Civic Participation in Professional Domains: An Introduction to the Symposium

Abstract

Professionals have a unique capacity to encourage, distract, inform, and limit deliberation. The contributors to this symposium share a belief in what can be called democratic professionalism, the view that a number of key professions have civic roles to play in contemporary democracy and that such civic roles both strengthen the legitimacy of authority and render that authority more transparent and more vulnerable to public influence. In distinct ways, each contributor shows how professionals can help mobilize citizen participation inside and outside their domains. Significantly, the contributors to this symposium draw atten tion to democratic professional activities that are already hav ing an impact on civic life. We reflect on contemporary reform movements within professions, such as the restorative justice movement. And we notice how movements, such as the battered women's movement, have helped activate professionals. We observe that in seeking to change governing norms of practice within the academy, medicine, law, and else where, reform-minded professionals have demonstrated how their own domains can have positive potential. Reformers described in these pieces raise the intriguing possibility that pro fessionals might have a hand in helping reverse the depressing trends of diminished trust, efficacy, and participation in con temporary democracy. Why would professionals seek out more roles and encourage, for example, more lay participation in their decision making? Our essays point to a number of motivating factors. A merely commercialor technocratic-minded professionalism is vulnerable to problems of legitimacy stemming from its remote ness from the publics served. As William Sullivan argues, pro fessionals are given status and legal protections to serve purposes; failures to live up to this social compact can lead to loss of status and protection. And as Frank Fischer points out, professionals who do not work closely with lay people to establish relations of trust and to adjust to local knowledge can not adequately address complex policy problems. Professionals more embedded in the civic life of their communities can do a