Terry Johnson, Gerry Larkin, Mike Saks

• Contributors Introduction Part I: Professions and the State: Theoretical Issues 1. Governmentality and the Institutionalization of Expertise 2. Countervailing Powers: A Framework for Professions in Transition Part II: Health Professions and the State in Britain 3. Historical Perspectives 4. Restructuring Health and Welfare Professions in the UK 5. Shifting Spheres of Opportunity 6. Doctors, Peer Review and Quality Assurance 7. The Changing Response of the Medical Profession to Alternative Medicine in Britain 8. The British General Medical Council Health Professions and the State in Continental Europe 9. The Politics of the Spanish Medical Profession 10. The Belgian Medical Profession since the 1980s 11. Midwifery in the Netherlands 12. State Traditions and Medical Professionalization in Scandinavia 13. Medical Uncertainty and Gender-Based Work in the Medical Profession in the Nordic Countries

`a valuable resource for students and those who wish to extend their knowledge of health care professions in Europe, and is a timely extension of both the theoretical and empirical issues of recent and ongoing dynamics of change as it impacts upon them' Medical Sociology News, April 1996`This is a collection which needs to be read and responded to by anyone with a serious interest in the sociology of the health professions' Robert Dingwall in; Sociology of Health and Illness Vol 17. no 4'Has a lot to offer a wide variety of people...a very interesting perspective.' - Anthropology and Medicine