CHANGING PROFESSIONAL FORMS 181Faceless technocrats
The strong version of professional autonomy and control, based on institu-
tionalized trust and cognitive-cum-technical exclusivity, may have been under
extreme pressure in recent years. But it is possible that this once-dominant,
professional occupational ideology and identity may mutate into something
rather different within a social and historical context much less sympathetic
to the professionalization project?
The ‘technocratic imperative’ inherent in modern, twentieth century pro-
fessionalism as compared to the more traditional, nineteenth century form of
professionalism, has been analysed most recently by Marquand (2004). For
him, the latter was based, ideologically and organizationally, on the inter-
connected themes of service, equity, and trust contextualized, institutionally
and culturally, by a strong ‘public domain’ of common citizenship and the
reciprocal rights and duties that membership conveyed. In contrast, twentieth
century, modern professionalism based its claims on the possession and appli-
cation of specialized technical qualifications, knowledge and skill that were
functionally indispensable to the governance and management of advanced
capitalist political economies and welfare states.
Credentialism, meritocracy, and technocracy (Burris 1993; Collins 1979)
came together to form a powerful ideological and organizational allegiance
that legitimated the exclusion of ‘non-professional laity’ or even ‘semi-
professionalized’ occupational groups from the key decision-making arenas.
Over time, it accrued additional layers of ideological justification in an attempt
to look somewhat more inclusive of the general public and its constituent
stakeholder interest groups, such as consumer pressure groups. The ideology
and practice of technocratic power and control, exercised by highly tech-
nically specialized and socially remote professional elites, seemed however
increasingly at odds with the ‘consumer populism’ aggressively promoted by
successive government regimes and its supporters in private and public sector
corporations. A major aim was to breakdown the exclusionary jurisdictional
domains constructed and protected by professional technocrats and to expose
them to the full ‘levelling effects’ of ‘consumer-based democracy’. Serving the
wider public interest became radically redefined through a series of ideological
and discursive shifts that placed technocracy—that is, rule by experts—and
meritocracy—that is, entry to and movement within the technocracy through
credentialized performance—in a much more unfavourable light. Thus, ‘con-
sumer populism’ and ‘market-based managerialism’ have released the con-
temporary need for technocratic professionalism to redefine and realign itself
with the prevailing ideological and political forces. One attuned to the role
of twenty-first century professionals as ‘servants of the people’—primarily
in their role as consumers of expert services—rather than as ‘servants
of power’.