Professions: Ethics, Politics and Public Policy
Professions are increasingly central to any grasp of contemporary democratic societies. Their expertise in matters of vital public interest has gained them special privilege in the social order, including the authority to prescribe and police the rules which govern the application of specialized knowledge. This privileged autonomy is justified by the professions' claim that it is the sole source of competence to evaluate professional performance and is also sufficiently ethical to control deviant behavior. Of prime importance to students of politics and public policy is the exercise of professional power and its relation to the public interest, for at issue here is nothing less than the authoritative allocation of values within that slice of social life served by the professions.