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21 Pol'y Stud. J. 6 (1993)

handle is hein.journals/plyssjnl21 and id is 1 raw text is: Policy Studies Journal, Vol. 21, No 1, 1993 (6-13) Reflections of a PSO President Policy Professionalism as a Vocational Calling Yehezkel Dror Combining my inauguration lecture in September 1991 with one year of further contemplation on the meanings of being President of the Policy Studies Association,letmeclimbon theshouldersofMax Weber's famousessaysonScience as a Vocation (1917) and Politics as a Vocation. (1919)' and offer some thoughts onPolicy Professionalism asa Vocational Calling. Ido so in thehopeofencouraging allof us who seriously engagein policy studies to exit ourselves,look into a mirror, and ask ourselves whatis the meaning and significance of what we are trying to do in terms of ourexistentiallifeproject; and what are the action implications of the answers rendered to this question. Engaging in policy studies can have a number of existential meanings. We can undertakepolicy studiesasanavocation,ajoblikemanyothers,hopingitwillleave enough time and provide enough resources to permit us to do what we really want.Or we may sense a calling to engage in science, aiming at knowing and understanding reality, which surely is one of the most demanding endeavors of human beings. My own answer, while including strong elements of the second one, is different- I regard prescriptive policy studies,in the senseofhelping to improve future-shaping deliberate human choice with the help of professionalism, as a main calling, mission, and life contents. This is the answer which I would like to share with my policy studies colleagues,not as a model to follow but as an option to be considered. I will do so by anobjectivised,intellectualexplorationofsomemeanings and implicationsofpolicy professionalism as a vocational calling, leaving for some other opportunity a more subjective painting of the idea and its personal expressions. Some Features of Professionalism Leaving forlater the issuesof self-identity and competence, theprimefeature of professionalism which I would like to emphasize here is knowledge in action (Schon, 1983), which I reformulate in the context of policy professionalism as the capacity and routine of building bridges between abstract knowledge and concrete issues. The essence of professionalism is practice based on deep knowledge. While scientists focus onproductionofknowledge and technicians or artisans concentrate on practice, the professional must be conversant with both science and practice, his own specialty being the transformation of science and other types of systematic knowledge into action. This the professional does with the help of a variety of application and transformation skills and approaches, in part explicit and in part tacit.