Conclusions

Abstract

Professions in the European Union (EU) have faced significant and radical challenges since the beginning of the 1980s. The sources of such challenges are multiple and can be found at the macro, meso and micro levels. At the macro level it is undeniable that the advanced capitalism trajectory has permeated social institutions, which are framed by a new economic rationality that also reaches public institutions (Polanyi 2001; Dardot & Laval 2010; Ward 2012). The spread of this rationality throughout the public sector was supported by the criticism against welfare state ‘interventionism’ developed by Public Choice Theory. For instance, Hayek (2001) defends that welfare state politics produce a lack of consumer-informed choices, social and economic inefficiency, and, particularly, dependency on professionals’ collective and individual corporatist self-interests. However, other authors, such as Foucault, sustain that what is at a stake is a real ‘anthropological project’ (Foucault 2004) that intends to align ‘minds’ and ‘markets’. This means that changes in the welfare state may not be restricted only to its institutions, but are expected to transform individual and collective systems of beliefs and values, as well as ways of interpreting society’s organisation and function (Fournier 1999). In fact, the traditional notions of citizen rights, collectivised well-being, and social responsibilities and socialised risk (Ward 2012) have been presented in some countries’ public systems as outdated values that used to characterise ‘modernity’ but are not adequate for modern times.