DYNAMICS OF PROFESSIONAL CONTROL - INTERNAL COALITIONS AND CROSSPROFESSIONAL BOUNDARIES

Professions experience varying degrees of success in establishing jurisdictional control over neighboring occupations. This article uses comparative historical techniques to explore why some American medical specialties were more successful than others in dominating adjacent professions. Three major traditions in the sociology of professions are unable to fully account for such differences. This article offers an alternative explanation. Specialties best able to subordinate ancillary workers are those receiving support from established segments within medicine. Thus, relations between segments within a dominant profession powerfully affect its boundaries with other occupations.