The influence of professionals in the formulation of public policies has been an issue of scientific research in the past decade. In this article we deal with a less examined aspect of this issue. Professional influence is analysed in the context of Greek public policy, where the intensely centralized administration is dominated by the demands of political clientelism. Focusing on the case of the influence of engineers in local government reform between 1974 and 1989, the article reveals the role of professionalism in the hesitant decentralization of functions and resources to local authorities and the initiation of institutions that have allowed the birth and development of new organizations at the central and the local level. Given the shift towards party-directed patronage and the intense party politicization of professional and trade organizations, the central state apparatus and the local authorities in post-dictatorship Greece, professional influence in public policies is seen to be closely related to the rise of professionals in party hierarchies. The catalytic role of professionals in the promotion of reform policies producing organizational diversity and fragmentation is understood within the context of the contradiction between the need to adapt state structures and practices in a rapidly changing international environment and the preservation of traditional political and administrative forces in key positions of the power structure.
