1968 as a Pivotal Juncture

The year 1968 may have been a watershed in the field’s embrace of professionalism. Dwight Waldo (Reference Waldo and Charlesworth1968), analyzing the scope of the theory of public administration, proposed that public administration adopt a professional perspective as a way to address its identity crisis. Waldo (1968, 10) wrote: “What I propose is that we try to act as a profession without actually being one, and perhaps even without the hope or intention of becoming one in any strict sense.” Waldo endorsed the spirit of professionalism, but was clearly reluctant to embrace all its implications.

In the same year that Waldo thus reflected about the direction of the field, Frederick Mosher published the first edition of his influential Democracy and the Public Service (1968). Arguably, the most influential aspect of Mosher’s book was his attention to the professions. It is hard to imagine today, but Mosher’s focus on the importance of professionals was relatively novel at the time. Scholars had previously given little formal recognition to professions in public service and their influence in shaping policy and its implementation. Mosher wrote:

Beyond the issue of the incidence of professionals in public service, Mosher was interested in who controlled them and to whom they were accountable.

Having studied under Waldo and having cut my scholarly teeth on Mosher, I attempted to bring a similar focus to professionalism in my own work. In three editions of the Handbook of Public Administration (Perry Reference Perry1989; Perry Reference Perry1996a; Perry and Christensen Reference Perry and Christensen2015), I was very intentional to emphasize the professional dimension of public administration. The preface to each edition acknowledged the professional nature of public administration, as did the last part of each edition, which was titled “The Professional Practice of Public Administration.” I wrote in the preface to the first edition (Perry Reference Perry1989): “Written by public administration experts from all areas of the field—law, politics, public policy, finance, personnel, operations, and others—it is designed to meet the needs of the range of professionals who work in government or interact with public agencies” (xiv).

How Have We Done?

Nearly three decades after Waldo (Reference Waldo and Charlesworth1968) first proposed embracing profession as a means to clarify the field’s identity, Philip Jos and Mark Tompkins (1995) assessed the results of the drive toward professionalism. Their conclusion was direct and unequivocal: the professional focus has not helped and should be relinquished. Their critique rests on the premise “that appeals to professionalism fail to take account of the diversity of tasks performed in the public sector and tend to mis-characterize the sort of complexity that public managers and other public employees encounter” (Jos and Tompkins Reference Jos and Tompkins1995, 208). They concluded that the professional ideal, even if revised to avoid claims to autonomous practice, should be abandoned.

While I agree with Jos and Tompkins (Reference Jos and Tompkins1995) that the field of public administration has not reaped the benefits that Waldo and others expected from a focus on professionalism, I dispute their conclusion that such a focus is futile. The reasons the field has not reaped expected benefits is multi-faceted, and includes a failure to frame research about professionalism to capture the diversity and complexity of public service, a dearth of empirical research to ground our understanding of professions and professionalism in public service, and expectations that exceeded what a professionalism focus could achieve. Given these limitations in the efforts that preceded their analysis, I disagree with Jos and Tompkins’ (1995) conclusion that professionalism should be abandoned. I offer instead some ideas for redirecting the way the field thinks about professionalism to make this effort more robust and sustainable.

How Should We Conceive Professionalism in Public Contexts?

I propose alternative ways to think about professionalism in public service to lead us from the cul-de-sac in which we have been lost for the quarter century since Green et al. (Reference Green, Keller and Wamsley1993) and Jos and Tompkins (Reference Jos and Tompkins1995) offered their assessments. My proposal has four parts:

1. 1. Concept names. Adopt an alternative concept name to capture the phenomenon of interest to convey the limitations of the sociological meanings of profession when studying the phenomenon in the public administration context. The construct name “public service professionalism” seems better suited to the history and intent of the construct in public administration than other iterations of “profession.”

2. 2. Construct dimensionality. Accept a two-pronged conceptualization of public service professionalism as (1) instrumental, focused largely on effectiveness of administrative action, and (2) normative, attentive to the substance and fidelity of obligations to the governance regime.

3. 3. Multi-level units of analysis. Public service professionalism, and the normative obligations of public servants (Waldo Reference Waldo1988), is a complex phenomenon. Research about public service professionalism should incorporate several levels of analysis, ranging from institutions to operations.

4. 4. Plural in contrast to universal. We are unlikely to encounter a universal public service professionalism. Instead, multiple conceptions of public service professionalism are likely to coexist due to the complex institutional and structural arrangements in which public administrators are embedded.

Concept Name

I learned early in my career that concept names can make a difference in launching a research agenda. As an assistant professor, I first encountered the issue in the context of research on organizational commitment (Angle and Perry Reference Angle and Perry1981; Angle and Perry Reference Angle and Perry1983). I benefitted from observing my first dean and distinguished scholar, Lyman Porter, his PhD students, and their research team build the concept of organizational commitment from inchoate phenomena into a highly regarded and influential line of research (Mowday, Porter, and Steers Reference Mowday, Porter and Steers1982). It was clear that in selecting the concept name, they were able simultaneously to capture its attributes and differentiate it from everyday language that impeded scientific progress.

This lesson about the importance of concept names can be applied to public administration scholars’ study of professions. Dwight Waldo’s (1968) dislike for using the professional label lingers to this day. References to professions often include concerns expressed about “narrow and selfish professionalism” (Gaus Reference Gaus, Gaus, White and Dimock1936, 43), undemocratic autonomy (Rosenbloom 1982; Green, Keller, and Wamsley 1993), technical professionalism (Brint Reference Brint1994; Perry Reference Perry2007), distorting appreciation of “broad public policy issues” (Schott Reference Schott1976, 257), and diminishing popular participation and popular control (Bowman 1982-83). Public administration has embraced professions and professionalism, but it is obvious that many commentators, particularly scholars, are not happy about that choice!

A solution to the tension associated with terminology is to change the rhetoric (Green, Keller, and Wamsley Reference Green, Keller and Wamsley1993) and move toward more broadly accepted labels that carry less baggage. I envision using three terms, in complementary ways, to reduce terminology-related tensions: profession; professionalism; and public service professionalism.

Concept Dimensionality

The terminology I propose above implies at least a duality to the study and practice of professionalism in public administration. The duality to which I refer is the instrumental/normative distinction so common in the public administration literature. Green, Keller, and Wamsley (1993, 516), for example, contend that our attention to professionalism is impoverished because we have cast our intellectual attention to instrumental and descriptive facets of professionalism (how things are done) and ignored its normative dimension (determining what must be done).

To more accurately and meaningfully interpret public service professionalism, the instrumental/normative duality cannot represent an either-or choice. Instead, our attention to professionalism must simultaneously include instrumental and normative dimensions. In many ways, the professionalism focus helps to answer the question about “the place of normative values” raised by Robert Dahl (Reference Dahl1947). Dahl’s exhortation was:

This focus on normative values brought a new dimension to public administration scholarship. Wright (Reference Wright2015) argued, in his review of the aftermath of Dahl’s (1947) assessment of public administration as a science, that scholars have made demonstrable progress acknowledging and studying values. Among the recent research publications that led Wright to his conclusion are Brown, Potoski, and Van Slyke (Reference Brown, Potoski and Van Slyke2006), Rosenbloom (Reference Rosenbloom2007), Nabatchi (Reference Nabatchi2012), and Moynihan et al. (Reference Moynihan, Fernandez, Kim, LeRoux, Piotrowski, Wright and Yang2011). ^{Footnote 3}

Multi-level Units of Analysis

Within public administration scholarship, we already have several multi-level frameworks that could provide the analytic foundation for what I propose. For example, two frameworks are particularly consistent with the spirit of the proposal: the institutional analysis and development framework (IAD) and the “new-logic model” for governance research (Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill Reference Lynn, Heinrich and Hill2001).

The appropriateness of the IAD framework derives from its three distinct, nested “worlds of action” (Bekke, Perry, and Toonen Reference Bekke, Perry and Toonen1996; Kiser and Ostrom Reference Kiser, Ostrom and Ostrom1982). These three worlds of action—namely constitutional, collective choice, and operational—mirror analytic distinctions that have long been deemed consequential in the public professions literature. Green et al. (Reference Green, Keller and Wamsley1993), for example, distinguish among professional, constitutive, and normative competence, a three-way distinction that is compatible with the operational (i.e., professional), collective choice (i.e., constitutive), and constitutional (i.e., normative) worlds of action. The correspondence between Green et al. (Reference Green, Keller and Wamsley1993) and the IAD framework is strong and therefore could be fruitful for advancing calls for integrating public administration and political science research (Amsler Reference Amsler2016).

In contrast, the new-logic model proposed by Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill (Reference Lynn, Heinrich and Hill2001) rests on a research strategy for studying governance rather than an explicit nested model. They define governance “as regimes of laws, rules, judicial decisions, and administrative practices that constrain, prescribe, and enable the provision of publicly supported goods and services” (Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill Reference Lynn, Heinrich and Hill2001, 7). As I have previously articulated, the intent of their framework is to promote:

Although Lynn, Heinrich, and Hill do not mention the IAD framework, they explicitly acknowledge their debt to mainstream social scientists such as Talcott Parsons and James D. Thompson, further establishing the link between public administration and social science.

Plural in Contrast to Universal

Public administration scholars who have written about professionalism are critical of the simplicity of extant approaches, but the alternatives they propose are themselves simplistic. They have tried to define a universal professional framework for a public administration “class.” The “universal” position is transparent, for example, in the title of Green, Keller, and Wamsley’s (Reference Green, Keller and Wamsley1993) article, “Reconstituting A Profession” (emphasis added). Although there may be universals, such as constitution-level rules that prescribe professional behavior or professionalism, the diversity of the public sector suggests professional direction is likely to take plural forms.

Take, for example, the role of city manager, one of the more highly developed and self-conscious professions in government, established at the height of the Progressive era. City managers are subject to the same constitutional rules as virtually everyone else across the US public sector. However, they are also subject to some peculiar rules, such as the International City/County Management (ICMA) Code of Ethics and local ordinances and state statutes that govern choice processes within the jurisdictions in which they serve. These distinctions, together with the knowledge and skill repertoire necessary to serve as an effective chief operating officer, differentiates what constitutes both professionalism and public service professionalism for city managers from what these terms mean for other state or federal employees, even those occupying chief operating officer roles in other public organizations.

The city manager example helps to make another point about the need to model professionalism in plural rather than universal terms. ICMA is a membership organization that represents city managers in countries around the world (Berman Reference Berman2017). Although city managers subscribe to some universals, like their code of ethics, they must also adhere to a variety of rules inherent in the country situations in which they are embedded. Thus, even city managers reflect a plural professionalism. Models that accommodate plural conceptions of professionalism are also better suited to building global, rather than particularistic, public administration knowledge (Perry Reference Perry2016).

Reaffirming Public Administration’s Identity

Dwight Waldo’s (1968) original reason for proposing that public administration adopt a “professional perspective” was related to what he perceived as a crisis of identity that began in the aftermath of World War II and continued into the 1960s. Becoming professional for Waldo was a better direction for the field than staying a sub-discipline of political science or becoming a discipline unto itself. Waldo (Reference Waldo and Charlesworth1968) wrote in justification of his proposal:

Three factors underlie my view that professionalism will contribute to strengthening public administration’s identity. First, public administration’s identity is historically embedded in the language and logics of professions and professionalism. Reading classic contributions from Gaus (Reference Gaus, Gaus, White and Dimock1936; Reference Gaus1947; Reference Gaus1950) and Wilson (Reference Wilson1887) affirms that the development of public administration professionally was a valued goal within the reform movement.

Second, governments, quasi-governments, and public servants need usable knowledge to advance their missions (Perry Reference Perry2012a; Reference Perry2013; Radin Reference Radin2013). The creation and acquisition of usable knowledge relies on the alignment of our understanding of public administration with its broad social purpose. Characterizing public service as a profession, as represented by an analogy to medicine, is the frame that Waldo (1968, 10) and I (Perry Reference Perry2012b) see as most promising for positioning the field to produce usable knowledge. The medical analogy reminds us that public administration is a practical enterprise that seeks to better the public sphere by drawing upon the physical, social, and behavioral sciences. At the same time, public administration professionals must understand and navigate the extra-cognitive aspects of public administration—judgment, skill, and values—that are central to our modern understanding of profession (Sullivan Reference Sullivan2005).

Third, the professional identity I am proposing is instrumental for the effective engagement of scholars and practitioners seeking to support public service. A good deal has been written about discontinuities between the academy and the world of practice, both in public administration specifically (Milward et al. Reference Milward, Jensen, Roberts, Dussauge-Laguna, Junjan, Torenvlied, Boin, Colebatch, Kettl and Durant2016; Perry Reference Perry2017; Volcker Reference Volcker2014) and the social sciences generally (Davis Reference Davis2015; Lindblom and Cohen Reference Lindblom and Cohen1979; Watts Reference Watts2017). The “blame” for the academy-practice divide has been assigned to many factors, among them the incentives within academe and increasing specialization that distances modern research from most practitioners. I have no doubt that whatever the determinants for the two, non-intersecting worlds (Buick et al. Reference Buick, Blackman, O’Flynn, O’Donnell and West2016; Newman, Cherney, and Head Reference Newman, Cherney and Head2016), more interaction between the communities is necessary to develop action in concert across the communities.

The professional perspective gives us our best chance for bringing the communities together because it “has meaning and contains useful cues and imperatives both in the academic world in which public administration is studied and in the governmental world in which public administration is practiced” (Waldo Reference Waldo and Charlesworth1968, 10). A professional perspective could serve to remind scholars and professionals—and the organizations they inhabit—of the bonds between the two communities that John Gaus wrote about in 1936, which I quoted earlier. Gaus’s message in “The Responsibility of Public Administration” (Reference Gaus, Gaus, White and Dimock1936, 41–42) was implicitly about mutual responsibility. He wrote of public servants and their professional organizations working closely with university staff and research organizations to improve the quality of administration. His reference to introducing “research, inquiry, and self-examination into the day-to-day life of the public servant” (Gaus Reference Gaus, Gaus, White and Dimock1936, 41-42) suggests he had in mind not only instrumental aspects of public administration but normative values, too.

We may have an alternative to embracing professionalism, but I am not aware of it. Professionalism brings greater coherence to the unique nature of public administration. In its absence, the field is inchoate. Everyone with an interest in or commitment to public administration does not have to embody all facets of this professional identity, but to the extent that we can build a common understanding, I believe we each can more effectively contribute to a common end, which is the betterment of governance for the public interest (Bozeman Reference Bozeman2007).

Contextualizing the Study and Analysis of Values

Although public administration research has become more specialized since John Gaus’s era (Ni, Sugimoto, and Robbin Reference Ni, Sugimoto and Robbin2017), scholars have been slow to move from research models and assumptions that presume public organizations are populated with public administration generalists to realistic assumptions about public administration’s context and complexity. ^{Footnote 4} A robust research program about professionalism in public administration could help to contextualize existing research streams that would benefit from the new knowledge. Two such research areas are public service motivation and street-level bureaucracy.