
55
Regulski, Jerzy. (1999). Building Democracy in Poland The State Reform of 1998.. Discussion Papers, No. 9. Budapest:
Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute.
56
Brint, S. (1994). In an age of experts: The changing role of professionals in politics and public life. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press. In fact, the phenomenon of so-called corruption is an institutional (or infrastructure’s) effect,
and manifests the type and contents of processes (in term of professionalization). As countermeasures we are trying to look
at the institutional re-arrangements, consider for example the structure of findings and recommendations in Verheijen, T.
and Dimitrova, A. (1997). ‘Corruption and Unethical Behavior of Civil and Public Servants: Causes and Possible
Solutions,’ in Jak, Jabes (ed.). Professionalization of Public Servants in Central and Eastern Europe, The Fifth Annual
NISPAcee conference held in Tallinn, Estonia, April 23-25, pp.240-243.
17
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Credentialism provides a critical condition to the area of trust among modern professionals.
57
A diverse and well-engrained system of credentialing of professionalized activity has developed in the
USA. There are two major types of credentialing: “occupational credentialing” and “institutional
credentialing.” The occupational approach concerns individual professional and effect is realized
through degrees, diplomas and certificates confirming the completion of training and education
courses. Institutional credentialing involves the issued of credentials to institutions and organizations
which are willing to perform professional activity at acceptable levels and to provide special services.
These include chartering, operating licenses, and accreditation. Historically in the US, due to
established separations and rooted patterns of relationships between the public and private sectors,
private sources of credentialing are often perceived to be more valuable and important than public.
58
“Apart from state-controlled credentialing of occupations through licensing, there is an even larger
system of privately controlled credentialing. Under the auspices of professions themselves, through
their associations, a certificate or diploma is given to a qualified candidate, usually after having
successfully completed a specified course of study and practice at an accredited professional school
and often after having passed an examination.” 59
As a form of market sign’s and signals credentialism serves as an information system structuring labor marketplace.
“This form embraces informal letters of reference and similar personal testimonials based on patronage and sponsorship as
well as formal diplomas, certificates, degrees, and licenses.” Friedson, Eliot. (1986). Professional Powers: A Study of the
Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge. Chicago: Chicago University Press, p. 63.
57
Instead of rich and diverse social signs’ systems, which were historically developed in Russia before revolution and in the
CEE countries Second World War, the totally “state-controlled credentialing” was established and dominated in that region
during the soviet times. In fact during several generations the tradition of ”credentials given” just partly survived within the
academic communities (to some extend including issues of diplomas of higher education, and scientific degrees etc).
However, in general the main types of “personal references” and “personal credentials” were granted by the Party system,
through the committees of trade unions of served organizations or by the komsomol. Although this order was the obligatory it was impossible to cross the enterprise or any institutions and get any white-color job without such a “personal
characteristic”, actually it degenerated into very formal and meaningless procedure. Due to nearly total absence of
independent judgments this kind of credentialing contributed so much to the institutional erosion of soviet organization and
formation of a gap between the “formal signs” and “real contents” of these letters of recommendations, diplomas etc.
This practice created general disregard of public to the “papers” and formal signs fixed social, professional or
cultural status of bearers. At the same time this type of relationships serves as a rich source of distrust to all kind of official
institutions and facilitate the development of such transitional phenomena, which we call “institutional chaos” and
“institutional myopia.” Kovryga, O. (1999). “Institutsionalnoe predprinimatelstvo v economike Ukraini: problemi
teoreticheskogo i metodologicheskogo obespechenjia” (Institutional Entrepreneurship in Ukrainian Economy: Its
Theoretical and Methodological Challenges), in Zadorozhny, G.V. et all. (eds.). Sotsialnie prioriteti v perekhodnoi
ekonomike (Social Priorities in Transitional Economy), Kharkiv, KhIBM, pp. 211-220, (In Russian); Kovriga, A. Urban
Management and Local Government as New Institutions in the New Ukraine. International Journal of Public Administration
(forthcoming).
58
59
Friedson, Eliot. (1986). Professional Powers: A Study of the Institutionalization of Formal Knowledge. Chicago: Chicago
University Press, p.69.
18
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Professionalization as a Policy Issue: Western Models vs. Eastern Reality
A number of leading Western academic institutions and international professional organizations have
exerted considerable effort in supporting development of professional PA in transitional countries
(among them USAID, TACIS and PHARE projects of EC, SIGMA of OECD, Local Government
Management Board of UK, National Association of School of Public Affairs and Administration,
several private foundations, Open Society Institute network, etc.). “While the degree of influence
measured by aid money is high, the success in professionalizing of public service remains limited. Part
of the explanation for this may be found in the limited transposability of models of public
administration from western countries to countries in transition.”60 A major part of the transferability
problem may be due to emphasis on individuals who engage in professional activity within the
institutional and socio-cultural infrastructures while human behavior in the context of various CEE
countries is left in the shadows.
Practically all the actions toward professionalization of PA in the CEE are built on the
assumption that well-trained or re-trained public servants (e.g., by the programs such as Master’s of
Public Administration) will resolve the problem of public sector transition. This approach often does
not, however, fit CEE and local and national conceptions.
The history of professionalization in the U.S. has created myths, ideologies and patterns of
professional activity that are bounded with a local formative context.
Net of
Institutions
of State
Net of
Institutions of
Profession
60
Jabes, J. (ed.). (1997). Professionalization of Public Servants in Central and Eastern Europe.. Proceedings from the Fifth
annual NISPAcee conference held in Tallinn, April 23-25, 1997, Bratislava, pp. 7-9.
19
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Net of
Institutions Civil
Society
Net of
Institutions
Market
Figure 2
state
civil
society
market
profession
To simplify this extremely complex picture we suggest consideration of just four core groups: (1) the
marketization of many aspects of human life and the development of institutions of American
capitalism; (2) the separation of public (and non-profit) sectors and the development of state and public
institutions; (3) professionalization viewed as the formation of complex institutions of reproduction
and knowledge development, culture and experience; and (4) institutionstraditionally called ‘civil
society’ which are independent but congruous to all others. (See Figure 2).61
To simplify we can use ‘market’ referred to the whole net of institutions constituted markets
and its reality, the ‘state’ as referred to the net of institutions grounding governmental and state
activities and reality, the ‘profession’ referred to set of institutions created the reality of processes of
61
The professionalization and establishment of professional status are also seeing as a political phenomenon developed on
the way of negotiation between power centers of the society. Laffin, M. (1986). Professionalism and Policy: the Role of
the Professions in the Central-Local Government Relationship. London, Gower Publishing Company, p. 196.
20
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
prefessionalization and professional relationships in a human society (with the ‘university’ as natural
and integral part of it)62 and ‘civil society’ referred to the net of different organizational settings and
institutions creating civil relationships and civility. Their interaction, and ideological and structural
commonalities and differences have shaped each of them and gave a birth to American patterns of
professionalization and professional organization.63 This topic deserves special research from a
multidisciplinary and comparative point of view. Here we just briefly outlined some basic features,
which may help in understanding what stands behind the [Anglo-] American theory of profession and
the approach to professionalization of an activity in Central and Eastern Europe. Profession now is an
inalienable part of American value system. The American pattern of professional activity clearly
reflects and perhaps overemphasizes the meaning of ideas and spirit of ‘free enterprise’.64
The European “professionalization projects” (German and French) different somewhat from the
Anglo-American schemes, “… notably by being attached to a broader notion of university education
(akademische Bildung) than to specialized training and self-organization. Honor and status belonged
more clearly to the Akademiker or the Akademische Berufe than to the professional per se. Moreover,
as suggested, the development of the state was such that in many parts of Germany, notably in Prussia,
it exerted a powerful influence as both the organizer of the educational system and the consumer of its
62
The university played central role in building of professional institutions as in medieval Europe as in the US and other
western countries in nineteen and twenty centuries. “Universities played a crucial role in setting up networks of friends,
patrons, and clients.” Hilde de Ridder-Symoens. (1996). Training and Professionalization, in Reinhard, Wolfgang, (ed.).
Power Elites and State Building, European Science Foundation, Clarendon Press, 1996, pp.149-172.
The ‘jungle’ of American professionalization gave birth to very narrow specialization of academia, to clear demarcation
of personal field of enquiry, particular areas of professional competence (to confer professional status, privileges an
responsibilities, etc., well developed examples are law and medicine), to precise definition of knowledge base, and to
articulated “jurisdiction, that is, a link between the training of experts and their performance of their work sufficiently
demonstrable to withstand competition from other professions or from nonprofessionals, enabling these new experts to
control their domain.” A student of the ‘Culture of Professionalism’ Burton Bledstein in his concept exerted that “The
culture of professionalism emancipated the activities within comprehensive spaces and incarnated the radical idea of the
independent democrat, a liberated person seeking to free the power of nature within every worldly sphere, a self governing
individual exercising his trained judgment in an open society.”
63
It is particularly stressed by the European (continental) scholars “the Anglo-American tradition supports professions that
are more self-regulating and autonomous, whereas on the continent the categories of “professional” and “official” tend to
merge.” in Lindenfeld, David F. (1990). ‘The Professionalization of Applied Economics’, in Geoffrey, Cocks and Konrad,
H. Jarausch (eds.). German Professions,1800-1950.. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 215; “…Anglo – American
model exaggerates the degree of autonomy characteristic of professions as well as the elements of public service and selfcontrol that are the professionals’ stake in the so-called bargain with society by which their autonomy is legitimated. At the
same time, this model underrates the potential role of the state in the formation, sponsorship, and protection of professional
work. Appropriate though the model of autonomy, self-control, and distant state may be to Britain and the United States
(and this can itself be called into question in the basis that “autonomy” is really an ideological cover for a “monopoly”
guaranteed by the state), it simply does not take account of the historical circumstances of professionalization in continental
Europe.” Caplan, Jane. Profession as Vocation: The German Civil Service, in Geoffrey, Cocks and Konrad, H. Jarausch
(eds.). (1990). German Professions, 1800-1950. New York: Oxford University Press, p.163.
64
21
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
products, especially those trained in law. It is not surprising that one scholar has concluded “…if in
Anglo-American context the medical profession was the model for the other professions, in Germany it
was, rather, the professionalized lawyer (Jurist) in the civil service.”65
The Formative Context II: What Is Inherited and What Is Embedded
The Marginal Status of Profession and Professionalism
Before the transition there were few social science studies of professions and professional
organization. Nearly all of institutions of civil society were eliminated and transferred into
organizations totally controlled by Communist Party. All kind of sources of power and governance
were centralized in state’s hands. There were no clear distinctions between civil society and state,
public and private.66 Professional service was reduced to single and monopolistic administrative
market where all professions were part of and controlled by the bureaucratic rules of party-state’s
nomenklature. A closed “administrative market” of largely quasi-professional services were created
within a cobweb of the party-state’s nomenklature. This practice was characterized by the absence of
professional meritocracy, professional freedom, self-organization and transparency. In general the
motives and spirit of professional development were lost during the soviet period. Professional careers
were defined not by professional achievements but by the demonstration of strong adherence to official
party slogans and behavior from one side, and by following the hidden rules of informal life and
“codes of behavior” of the nomenklature.
The power of the professions as a source of high knowledge and expertise were major threat to
the total-command-and-control methods of communist governance and the goal of a New Socialist
Society. It was absolutely necessary to destroy and eliminate any kind of professional institutions that
could produce professional culture, power and influence. Working-intelligentsia and non-qualifiedlabor were at the top of soviet socio-cultural priorities.67 The result of such practice was, with the
65
Geoffrey, Cocks and Konrad, H.. Jarausch (eds.). (1990). German Professions, 1800-1950. New York: Oxford University
Press, p.165.
66
The democratic gap. (1996). Business Central Europe, (May), pp.9-11
67
Hudson, Hugh D. Jr. (1994). Blueprints and Blood: The Stalinization of Soviet Architecture, 1917-1937. Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press; Jones, Anthony. (ed.). (1991). Professions and the State: Expertise and Autonomy in the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
22
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
exception of the military, destruction of mechanisms for accumulation and reproduction of
professional experience and culture.
The Theory: Ontological Assumptions on Profession and Professionalization
The notions of profession, professionalization and professionalism seems quite well developed (at least
by the ever growing numbers of publications, professional clubs and associations, etc.) in the Englishspeaking world and other western European countries.68 However, to use them instrumentally in
different institutional building contexts, we need to clarify the entire ideological and ontological basis
for this set of ideas and comprehend their socio-cultural background and meaning.
The profession, as a macro-institutional setting is the most complexly developed, crucial web of
institutions, serves as basic mechanism of reproduction of human activity, provided accumulation of
knowledge and transfer an experience, formation of culture. In our ontological model the process of
reproduction must considered as a central poly-process that provides to professional activity (PA) its
integrity and consistent development of the profession of GPA.
We will present the process of reproduction of GPA in the form of cycles, which provide the
creation of new structures of GPA on the base of previous. The simplest case can be presented in the
structure that is pictured on the Figure 3. The S ‘1’ is an initial state of structures of GPA and S ‘2’ is a
final state in the cycle of reproduction processes. The ‘instruments’, ‘means’ and ‘subjects’ and
‘products of labour’ of the state of GPA are transferred to others through both, individual professionals
and whole professional organizations. Such “material transfer” does not demand recreation. But it is a
necessary component of processes of reproduction and provides transmission of the elements of GPA.
The more complex mechanism of reproduction appear in those cases when the elements of GPA from
the first state do not pass into the second state directly and do not transform into elements of the
second state. They can serve only as the samples or etalons (blueprints) [E i, j] for the recreation of the
same units and elements of GPA (Figure 4.) These samples and etalons have a special function in a
professional universe: they capture those things that exist in the first state of GPA in a way that allows
those elements to be included in the second state.
The General Theory of Activity posits that these etalons [E i, j] do not exist in the particular
states of GPA, rather they move in ‘parallel’ to those states, and permanently provide recreation of all
In the US nowadays the overall socio-cultural situation often characterized even as the ‘era of professionalism.’ See
related footnotes on this diverse field of inquiry presented earlier.
68
23
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
of the structures of GPA.69 Examples include written statements of standards, specifications for
procedures, written rules which guide behavior in a particular professional position, codes of
professional ethics, organizational and administrative charts of professional agencies, etc.70 These
relations are pictured on the Figure 5.
Critical to this discourse is distinction between the two spheres of GPA production and
culture.. Culture here is aggregate of all means that recreate social, socio-cultural and production
structures of GPA. An indispensable condition for this kind of reproduction is activity itself. The
samples and etalons will perform their functions only if there is a person who will be able to create, by
those etalons, new artifacts, which are included in new (reproduced) structures of GPA. Such a process
of translation is possible in only case if GPA will be continuously transfers in parallel. How is this
possible?
The most simplified form of translation of GPA is the transferring of professionals from one
socio-production structure to another. But this is not reproduction of GPA as such. A more complex
situation arises in a case where the real task is to reproduce certain elements of GPA. The activities of
exemplary professionals and recognized professional institutions inevitably become the sample, the
cultural artifact for this process. They secure and transfer particular features and construction of GPA.
Examples here include such institutions as professional schools, with their core curricula and
professional textbooks, research methods and theories, cases and canonized patterns of professional
view of the world, structures of internal organization and culture,71 and professional roles as research,
teaching, administration, etc. (Figure 6.)
E ij
S ‘1’
S ‘2’
Figure 3.
69
S ‘i’
S ‘j’
Figure 4.
Adopted from the General Theory of Activity, Shchedrovitsky G.P. (1995). Selected Works. Moscow. (In Russian).
An interesting collection of such “exemplars” presented as a result of Exemplars Project developed by Terry L. Cooper
and his colleagues under ASPA, - Cooper Terry L. and Wright N. Dale. (1992). Exemplary Public Administrators:
Character and Leadership in Government. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.
71
There are continuous processes of standardization and accreditation of such institutions by professional bodies, such as
the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA) in the U.S., and newly created
Association for Public Administration in Poland - Stowarzyszenie Edukacji Administracji Publicznej (APAE ).
70
24
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Institutions
of PA
E
E
Sign’s
means
S ‘i’
S ‘j’
Material
means
Products
of PA
Etalons
S
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
In any case, the recreation of GPA is only possible when certain people – fellow members of
professional community - are able and willing to perform this activity. They can duplicate the GPA of
previous generations or recreate it by inherited products and signs. Historically, the transmission of
such abilities is provided by training and education.
These models and conceptions, developed within the theory of profession, allow a thorough
analysis and definition of crucial reproducing elements and components of the socio-cultural and
economic organization of GPA, and as well as general framework to better understand nature and
structure of the institutional setting of GPA.
A dynamic view of profession can be seen dynamically as three integrated dimensions:
 The dimension of pure thinking - a set of patterns, schemes of thinking and core objects and
theories developed and employed by the profession and characterized by its specific, subjects – see
position 1 in Figure 7.. This dimension is drives by the laws and logic of theories and ideal objects.
 The communication dimension – a set of socially and culturally organized communication patterns
used by the profession within and outside of professional community – see position # 2 in Figure 7
and symbol of communication sent and received.
25
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
 The behavioral dimension - patterns of professional actions and behavior: socially, culturally and
technologically determined professional performance – see position # 3 in Figure 7, “”
symbolizes an action).
All of these belts differ by internal nature and logic of development. They are relatively
autonomous, however, as integral functions of particular professional activity. But they are coherent
and complementary to each other as systems of profession and professional organization of activity.
The communication dimension is at the core of this scheme and the construction of the
profession. It performs a critical function in establishing and maintaining all types of relationships with
the outside professional, social and business world. Communication provides systems integrity and
coordinated professional life both within the profession and with other professional communities, state
and international institutions and the rest of societal universe.
Each of these dimensions can evolve by its speed, logic and laws. This can caused internal
discrepancies, resulted in restructuring, disconnecting and destroying of performance of separate
institutions within the profession, as well as between activities of particular professions and the rest of
universe. Among the examples here can be: the compartmentalization of ASPA which is now
comprises of 112 chapters each of those tend to become single “truly professional unit” and create own
ASPA-like association; the complicated relations between certified public accounting professional
associations (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, American Accounting Association),
big professional partnerships and state regulation agencies (Security and Exchange Commission,
Federal Accounting Standards Board) over accounting and auditing standards and procedures, code of
ethics and professional responsibility; situations of conflicting interests between public agency policy
elites and public service professionals; an example of interprofessional controversy can be conflict
between lawyers and accountants during 1940s and 1950s “… on the question of who was to be legally
constitutes to engage in certain areas of tax work and related consulting.” 72 ; In order to prevent such
destructive consequences, there are special functions, which can help to keep multi-process of
professionalization and professional development in systems integrity. 73
72
Montagna, Paul D. (1974). Certified Public Accounting: A Sociological View of a Profession in Change. Houston, TX:
Scholars Book Co., p. 175.
73
We do not detail in this essay processes of professionalization and professional development, that is big and extensive
topic for enquiry. But, in order to outline what it is we can assert that each profession or professionalized activity own
special epistemological and developmental strategy and policy for implementation of them; this strategy reflects
professional ideology which serves as selective tool and filter in separation of worthy and acceptable paths and directions
for development. Professional ideology drives problem-setting procedures and highlights new phenomenons and
26
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
In Figure 7 these reflective functions/positions are numbers 4, 5, 6. 74
These reflective
functions allow professionals to reflect and benchmark current professional developments, design and
implement necessary changes, and restructure their professional institutions and organizations.
Reflective meta-position # 7 (P) in Figure 7 is “responsible” for the monitoring and observation of
development of profession as a whole. And finally, the reflective meta-positions # 8 (S) in Figure 7
coordinate the adaptation and development of the profession within the broader socio-cultural and
economic universe.75
The aim here is to stabilize the professional heritage and achievements, status and integrity
within the social system and network of other professions, non-professional institutions and
organizations. By this holistic reflection of professional performance the profession can stabilize or
change its own structure and network of professional institutions, can redesign principle directions of
professional activity, can support or provoke changes of basic values and core knowledge, and can
enhance skills and patterns of activity.
Moreover, all of these reflective functions are responsible for accumulation of professional
knowledge and culture, and reproduction of professional activity. This occurs through the experience
and lessons of current practice and history (own and others), by creation of appropriate standards and
norms, and education and development of the professions human capital.
A critical message of this construct is that we should not expect any appropriate development
and prospering of GPA without building an integrated professional infrastructure..
It must be
opportunities. In fact, all of these functions tend institutionalize themselves and obtain own and “independent” life and
existence. While, at the course of professionalization, the diversification and enrichment of the body of professional
institutions can provide as the strength and prosperity as well as heavy loads, which will impede further development of
profession. If we will look through the prism of presented scheme and notions at the history of professional communities
and professions and recent developments at the “professional marketplace,” it will demonstrate a diverse variety in the
contents, shapes and strategies of those institutionalizations.
Among well-elaborated epistemological strategies applicable for professional development are “action research”
and “organizational learning.” See detailed consideration of action learning and research approach with application to
public administration sphere in Bruce, R.R. and Wyman, S. M. (1998). Changing Organizations: Practicing action training
and research. New York, London: Sage Publications, Inc.
74
Schon, Donald A. (1982). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. Basic Books. Chapter 5.
75
Within GPA we can consider such organizations as National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), American
Society for Public Administration (ASPA), National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration
(NASPAA), their sub-divisional associations, and a number of other types of national and international as examples of
institutionalized implementation of this framework functions and activities. We also believe that the consistent
development of the NISPAcee will result in full-scale mastering and performance of crucial meta-reflective functions for
the professionalization of GPA in the CEE.
27
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
adequate both to its history and current socio-cultural situation, and capable of supporting and
performing of all the functions that are discussed above.
The results of activity of reflective positions 4 through 7 are reflected in the work of A. B.
Knox. He believes that each these profession possess own cognitive structure and higher level
conceptions that serve as “… meta-components and are used by experts to reflect on combinations of
knowledge and experiences.” 76
All types of academic activity, teaching and learning, studies and research, and proper
professional practice represent different combinations of positions 1 through 7 or some of modification
of these functions/positions. For example, new research findings or results of theoretical developments
towards improvement of current professional activity may be channeled into practice through
involvement of certain actors into processes of reflective observation, critical assessment and learning
or un-learning. Possible trajectories of such processes include the following positions: 1–5–3; 1–4–3
and 1–6–3 or even more complex: 1–6–7–5; 1–6–7–4–3; 1–5–7–4–3; 1–7–3; 1–7–2; 1–7–1–2 and so
forth.
Hopefully, therefore, this scheme can serve an instrument in research and design of almost any
kind of professional institutions. A robust, well-established profession will possess a set of institutions
and agencies which will support or perform the movements through these lines of professional activity
and professional development. Such dynamic process of professionalization means that the profession
will gradually master and develop own specific institutional infrastructure capable of pursuing all of
these processes.
To introduce some kind of innovations into current professional practice – through
implementation at position # 3 – it may be necessary to take certain professional agents “out” of
routine practice and involve them in the professional reflection, learning and communications.. This
might include job rotations, new assignments within organizational and functional structures, peer
reviews, performance assessments and professional competitions. Externally, it would include
76
Knox, A.B. (1992). Comparative Perspective on Professional Ways of Knowing. In H.K.M. Baskett and V.J. Marsick.
(Eds.), Professional Ways of Knowing: Implications for Continuing Education, pp. 97-108, New Directions for Adult and
Continuing Education, No. 55. San-Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
The institution of profession appeared as a complex method of knowing (knowing-by-doing, knowing-byreflection, etc.), testing and verification of basic ontological assumptions of profession, ideas and knowledge, as in local
situations of acting as in a broader cultural-historical context. Profession generates social-cultural foundations for creation
of real subjected knowledge and building of practice. Any separate achievements outside of profession and without
comparisons with (and overcoming through) those basic patterns and paradigms, do not contribute to development of
knowledge, they do not include in development of professional business and do not belong to professional history, they left
just destiny of private domain.
28
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
professional meetings, special tasks and focus groups comprised of different professional positions and
invited representatives of other professions and so on.
29
Scheme of the Profession of Public Administration
Meta reflective
positions



  

Meta
reflective
positions
S
8
Reflective
positions
6
1
Paradigms & patterns of
professional thinking
P
7
5
2
4
3
Paradigms & patterns of
professional communication
Paradigms & patterns of
professional actions
Socio-cultural & economic whole
Figure 7.
It is impossible to expect the accommodation of new ideas and schemes of performance,
developed by scholars, without the reflection of real practice gained through communication with and
learning from all of the stakeholders of a profession. Thus, in order to be able to introduce any
innovations, professions must develop associations and institutions, which facilitate complex polyprocesses of reflection, communication and learning.
As Rusaw, states “Professional associations provide
(1)
formal and informal matrices for developing knowledge, attitudes, values, and
effective techniques for practice,
(2)
new frames of thinking, feeling, reflecting, and experiencing, and
(3)
roles as an authority, facilitator, and arbitrator of knowledge for change.” 77
By using their institutional networks professional communities can enhance their expertise and
skill development through formally organized meetings, conferences, workshops, and seminars. The
identification of common problems, themes, issues and priorities can serve as an approach for uniting
efforts of academics, practicing managers, and others positions for the development of professional
practice and the identification of their profession as a socio-cultural formation.78 Professional
associations also create unique frames of reference and an opportunistic environment that predisposes
professionals to reflect, define and react to phenomenon they have experienced. Such a reflection
creates new meanings, which then transforms into new knowledge, ideas, etc. 79
This “dynamic reflection” is absolutely necessary for “sense-making” in professional activity.
The sense-making process is supported by continuous in-professional and inter-professional reflective
conversations and discussions. Through these discussions professionals articulate their visions,
77
Rusaw, Carol A. (1995). Learning by Association: Professional Associations as Learning Agents, Human Resource
Development Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer, pp. 219.
78
For review of processes of formation of different types of professional organizations in the United Kingdom see work of
Geoffrey Millerton – Millerton, Geoffrey. (1964). The Qualifying Associations: A Study in Professionalization. London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul.
79
“Practitioners do reflect on their knowing-in-practice. Sometimes, in the relative tranquility of a postmortem, they think
back on a project they have undertaken, a situation they have lived through, and they explore the understandings they have
brought to their handling of the case. They may do this in a mood of idle speculation, or in a deliberate effort to prepare
themselves for future cases. But they may also reflect on practice while they are in the midst of it. Here they reflect-inaction, but the meaning of this term needs to be considered in terms of the complexity of knowing-in-practice... When
practitioner reflects in and on his practice, the possible objects of his reflection are as varied as the kinds of phenomena
before him and the systems of knowing-in-practice which he brings to them. He may reflect on the tacit norms and
appreciations which underlie a judgment, or on the strategies and theories implicit in a pattern behavior. He may reflect on
the feeling for a situation which has led him to adopt a particular course of action, on the way in which he has framed the
problem he is trying to solve, or on the role he has constructed for himself within a larger institutional context. Reflectionin-action, in … several modes, is central to the art through which practitioners sometimes cope with the troublesome
“divergent” situations of practice.” Schon, Donald A. (1982). The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in
Action.. Basic Books, p. 62, and also The Structure of Reflection-in-Action, in Schon, Donald A. (1982), chapter 5.
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
assumptions, and conceptions, and predispositions towards professional acting by creating metaframeworks of meaning. Such an activity enables the members of profession to re-examine their
dominant beliefs, values, and practices against critical situations and adapt to an ever changing
environment. The process of articulation and translation of these experience-frameworks to newcomers
is critical to reproduction and development of profession. It is a core process for creation and definition
of professional culture.
In short, as illustrated in positions 1–8, the innovative capacity and proper performance of a
profession depends on development of a network of professional institutions and associations which
can serve as an infrastructure for articulating, channeling, directing and supporting of flows of
knowledge, expertise, and reflection.
Professional associations also provide such important functions as continuous learning and
socialization. “Socialization refers to the formal and informal learning processes by which
professionals come to know, accept, and share with others expectations of individual and group
performance, opportunities for personal and professional growth and advancement, and interpersonal
relationships inside and outside a particular organizational context.”80
As case examples in GPA of the institutionalization of learning and socialization consider such
U.S. organizations as the National Academy of Public Administration (NAPA), American Society for
Public Administration (ASPA), National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration
(NASPAA) and their component associations, journals, institutionalized networks of research,
competitions, and awards for recognition programs. ASPA was established 60 years ago with the
overall mission “to professionalize the public service, to keep members on the cutting edge of good
government, and to help answer the enduring question of how to make government work better. Over
the years the Society has played a major role in achieving these ends.”81
The Dangers of Professionalization:
80
Rusaw, Carol A. (1995). Learning by Association: Professional Associations as Learning Agents, Human Resource
Development Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer, pp. 218.
The examples of professional associations in public sector in the United Kingdom are SOLACE – Society of Local
Authority Chief Executives (district council chief executives), CEA – Chief Executive Association, SOCPO – Society of
Chief Personal Officers, CIPFA – Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, ACSeS – Association of Council
Secretaries and Solicitors, IPR – Institute of Public Relations. Wynn, D.R. (1996). Club-Wielding Power, Local
Government Chronicle, Vol. 13, December, pp. 12-13. See as well ASPA website and its links to the “world” of these
organization in the U.S. and around the glob. See The Mission of ASPA, http://www.aspanet.org/ .
81
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Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Professionalism, Administrative Bureaucracy and Building of Institutions of Modern
Governments
For better or worse – or better and worse – much of our government is in the hands of professionals
(Frederick Mosher)
There are several competing theoretical approaches on danger of professionalization and role of
professional bureaucracy in public administration and governance.82 The views of professionalization
of public administration as ground for “bureaucratization” and the danger of over-towered bureaucratic
machinery to democracy were expressed as by Max Weber as major revolutionary leaders of XX
century.83 The danger of creating of “professional state” and “bureaucratic state” also studied by a
number of public administration theorists.84 Recently some key pros and cons issues of
professionalism and professional bureaucracy in modern public administration and governance
developed by leading American scholars.85 Fred Riggs asserts that professionalization increases power
82
The tension between a meaningful democratic politics and a highly professionalized, specialized and scientized public
administration has attracted attention of students since the beginning of XX century. It was one of central topic of Dwight
Waldo’s seminal work The Administrative State: The Study of Political Theory of Public Administration. (1948). New
York: Ronald Press. More recently it is reflected in works of Barry Karl and others: Karl, Barry D. (1976). Public
Administration and American History: A Century of Professionalism. Public Administration Review, No. 36, pp. 489-504;
Karl, Barry D. (1987). The American Bureaucrat: A History of a Sheep in Wolves’ Clothes. Public Administration Review,
No. 27, pp. 24-36; Pugh, Darrell H. (1989). Professionalism in Public Administration. Public Administration Review, No.
49, pp. 1-8; Stewart, D. (1985). Ethics and Profession of Public Administration: The Moral Responsibility of Individuals in
Public Sector Organizations. Public Administration Quarterly, No. 8, pp. 487-495.
See also framework consideration of this topic presented by Chester Newland. Newland, Chester A. (1980).
Professional Public Executives and Public Administration Agendas. In Chester A. Newland, (ed.). Professional Public
Executives. Washington, D.C.: ASPA Publication, p. 1-30; and reports of European Group of Public Administration, Hondeghem, Annie. (ed.). (1998). Ethics and Accountability in a Context of Governance and New Public Management.
EGPA Yearbook. Amsterdam, Ohmsha: IOS Press.
83
Weber, Max. (1946). From Max Weber: Essay in Sociology. Translated and edited by H.H. Gerth and Wright Mills. New
York: Oxford University Press, p. 228; Lenin, V. Illich. (1971). State and Revolution. New York: International Publishers.
Such a position of Bolsheviks leader caused neglect of professional management training and education.
See, for example, such earlier works as of Finer, Herman, (1941). ‘Administrative Responsibility in Democratic
Government,’ Public Administration Review, (Summer), No. 1, pp. 335-350; Downs, Anthony. (1965). Inside
Bureaucracy. Boston; Little, Brown; and critical and influential work of Frederick Mosher, - Mosher, Frederick C. (1968).
Democracy and the Public Service. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press; also crucial work of Vincent Ostrom, Ostrom, Vincent, Jr. (1973). Intellectual Crisis of Public Administration in America. University, AL, University of
Alabama Press.
84
85
Farazmand, Ali. (ed.). (1997). Modern Systems of Government: Exploring the Role of Bureaucrats and Politicians.
Thousand Oaks, London: SAGE Publications.
33
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
of public administration bureaucrats, so they tend to act against constitutional systems and pose
serious threats to democracy.86
The problems of functional and ethical interrelations and interactions of politicians and
professional public administrators, traditionally considered in the framework of old dichotomy of
democratically elected politicians vs. professional administrators, are among the most viable in
American public administration literature.87 Bert A. Rockman calls attention to a clash between
“accountability,” “responsiveness,” and “responsibility” of public service professionals.88
In fact
public service professional bounded by at least three different types and often conflicting rationalities:
by the principle of accountability which reflects commitment to the law, by the principle of
responsibility reflected adherence to professional ethics and knowledge base, and finally by the
principle of responsiveness that represents commitment to requirements of political leadership and
chain of command in administrative machinery – see Figure 8.
89
The art of being professional is
As he beliefs, “Once established, bureaucracies easily become self-animated organizations capable of furthering their
own expedient goals and egoistic norms. To the degree that they are cohesive, creating their own intra-bureaucratic
“informal organizations’ and political leadership, they can mobilize the bureaucracy as political actors promoting their own
expedient interests.” – Riggs, Fred C. (1997). Coups and Crashes: Lessons for Public Administration. In Farazmand, Ali.
(ed.). (1997). Modern Systems of Government: Exploring the Role of Bureaucrats and Politicians. Thousand Oaks, London:
SAGE Publications, p. 25.
“When bureaucratic interests are ignored by the constitutive systems, however, bureaucrats become
hyperanimated: Under military leadership, they organize secretly to displace the constitutive system and impose their own
domination. The opposite phenomenon can emerge under a single-party dictatorship in which the party directorate (a
“politburo”), using the slogan, “democratic centralism,” seeks not only to dominate the constitutive system as a whole but
also to impose harsh control over all bureaucrats. Its “political commissars” – that is, party activists associated with or even
sharing appointments with public officials – are able to control the bureaucracy. Carried to extremes, such control
suffocating – the bureaucracy becomes inanimated. It cannot administer effectively and it easily falls victim of to
bureaucratic fatigue. It can never dominate its polity, but it can undermine its viability simply by failing to administer well
enough to meet the minimal needs of the population. Although mass protests may results, the more immediate cause of
such a regime’s failure is neither a revolutionary movement nor coup. Rather, it is political crash caused by the failure of
party leaders to sustain their own enthusiasm for the system. Their internal schisms can ultimately precipitate its collapse.”–
Riggs, Fred C. (1997), p. 26.
86
87
It was one of the main concerns of Woodrow Wilson, founder of public administration discipline. Wilson, Woodrow.
(1887). The Study of Public Administrations. Political Science Quarterly, No. 56, pp. 481-506.
Rockman, Bert A. (1997). “Honey, I Shrank the State.” On the Brave New World of Public Administration. In
Farazmand, Ali. (ed.). (1997). Modern Systems of Government: Exploring the Role of Bureaucrats and Politicians.
Thousand Oaks, London: SAGE Publications, p. 281.
88
89
The participating of professionals in public affairs and government work often considered as source of professional
obsolescence and involvement into unavoidable compromises corruption. In order to prevent such threats professions
develop institutions which can both maintain proper forms and limits such a professional participation and combine support
intellectual prestige and occupational security with possibility of valuable impact on social development. See for example,
Fulner, M.O. (1975). Advocacy and Objectivity: A Crisis in the Professionalization of American Social Science 1865-1905.
Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press.
34
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
based on skillful fulfillment of requirements of all of them. But it is unrealistic to expect such skillful
performance without development of proper professional institutions.90
The successful solving of problems depends on institutional settings in all dimensions
presented in Figure 8. We believe that the most practical and efficient approach to overcome these
tensions and discrepancies will be to think political constituent (dimension) of sphere of GPA as an
open and problems oriented and forward attention and actions on building and reinforcement of
institutions supporting further professionalization.91
Public administration
professional
Requirements of professional
ethics and application of
professional knowledge


Requirements from and
Commitment to the
Law and administrative
machinery
Requirements of and
commitment to political
rulership and chain of
command
Sphere of Governance and Public Administration
90
An interesting interpretation of systems institutional influence on performance given by Alexander Filatov in his article
“Unethical Business Behavior in Post-Communist Russia: Origins and Trends,” Business Ethics Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 1,
1994, pp. 11-15. See also discussion of institutionalization issues in Regulski, Jerzy. (1999). Building Democracy in
Poland The State Reform of 1998.. Discussion Papers, No. 9. Budapest: Local Government and Public Service Reform
Initiative, Open Society Institute; and analysis of resent institutional building practice in public administration Poland in
Gilowska, Zyta, Ploskonka, Jozef et. all. (1999). The Systemic Model of the Voivodeship in a Democratic Unitary State.
Discussion Papers, No. 7. Budapest: Local Government and Public Service Reform Initiative, Open Society Institute.
91
In fact from the substantive point of view these politician-professional administrator tensions falls in our models into
very complex relations between the processes of reproduction and development. All the “things” and mechanisms and
respected institutions involved in and ascribed for reproduction persist to the changes connected with development. In this
contexts “politicians” and “professionals” in the sphere of public administration and governance are the only social
performers of those functions, institutions and structures. They play the roles prescribed by the grounded mechanisms and
institutions. That means if we like to analyze the dynamic of these relations and its particular situations in a constructive
manner, we have to reflect those founding institutional base. However, all kind of politicians in such analysis will fall into
sphere of GPA and basic ontological scheme for this analytical (or design) work need to be scheme of stages of
development of profession presented here.
35
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Figure 8.
The evolution of laws and administrative machineries construction as well as political
leaderships both move in its own time, and their efficacy and cultural-historical contextual
appropriateness depends on professional GPA.92 As an important direction of institutional development
should be the professional standardization of public executive activities. Institutions of professional
education are crucial channel to intervene into these developments. Education can serve as the best
channel to instill in professional public administrators “a philosophy of public service which is both
consistent with and supportive of democracy.”93
Frederick C. Mosher was among the first scholars deeply analyzed professionalism issue in
government and public administration. As he argues, public services professionals can narrowly define
and establish own frameworks for their professional expertise for each field of knowledge. This can
cause parochialism and inability to recognize anything beyond the certain assumptions.94
Technical rationality, as a way of thinking/organization of life with the belief into ongoing
technical progress, serves as one of the main contributors in emerging and development of modern
professions and processes of professionalization.95 Technical rationality approach causes on
development of modern highly specialized expertise and compartmentalization of knowledge. It is a
“lifeblood” of any modern professional, and a source for the proliferation of professional associations
92
It is shown by a number of studies. See for example White, Leonard. (1926). Introduction to the Study of Public
Administration. New York: Macmillan; Eisenstadt, S. (1963). The Political Systems of Empires. New York: The Free
Press; Farazmand, Ali. (1997). Professionalization, Bureacracy, and Modern Governance: A Comparative Analysis. In
Farazmand, Ali. (ed.). Modern Systems of Government: Exploring the Role of Bureaucrats and Politicians. Thousand Oaks,
London: SAGE Publications, pp. 49-73.
93
Mosher, Frederick C. (1968), p. 214.
94
In his award-wining book, Democracy and the Public Service, Frederick C. Mosher arisen core questions regarding
professionalization of public service and its relations to the democratic governance. – Mosher, Frederick C. (1968).
Democracy and Public Service. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3, 101-106. See also quite impressive and
influential reports on symposiums on professionalism in public administration presented in “The Professions in
Government,” in Public Administration Review, 37, (November/ December, 1977), pp. 632-685, and 38, (March/ April,
1978), pp. 105-150.
As pointed Barrett, “It would be silly for anyone to announce that he is “against” technology, whatever that might mean.
We should have to be against ourselves in our present historical existence. We have now become dependent upon the
increasingly complex and interlocking network of production of our barest necessities,” Barrett, W. (1979). The Illusion of
Technique. Garden City, New York: Anchor Doubleday, p. 229.
95
36
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
in the Western world since the mid of nineteen century. Technical rationality grounds specialized
expert knowledge and legitimizes social status, autonomy and control of practice of the professions.96
The reverse side of specialization and compartmentalization of professional knowledge is
contextless and timeless approach to practice. It is caused on the “… lack of historical consciousness
across the professions and disciplines.”97 The little understanding of broad socio-cultural, historical
and political context characterizes professional practice nurtured by strict technical rationality. By this
approach, “Human action is to be explained through the development of general laws and models
independent of time and space. There is, in this view, no need to include history and culture in
accounts of human behavior.”98
The compartmentalization of knowledge and specialization of expertise complicated
communication, cooperation and organization of activity of public administration. It leads to complex
uneasy working relationships between individual organizational units, projects, individual
professionals and single actions of public agencies – see Figure 9.
Sphere of G&PA
Socio
cultural
context



Political
context
Common working
situation
96
Larson, Magali Sarfatti. (1977). The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis. Berkeley: University of California
Historical context
Press.
On the way of modernization, the “Increases in scientific and technological knowledge during the twentieth
century have been accompanied by a proliferation of professional titles and roles.”– Balk, Walter L.P. (1996). Managerial
Reform and Professional Empowerment in the Public Service. Westport, Connecticut, London: Quorum Books, p.16.
97
Adams, Guy B. and Danny L. Balfour. (1998). Unmasking Administrative Evil. Thousand Oaks, London: SAGE
Publications, p. 37.
98
Adams B. Guy and Danny L. Balfour. (1998), p. 40.
37
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Figure 9.
As we proposed in the model on Figure 7 (and in dynamic view Figure 10), in order to
overcome these consequences of subjected specialization the profession have to develop institutions
which will support reflection over different modes and dimensions of professional practice – positions
7 and 8 in Figure 7. Reflection itself (see Figure 7) can’t provide integration and unite dispersed
specialized modes of professional activity. The reflective exercises have to be channeled into redesign
and institutional rearrangement of profession and its individual units – positions 1 – 4 in Figure 8.
Among the crucial conditions for reflective-ability of professional institutions is “moral competence”
which discussed in the theory of reflective responsibility develop by Philip Selznick. As he beliefs,
“The great task of institutional design is to build moral competence into the structure of the enterprise.
This is the key to corporate responsibility – private as well as public.”99
Among other dangers are so called phenomenon of professional rent-seeking behavior and
attempts to gain monopolistic privilege to provide particular services and perform special practice. The
economists were among most sharp critics of professionalism and emphasized monopolistic practice of
professional associations.100 Bob Coats includes into negative features of professionalism such
characteristics as “rigidity, conformity, resistance to innovations (other than those of an proved
species), the maintenance of tight disciplinary boundaries, the exclusion and/or denigration of
dissenters, and excessively centralized control over access to resources, training and development
opportunities. It is pertinent to note that professional standards, like methodological rules, have
prescriptive and regulative as well as cognitive functions, and the quest for scientific truth or
community service can easily be sacrificed to the interests of maintaining and advancing special
privileges, securing higher remuneration, and protecting the field from encroachments by charlatans
and those operating in closely related or overlapping disciplines or occupations.”101
99
Selznick, Philip. (1992). The Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and the Promise of Community. Berkeley: University
of California Press, p. 345.
100
Lees D.S. (1966). The Economic Consequences of the Professions. London: Institute of Economic Affairs; Kuznets S.
and Friedman M. (1945). Income from Independent Practice. Washington: National Bureau of Economic Research.
101
Coats, Bob A.W. (1993). Economics as a Profession, chapter 21 in The Sociology and Professionalization of Economics.
British and American Economics Essays. Vol. II. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 407.
38
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Professions as well often become too hierarchical and elitist, with domination of some sort of
orthodox leading figures which centered in a few institutions (for example such as Chicago school and
their associates in economics). Such a professional establishment could control the selection of
professionals on academic posts, officers of the national associations, the editors and board members
of field’s publications and major professional magazines, the winners of the professional awards, and
allocation of research grants, recruitment of professionals for important governmental positions, etc.
By controlling the contents and changes in curriculum, the means of certification of programs
of graduate schools and approaches to assessment of professional performance these élite circles can
determine the processes of renovation of the profession and the entry and career development of new
recruits. However, although the “professional inertia” precludes changes and innovations, it serves as
means to secure professional culture, integrity and identity, and as an overall mechanism of societal
stability and even contribution to “international order.”102 The most crucial here are institutions and
networks of professional communication – the heterogeneity, clear framing and well-institutionalized
professional media and robust intra-professional democracy will define this balance between processes
of reproduction and development of profession.
Putting It All Together
Figure 10 attempts to capture the central stages of professional development in a single
graphic. Positions 1 and 2 represent the processes of transfer from retrospective reflection on past
situations and professional actions as well as design of future professional work and its organization.
This process supported by different types of multi-facetal and multilevel channels for professional
experience packaging and transfer. Positions 1–3 represent the results of retrospective reflection within
an actual body of professional culture, including knowledge, norms, standards, blueprints, etc.
Positions 3–3’ contribute to procedures of cultural selection and knowledge building. The results of
these procedures positions 4–4’ symbolize new knowledge accumulation and application and futuristic
reflection - position 2. Each of the arrows in Figure 8 should be considered as symbol of particular
process within the life of profession and as a vital element of organization of the profession of GPA.
Each element should have corresponding institutions.
102
Carr-Saunders, Alexander M. (1928). The Professions: Their Origins and Place in Society. Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, p. 457.
The professional institutions and international associations as a significant stabilizing factor in maintaining world
order considered by Lynn, see Lynn K. (1963). Introduction to “The Profession,”Daedalus, p. 653.
39
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
This scheme can serve as a map for designing projects and other initiatives for the revitalization
and recreation of key functions and institutions of professional organization of public administration in
CEE. We can study history, learn, which institutions actually exist, identify gaps and develop strategies
to revitalize new and old units and activities.
40
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Figure 10.
Stages of Professional Development and Accumulation & Transfer of Professional Experience in GPA
The World of Professional Culture
Body of
Profess.
knowledge
norms
standards
samples
of culture
(A)
new knowledge
accumulation
& application
cultural
selection
and
knowledge
building
retrospective
reflection &
comparative
analysis of
professional
activity

Body of
Profess.
knowledge
norms
standards
samples
of culture
(A’’)
Body of
Profess.
Knowledge
norms
standards
samples
of culture
(A’)
3

3’
1
4


4’
futuristic
reflection &
professional
activity
design
2
Multi-facetal & multilevel channels
for professional experience
packaging and transfer
past
patterns &
structures
of
professional
governance
new
management
& structures
of
professional
governance
past
professional
activity
PAST Situation of Professional Activity
future
professional
activity
FUTURE Situation of Professional Activity
The world of “situation of professional practice”
41
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
Clearly, one of the core reasons for institutional chaos and failures in institution building in the
CEE is the absence of professions and mechanisms for professionalization and the accumulation of
experience and culture of public administration. Professionalization of public administration in
transitional post-soviet countries must be considered in a complex, multi institutional context.
Key actors and participants for professionalization in CEE countries must include:
1. Citizens;103
2. National and local governments of OECD countries;
3. National and local governments of CEE countries;
4. States institutions and professions;
5. International non-governmental civil organizations;
6. National and local non-governmental civil organizations;
7. National and local entrepreneurial organizations;
8. Individual transnational institutional entrepreneurs;
9. Transnational business corporations;
10. Local businesses;
11. Public administration scholars and practitioners with transnational and global professional
interests;
12. Business management development scholars and practitioners with transnational and global
professional interests;
13. Public administration (and management) schools and departments in Western universities;
14. Mass media and professionally oriented media organizations;
15. International and national professional associations for public administration; and
16. Public administration consultants.104
Equally critical is a professional institutional infrastructure which includes:
The importance of “professionalization of citizens” in development and improvement of modern GPA activities has
became a popular topic in the U.S. and one of the “hot area” for professional elaboration. See, for example, Box, Richard C.
(1998). Citizen Governance: Leading American Communities into the 21 st Century. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publication,
Inc. and Thomas, John Clayton. (1993). Public Involvement and Governmental Effectiveness: A Decision-Making Models
for Public managers. Administration and Society, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 444-469. There are also important historical
enquiries on the topic developed by Putnam, Putnam, Robert D. (1993). Making Democracies Work: Civic Traditions in
Modern Italy. Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press.
103
104
See an example of the configuration of these types of actors united around particular task to create and introduce the
System of Local Government Analysis in Poland, Grochowski, Miroslaw. (1999). Local Government Efforts to Improve
Efficiency of Public Administration – Polish Case. NISPAcee News, Vol. VI, No. 4, (Autumn), pp. 4-5.
42
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
1. Accoutrements of professional life and activity: for the articulation and dissemination of
professional ideology, mission, values and behavior, symbols, rituals and codes of ethics.105
2. Communication networks: sharing of a common professional vocabulary such as journals, WWW,
newsletters, bulletins, etc.
3. Professional knowledge generation and development: institutions which provide basic paradigms
through both applied and theoretical research and thereby increasing the field’s intellectual capital
and its dissemination through publication and consulting activities.
4. Benchmarking and professional performance evaluation: opportunities for competition and
recognition, peer review, country-wide and trans-regional sharing of standards for performance and
development.
5. Entry level and life-long professional education and training: formal on-site and distance programs
at universities, academies and institutes and less formal programs from professional societies and
associations, media, and publications.
6. Professional integrity and identity enhancement: annual conferences, special meetings, honorary
societies, awards, histories, etc.
7. Promotional efforts: lectures and educational materials for students and teachers in K–12; inclusion
of high school and undergraduate students in professional conferences.
8. Public policy advocacy: visible, public position–taking on issues and events affecting public
servants and the public service.
Conclusion: The Tasks Ahead
As emphasized Terence J. Johnson, “Ritualistic elements are significant; legends, symbols and stereotypes operate in the
public sphere to formulate public attitudes to the profession,” Terence J. Johnson, (1972). Professions and Power. British
Sociological Association. London: The MacMillan Press Ltd., p. 55.
105
43
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
“True professionals” then are those members of the GPA community who capable of and committed to
delivering valuable contributions into at least three dimensions of the profession:
1. Into the processes of changing existing professional values and ideology and employment of
professional knowledge and culture;
2. Into the processes of intergenerational transfer of professional culture and reproduction of
professional activity; and finally,
3. Into the processes of accumulation of professional experience, enrichment and renovation of
professional knowledge and improvement of professional standards.
Naturally all these processes possess particular social and economic dimensions. The “true
public professional” performs such activity by “marketing” their commitment to public service and
fitting their professional institutions into its societal universe, cooperating with other institutions and
reinforcing social status and cultural meaning of professional activity within the entire society. 106
“Professional reality” provokes reflection and lead to changes of attitudes, skills development
and reshape an overall frames of mind and activity. Through exposure to diverse views from many
local and international professional contexts, members of professional communities can create a
different set of concepts and norms from those developed by particular local public administration
agencies.
The advancement of communication technology at the end of 20th century creates absolutely
new reality and tremendous opportunities for transnational exchanges and communication in the field
of public administration. These possibilities to share and promote common needs, interests, and values
can stimulate professionals collectively to develop new cultural and learning frameworks. Professional
associations in transitional countries by this involvement into international professional
communication and development may enable members collectively to reconstruct local organizations
“… whose values conflict with professionally held ones through advocacy, public relations, and
As Freidson states, “Quite apart from the development of a profession, however, the maintenance and improvement of
the profession’s position in the marketplace, and in the division of labor surrounding it, requires continuous political
activity. No matter how disinterested its concerns of knowledge, humanity, art, or whatever, the profession must become an
interest group to at once advance its aims and to protect itself from those with competing aims. On the formal associational
level, professions are inextricably and deeply involved in politics,” Eliot, Freeindson. (ed.). (1973).
106
44
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
lobbying.”107 They can develop “policy statements through special committees, focus groups and task
forces, and can call for adoption of work process reforms and ethical codes” of public administration,
or promote “enforcement of rules, regulations and laws.”108
As discussed, the recreation and development of institutions for reflection and communication
are key elements of professionalization and development of public management. International
collaboration, thanks it comparison–reflection–thought provoking nature, is plays extremely important
role in professionalization and professional development of public management in post-soviet
countries. The spirit and motives of professional development of top public managers can be enhanced
by the international experiences and facilitation of a transparent and articulated institutional
environment. It can help to develop such crucial devices as professional competitions and international
recognition of professional achievements. Comparative analysis could also help to find path through
which current professional experience and expertise can be modified and adapted to other professional
activities.
The transitional situation of the CEE countries offers a unique opportunity for deliberate
intervention into the processes of formation and development of professions and their institutional
infrastructure. But, this situation has exposed both the advantages as well as deficiencies of
conceptions developed during last century. On the other hand, it provides an opportunity to reflect
broader historical and socio-cultural processes and phenomenon and to build a more holistic and
complex structure of the reality of institutional building and professionalization. As has been said, if
you like to understand some kind of complex social phenomena - try to change it! The necessity for
fundamental change and the opportunity to deliberately build basic elements of social organization
provides a meaningful challenge for theoretical reflection and deepening of our understanding.
Further Steps
The professionalization of the extremely complex sphere of GPA is far from complete. There are
underdeveloped institutions for knowledge-building, research and consulting activities; institutions for
such crucial services as an executive education, dissemination of information and publications; the lack
107
Rusaw, Carol A. (1995). Learning by Association: Professional Associations as Learning Agents, Human Resource
Development Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2, Summer, pp. 221.
108
Ibid, p. 221.
45
Building Institutions for Public Sector Professionalism in Central and Eastern Europe
of links and partnership with emerging NGO’s, new relationships with the private sector, etc.
Throughout the CEE institutional settings appropriate for these new realities are not yet formed. 109
There is much to be done future research should provide:
1. A comprehensive conception of profession and processes of professionalization of GPA in the
modern world.
2. A history of complex, interconnected web of socio-cultural and economic institutions supporting
professional development and professionalism.
3. Maps and a structured and operationalized vision of modern institutional infrastructure of
professional GPA.
4. Mechanisms and conditions of formations and development of professional institutions of GPA.
5. Enhanced opportunities and mechanisms for international collaboration for the professionalization
of GPA in CEE.
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