When resistance becomes policy: discretionary space, professional autonomy and disobedience in Dutch social care reform

Abstract

Across European social work, it is generally assumed that the professional autonomy is a prerequisite for providing good care. However, in the Netherlands, different channels are promoting moves away from autonomy and argue that social workers should practise ‘professional disobedience’: resisting policies or protocols and ‘getting things done’ despite rules or bureaucracy, promoted as a call for action and reform. In this article, we explore this concept through in-depth interviews with Dutch professionals, managers and administrators. We find that although professional autonomy and disobedience are often framed as an individual endeavour, they are practised across social work hierarchies as a collective practice that requires a shared, situational and moral responsibility embedded in a reflexive and responsive governance system. By framing it as professional ‘disobedience’ and a practice of resistance, systemic flaws can be highlighted, though only if this information is fed back into policy to guide change.