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THE PROFESSIONALISATION OF POLITICAL COMMUNICATION IN EUROPE | 27

specific social and political structures and processes (see Holtz-Bacha in this
volume).

Professionalisation, as understood in this book, thus refers to a process of change in
the field of politics and communication that, either explicitly or implicitly, brings
about a better and more efficient – and more reflective – organisation of resources
and skills in order to achieve desired objectives, whatever they might be. There are
two main reasons why this understanding of professionalisation is preferred to any
others: the first relates to the difficulty of calling those specialist occupations that
feature prominently in this volume, e.g. pollsters, strategists, public relations
personnel, ‘professionals’; the second reason is that the specialisms and the
specialisation of knowledge can be traced back at least to the early part of the
twentieth century and so confirms the gradual and cumulative nature of these
developments.Both reasons are briefly addressed below.

The meaning of professionalism
One important reason why professionalisation can be used to connect apparently
disparate areas of change is that it draws attention to a process of continuous change
and ‘improvement’. Rather than signifying momentous change and tectonic shifts, an
analysis that emphasises continuous change forces us to inquire into how
organisations and individuals engage with, and adapt to, their ever-changing
environments. If we applied this to the discussion of election practices, for example, it
would lead us to conclude that what we are currently observing, and have experienced
over the last 150 years, is but a lengthy process whereby – and in response to changing
media and socio-political circumstances – political parties continually review and
reform their practices to meet different circumstances. The same would be true of
governments that sought to ‘improve’ their communications practices by creating a
more professional communications organisation to deal with the media and to control
the flow of news. In this latter case, improving practices may enable governments to
deal more adequately with the process of governing in a global,media-saturated world.
The key point is that without such improvements, without elements of
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professionalisation , political parties and governments (and corporations, universities,
etc…) would find it much harder to achieve their objectives. The Professionalisation of Political Communication in Europe
But given the continuous dialogue that takes place between organisations and their
environment, and practices and their objectives, there can never be a point at which
practices are fully formed and beyond change. There can never be a point at which
electoral practices or news management techniques, for instance, cannot be improved,
cannot be made more ‘professional’. Professionalisation can thus also be seen as a
process of reflection and learning that leads to improvements and change. In this
respect, to be a professional or to act in a professional manner is to engage in a set of
practices that are accepted, at particular moments in time, as ‘the standards of the best’
and acknowledged to be the most appropriate in those circumstances. Unlike 29