The governmentality of nursing professionalization in advanced liberal societies

Abstract

In Western countries, the occupational discipline of nursing is undergoing processes of professionalization. Although professionalization offers an appealing perspective on occupational advancement, it is an ambiguous process, especially in the context of ongoing reforms of advanced liberal states. More specifically, there is a confusing relationship between the professionalization of nursing and the state. This relation is underexamined in theories of nursing professionalization. Instead of seeing the state and professions as two distinct spheres, this article highlights their interconnectedness. It argues that nursing professionalization can be understood as a strategy of advanced liberal governmentality. Through an empirical analysis of the professionalization of Dutch nursing from a Foucauldian perspective, it shows how the appeal to ‘professionalism’ functions as a disciplinary mechanism that produces forms of advanced liberal ‘(bio)power’. This generates academic and practical questions, since nurses—the largest group of healthcare professionals—have distinctive relations with their patients, who regard them as ‘independent’ and ‘caring experts’. Furthermore, it sheds light on the academic debate about the reconfiguration of professionalism by showing how certain ‘professional’ reconfigurations are not only unavoidable but unavoidably (bio)political as well.