Habitus and the practice of public service

Abstract

This article presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the public service ethos under municipal government restructuring. Using Bourdieu’s theory of practice, it suggests, first, that public service makes public servants through socialization in the public service habitus.This gives practice a prereflective, embodied and immediate character. Second, it links the public service habitus to field struggles over the definition of the public good. Front-line workers’ tacit recognition of a ‘traditional’ vision of the universal good means that they will defend it in the face of threats by those attempting to impose alternative visions of the state as an extension of the market. Finally, the article offers an empirically grounded understanding of public servants making public service.Through their daily practices, including the practical practice of public service, embodied public service and defence of public service, workers reproduce, usually unconsciously, this traditional vision of the public good.