The entire early sociology of professions, from its founding in the 1930s to the end of functionalists' domination of this subfield, in the late 1970s, revolved around two central premises. One was that professions are unique among occupations in the economy and their associations are unique among intermediary associations in civil society or, on the Continent, among direct or indirect agencies of the state. The other premise was that the presence of professions and their associations uniquely helps to establish and consolidate an advanced democracy. Quite remarkably, however, this insight at a conceptual level in the literature of professions was never brought centrally, by Talcott Parsons or anyone else, into the literature of comparative politics. Subsequently, following the eclipse of functionalism in this subfield, the putative connection between professions and democratic quality largely dropped out of sight in the professions literature.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Rare exceptions simply mention professions, for instance when discussing how professionalism may provide an antidote to corruption; as examples, see Manzetti and Wilson (2007:957), Levitsky and Way (2005), Smulovitz and Peruzzotti (2000), Schedler (1999:22) and Perez-Diaz (1993:50–51). These works do not incorporate this insight into typologies of democracy.
- 2.
- 3.
Schmitter 1974, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1995. The phrase “originating democracies” is taken from O'Donnell.
- 4.
- 5.
Merkel's focus is on defining constitutional democracy in particular, but his conceptual point applies equally, in our view, to any more general typology of democracy.
- 6.
Such observations and criticisms through the 1980s, listed chronologically, include the following: Bell 1973; Crozier, Huntington and Watanuki 1975; Hirsch 1976; Bell 1976; Dahl 1982; Miliband 1982; Korpi 1983; Barber 1984; Przeworski 1985; Esping-Anderson 1985; Bobbio 1987; Sartori 1987; Dogan 1988.
- 7.
O'Donnell, Schmitter and Whitehead, for instance, coined the neologism democradura to denote illiberal formal democracy.
- 8.
Wolfgang Merkel calls Freedom House the “preferred source of data about democratization” but adds that it does not take into account whether elections are actually conducted fairly and correctly (2004:34). Regardless, Merkel and Kruck 2004 rely on this data in exploring the relationship between democratic quality and social justice.
- 9.
- 10.
This is Larry Diamond's assessment of the full listing of subtypes in the unpublished version of the Collier and Levitsky paper (Diamond 1999:7).
- 11.
More recent typologies tend to be less expansive, focusing more exclusively on distinguishing either deficient subtypes intermediate between formal-electoral democracy and consolidated liberal democracy (e.g. Merkel 2004; Merkel and Croissant 2000; also Schmitter 1996) or quality subtypes within liberal democracy (e.g. Morlino 2004; also Schmitter and Karl 1991).
- 12.
Freedom House, upon which Diamond relies for cross-national data, classifies regimes somewhat similarly into five types: consolidated authoritarian, semi-consolidated authoritarian, transitional or hybrid, semi-consolidated democracy, and consolidated.
- 13.
The best case for adding qualifiers to electoral democracy is by O'Donnell (2001); a recent, compelling case for keeping criteria of electoral democracy minimalist is by Storm (2008).
- 14.
See Merkel and Kruck (2004) for a recent quantitative cross-national comparison of the relationship between degrees of democraticness and social justice.
- 15.
- 16.
Three years earlier, when bringing the concept of “horizontal accountability” too much needed prominence, O'Donnell treated rule of law as utterly central — noting that here is where liberal and republican traditions “con verge.” But he failed to define the concept or to cite any references (1998:114,119).
- 17.
The quotation is from Robert Summers (1982), who during the 1960s and 1970s had been fiercely critical of Fuller and, literally, founded a “school” of legal positivism in late 1966, that of “pragmatic instrumentalism.” By 1982 Sum mers nonetheless acknowledged in print that he and other positivists (which includes Raz) had been mistaken and Fuller had been right — a quite unusual event in contemporary scholarship. “No positivist appears to have understood the broad implications of ” Fuller's proceduralism constraining “the kinds of specific purposes officials can pursue through law” (Summers 1984:28).
- 18.
More generally, I have not seen any comparativists who challenge O'Donnell's basic analysis here, at a conceptual level. Rather, comparativists simply challenge the rule of law standard that results from it, for they point to this standard's ambiguity and vagueness (without seeing its source in conceptual disparateness) and then exposure to subjective interpretation and partisan politicization (e.g. Karl 2004; Whitehead 2004).
- 19.
One of the greatest threats to proceduralist legality in all democracies today comes ironically from the highest courts. Rather than focusing first and foremost on whether new legislation, and then their enforcement, exhibits procedural integrity, constitutional courts today instead more and more frequently engage directly in substantive legislative (and then administrative) activities. Their rulings launch policy initiatives, whether in abortion or medical treatment, narcotics, gender, housing, wages and sexual preference. This is as true of the U.S. Supreme Court as it is of Constitutional Courts from Germany to Colombia. For instance, even legal scholars who favor the substantive outcome of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the U.S., agree that Court reasoning here lacked procedural integrity (e.g. Sunstein 2005). The Colombia Constitutional Court, established in 1991, is a literal archetype of legislative overreach from the bench and thus of proceduralist breakdown (Faundez 2005; Uprimny and Garcia-Villegas 2005).
- 20.
The reason for this distinction is theoretical and technical, and beyond the scope of this paper to discuss. However, the key is whether any intermediary association contains what are called structured situations, those in which positions of power and positions of dependence are both entrenched. Such is the case with corporate managers and corporate stakeholders and also with professional practitioners and clients. When structured situations are present, then procedural legality is vital to promote governance quality; when they are not, this is not relevant, let alone vital.
- 21.
Our distinction between formal democracy and limited government means that the former type spans a distinction which Collier and Levitsky and others draw. All formal democracies qualify by “procedural minimum” definitions of “classical subtypes” of democracy, the latter including presidential and parliamentary systems. We are adding that they also qualify by “expanded procedural minimum definitions of democracy,” which point to whether elected governments possess or lack effective power to govern (in the face of legacies of military rule). A “protected” or “tutelary” democracy, wherein the military retains an “inordinate degree of political power,” is hardly a limited government. But it may well qualify robustly as a formal, electoral democracy.
- 22.
There are other, more analytical ways of distinguishing subtypes, but it is beyond the scope of this paper to introduce them now.
References
Alford, R.R, & Friedland, R. (1985). Powers of theory: Capitalism, the state and democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Almond, G. A. (1956). Comparative political systems. Journal of Politics, 18(3),391–409.
Andeweg, R. B. (2000). Consociational democracy. Annual Review of Political Science,3, 509–536.
Armony, A. C., & Schamis, H.E. (2005). Babel in democratization studies. Journal of Democracy, 16(4), 113–128.
Barber, B (1984). Strong democracy: Participatory politics for a new age. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Beetham, D. (2004). Towards a universal framework for democracy assessment. Democratization, 11(2), 1–17.
Bell, D. (1973). The coming of post-industrial society. New York: Basic Books.
Bell, D. (1976). The cultural contradictions of capitalism. New York: Basic.
Bobbio, N. (1987). The future of democracy: A defense of the rules of the game. Cambridge UK: Polity Press.
Burrage, M., & Torstendahl, R (Eds). (1990). Professions in theory and history: Rethinking the study of the professions. London: Sage Publications.
Burstein, P. (1981). The sociology of democratic politics and government. Annual Review of Sociology7, 291–319.
Ciobanu, M. (2009). The end of the democratic transition? Analyzing the quality of democracy in post-communism. Comparative Sociology8(1), Forthcoming.
Collier, D. (1995). Trajectory of a concept: ‘Corporatism’ in the study of Latin American politics. In P.H. Smith (Ed)., Latin America in comparative perspective: New approaches to method and analysis. Boulder CO: Westview Press.
Collier, D. & Levitsky, S. (1997). Democracy with adjectives: Conceptual innovation in comparative research. World Politics, 49(3),430–451.
Collier, D. & Adcock, R. (1999). Democracy and dichotomies: A pragmatic approach to choices about concepts.” Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 537–565.
Cox, A. (1981). Corporatism as reductionism: The analytic limits of the corporatist thesis. Government and Opposition, 16(1),78–95.
Crozier, M., Huntington, S.P., & Watanuki, J. (1975). The crisis of democracy. New York: New York University Press.
Dahl, R. (1982). Dilemmas of pluralist democracy: Autonomy v control. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Dalton, R. J. (2002). Citizen politics: Public opinion and political parties in advanced industrial democracies, 3d ed. New York: Chatham House/Seven Bridges.
Diamond, L. (1999). Developing democracy: Toward consolidation. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Diamond, L. 2002. Thinking about hybrid regimes. Journal of Democracy, 13(2), 21–35.
Diamond, L., & Morlino, L. (2004). An overview [of issue on Democratic Quality]. Journal of Democracy, 15(4), 20–31.
Dogan, M. (Ed). (1988). Comparing pluralist democracies: Strains on legitimacy. Boulder CO: Westview.
Duverger, M. (1959). Political parties: Their organization and activity in the modern state. London: Methuen. Trans. Barbara and Robert North.
Esping-Anderson, G. (1985). Politics against markets: The social democratic road to power. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Faundez, J. (2005). Democratization through law: Perspectives from Latin America. Democratization, 12(5),749–765.
Friedrich, C. J. (1941). Constitutional government and democracy: Theory and practice in Europe and America. Boston: Little, Brown.
Friedrich, C. J. (1963). Man and his government: An empirical study of politics. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fulcher, J. (1987). Labour movement theory versus corporatism: Social democracy in Sweden. Sociology, 21(2), 231–252.
Fuller, L. L. (1964/1969) 1975. The morality of law, rev. ed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Gasiorowski, M. J. (1996). An overview of the political regime change dataset. Comparative Political Studies, 29(4), 469–483.
Geddes, B. (1999). What do we know about democratization after twenty years? Annual Review of Political Science, 2, 129–148.
Harrison, R. H. (1980). Pluralism and corporatism: The political evolution of modern democracies. London: Allen & Unwin.
Hirsch, F. (1976). Social limits to growth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Huntington, S. P. (1968). Political order in changing societies. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Inglehart, R., & Welzel, C. (2005). Modernization, cultural change, and democracy. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Karl, T. L. (2004). Latin America: Virtuous or perverse cycle. In O'Donnell, G., Cullell, J.V., & Iazzetta, O.M. (Eds.), The quality of Democracy: Theory and applications(pp. 187–195). Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A, & Mastruzzi, M. (2003). Governance matters III: Governance indicators for 1996–2002. Washington D.C.: World Bank Policy Research Working Papers 3106 http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/governance/ govdata2002.
Levitsky, S., & Way, L.A. (2005). International linkage and democratization. Journal of Democracy, 16(3), 20–34.
Lijphart, A. (1968). Typologies of democratic systems. Comparative Political Studies,1(1), 3–44.
Lijphart, A. (1977). Democracy in plural societies: A comparative exploration. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Linz, J. J. (1973). The Future of an authoritarian situation or the institutionalization of an authoritarian regime: The case of Brazil. In Alfred Stepan (Ed.), Authoritarian Brazil: Origins, policies, future. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Linz, J. J. (1975). Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes.” In Greenstein, F.I., & Polsby, N.W. (Eds.), Handbook of political science, vol. 3 (pp. 175–411). Reading MA: Addison-Wesley.
Linz, J. J. (1978). Crisis, breakdown and reequilibration.” In Linz, and Alfred Stepan, A. (Eds.), The breakdown of democratic regimes(pp. 3–124). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Linz, J. J. & Stepan, A. (Eds.). 1978. The breakdown of democratic regimes. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Linz, J. J. m & Stepan, A (1996). Problems of democratic transition and consolidation: Southern Europe, South America and postcommunist Europe. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Lipset, S.M. (1960/1963). Political man: The social bases of politics. Garden City NJ: Anchor.
Lowi, T. J. (1969). The end of liberalism: Ideology, policy and the crisis of public authority. New York: Norton.
Lowi, T. J. (1995). The end of the republican era. Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press.
Malloy, J. M. (Ed.). (1977). Authoritarianism and corporatism in Latin America. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.
Manzetti, L., & Wilson, C.J. (2007). Why do corrupt governments maintain public support? Comparative Political Studies, 40(8), 949–970.
Merkel, W. (2004). Embedded and defective democracies. Democratization, 11(5), 33–58.
Merkel, W., & Croissant, A. (2000). Formal institutions and informal rules in defective democracies. Central European Political Science Review,1(2), 31–48.
Merkel, W., & Kruck, M. (2004). Social justice and democracy: Investigating the link. Internationale Politik und Gesellschaft (International Politics and Society), 7(1),134–58.
Miliband, R. (1982). Capitalist democracy in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Molina, O., & Rhodes, M. (2002). Corporatism: The past, present and future of a concept. Annual Review of Political Science, 5, 305–331
Morlino, L. (2004). What is a ‘good’ democracy? Democratization, 11(5), 10–32.
Morlino, L. (2005). Anchors and democratic change. Comparative Political Studies,38(7), 743–770.
Munck, G. L. (2001). The regime question: Theory building in democracy studies. World Politics, 54(1), 119–144.
O'Donnell, G. (1973). Modernization and bureaucratic-authoritarianism: Studies in South American politics. Institute of International Studies, Politics of Modernization Series, no. 9. Berkeley: University of California.
O'Donnell, G. (1992). Transitions, continuities and paradoxes. In Mainwaring, S., O'Donnell, G., & Valenzuela, J.S. (Eds.), Issues in democratic consolidation: The New South American democracies in comparative perspective(pp. 17–56). Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
O'Donnell, G. (1998). Horizontal accountability in new democracies. Journal of Democracy, 9(3), 112–126.
O'Donnell, G. (2001). Democracy, law, and comparative politics. Studies in Comparative International Development,36(1), 7–36.
O'Donnell, G. (2004a). Why the rule of law matters. Journal of Democracy, 15(4), 32–46.
O'Donnell, G. (2004b). Human development, human rights, and democracy. In O'Donnell, G., Cullell, J.V., & Iazzetta, O.M. (Eds.), The quality of democracy: Theory and applications(pp. 9–92). Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
O'Donnell, G., Schmitter, P.C., & Whitehead, L. (Eds.). 1986. Transitions from authoritarian rule: Prospects for democracy, 4 vols. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Panitch, L. (1980). Recent theoretizations of corporatism: Reflections on a growth industry. British Journal of Sociology, 31(2), 159–187.
Perez-Diaz, V. M. (1993). The return of civil society: The emergence of democratic Spain. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Przeworski, A. (1985). Capitalism and social democracy. Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Raz, Joseph. (1977) 1979. The rule of law and its virtue. In The authority of law: Essays on law and morality(pp. 210–229). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rohrschneider, R. (2005). Institutional quality and perceptions of representation in advanced industrial democracies. Comparative Political Studies, 38(7), 850–874.
Sartori, G. (1966). European political parties: The case of polarized pluralism. In Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner (eds). Political parties and political development(pp. 137–176). Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sartori, G (1987). The theory of democracy revisited. Chatham NJ: Chatham House.
Schedler, S. (1998). What is democratic consolidation? Journal of Democracy, 9(2), 91–107.
Schedler, S (1999). Conceptualizing accountability. In Schedler, S., Diamond, L., & Plattner, M.F. (Eds.), The self-restraining state: Power and accountability in new democracies(pp. 13–28). Boulder CO: Lynne Rienner.
Schmitter, P. C. (1971). Interest conflict and political change in Brazil. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Schmitter, P. C (1974). Still the Century of Corporatism? In Pike, F.B., & Stritch, T. (Eds.), The new corporatism: Social-political structures in the Iberian world(pp. 85–131). Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Schmitter, P. C (1979). Modes of interest intermediation and models of societal change in Western Europe. In Schmitter, P.C., & Lehmbruch, G. (Eds.), Trends toward corporatist intermediation(pp. 63–94). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Schmitter, P. C. (1981). Interest intermediation and regime governability in contemporary Western Europe and North America. In Berger, S. (Ed.), Organizing interests in Western Europe: Pluralism, corporatism, and the transformation of politics(pp. 285–327). Cambridge UK: Cambridge University Press.
Schmitter, P. C. (1982). Reflections on where the theory of neo-corporatism has gone and where the praxis of neo-corporatism may be going. In Lehmbruch, G., & Schmitter, P.C. (Eds.), Patterns of corporatist policy-making(pp. 259–279). London: Sage.
Schmitter, P. C. (1983). Democratic theory and neocorporatist practice. Social Research, 50(4), 885–928.
Schmitter, P. C. (1992). The consolidation of democracy and the representation of social groups. American Behavioral Scientist, 35, 422–449.
Schmitter, P. C. (1995/1996). More liberal, preliberal, or postliberal? In Diamond, L., & Plattner, M.F. (Eds), The global resurgence of democracy(pp. 328–335). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schmitter, P. C. (1996). Organized interests and democratic consolidation in Southern Europe. In Gunther, R., Dia-mandouros, P.N., & Puhle, H-J (Eds.), The politics of democratic consolidation: Southern Europe in comparative perspective(pp. 284–314). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schmitter, P.C., & Karl, T.L. (1991/1996). What democracy is and is not. In Diamond, L., & Plattner, M.F. (Eds.), The global resurgence of democracy(pp. 49–62). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schneider, C. Q., & Schmitter, P.C. (2004). Liberalization, transition and consolidation: Measuring the components of democratization. Democratization, 11(5), 59–90.
Sciulli, D. (1992). Theory of societal constitutionalism: Foundations of a non-Marxist critical theory. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sciulli, D. (2005). Continental sociology of professions today: conceptual contributions. Current Sociology,53(6), 915–942 [with comments by Rolf Torstendahl (Uppsala) and Maria Malatesta (Bologna) and rejoinder by Sciulli, to page 958].
Shapiro, S. P. (2003). Bushwacking the ethical high road: Conflict of interest in the practice of law and real life. Law and Social Inquiry,28(1), 87–268.
Sklar, R. L. (1987). Developmental democracy. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 29 (4), 686–714.
Sklar, R. L. (1996). Towards a theory of developmental democracy.” In Leftwich, A. (Ed.), Democracy and development: Theory and practice(pp. 25–44). Cambridge UK: Polity Press.
Smulovitz, C., & Peruzzotti, E. (2000). Societal accountability in Latin America. Journal of Democracy, 11(4), 147–158.
Stepan, A. (1971). The military in politics: Changing patterns in Brazil. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Storm, L. (2008). An elemental definition of democracy and its advantages for comparing political regime types. Democratization, 15(2), 215–229.
Summers, R. S. (1984). Lon L. Fuller. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Sunstein, C. R. (2005). Radicals in robes. New York: Basic Books.
Teubner, G. (2004). Societal constitutionalism: Alternatives to state-centered constitutional theory? In Joerges, C., Sand, I-J., & Teubner, G. (Eds.), Constitutionalism and transnational governance(pp. 3–38). London: Hart.
Therborn, G. (1977). The rule of capital and the rise of democracy. New Left Review, 103, 3–41.
Torstendahl, R., & Burrage, M. (Eds.), (1990). The formation of professions: knowledge, state and strategy. London: Sage Publications.
Uprimny, R., & Garcia-Villegas, M. (2005). The constitutional court and social emancipation in Colombia. In Sousa Santos, B (Ed.), Democratizing democracy: Beyond the liberal democratic canon(pp. 66–100). London: Verso.
Vanhanen, T. (2000). A new dataset for measuring democracy, 1810–1998. Journal of Peace Research, 37(2), 251–265.
Whitehead, L. (2004). Notes on human development, human rights and auditing the quality of democracy. In O'Donnell, G., Cullell, J.V., & Iazzetta, O.M. (Eds.), The quality of democracy: Theory and applications(pp. 176–186). Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Wigell, M. (2008). Mapping ‘hybrid regimes:’ Regime types and concepts in comparative politics. Democratization, 15(2), 230–250.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2010 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sciulli, D. (2010). Democracy, Professions and Societal Constitutionalism. In: Leicht, K.T., Jenkins, J.C. (eds) Handbook of Politics. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68930-2_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-68930-2_5
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-0-387-68929-6
Online ISBN: 978-0-387-68930-2
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)