Journal of Public Affairs

J. Public Affairs (2010)

Published online in Wiley Online Library
(wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.369

The evolving discipline of public

affairs
Conor McGrath 1*, y, Danny Moss 2z and Phil Harris 2x
1
Dublin, Republic of Ireland
2
University of Chester, Chester, United Kingdom

Approaching the tenth anniversary of this Journal of Public Affairs, as the editorial
team we offer this extended literature review as our reflection on the evolution and
development of public affairs, both as an academic discipline and a professional
practice. It is a necessarily personal and subjective contribution, highlighting the
issues and areas which we believe represent significant continuing debates. The
article considers how public affairs is, and should be, defined; examines the range
of activities which theorists and practitioners understand as falling within the scope
of corporate public affairs; analyses the relationship between public affairs and
corporate political activity as different though complementary fields; discusses the
importance of the public issues life cycle and the issues management models; and
calls upon the public affairs community to defend the position of public affairs as the
fundamental bridge between the organisation, society and government, in the face of
challenges from other organisational functions. Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons,
Ltd.

Introduction the Journal of Public Affairs in 2001, the

The first issue of the Journal of Public Affairs
appeared in January 2001. To mark
the journal’s tenth anniversary, in this article
we offer an extended literature review which
is intended to provide an insight into how
thinking about public affairs has matured and
developed, both as an academic discipline and
a professional practice. In that first issue of
*Correspondence to: Conor McGrath, 10 Newbridge
Avenue, Sandymount, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland.
E-mail: conor.p.mcgrath@gmail.com
y
Independent Scholar.
z
Professor of Corporate and Public Affairs.
x
Westminster Chair of Marketing and Public Affairs.
inaugural editorial opened with the comment
that: ‘The past decade has been a period during
which the public affairs function can be said to
have come of age on the UK and European
corporate stage’ (Harris and Moss, 2001a, p. 6).
This tenth anniversary milestone seems to us to
be an appropriate point at which to consider
how far public affairs is being consolidated –
around the world, both within and beyond the
corporate environment. A special issue of the
journal will appear in 2011, which will offer a
diverse range of contributions reviewing the
development of public affairs. We seek here
to capture some of the main ideas and lines
of thinking about public affairs as both a

Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa

disciplinary area of study, as well as an
increasingly recognized form of professional
practice both within the corporate as well as
not for profit and voluntary sectors. In this
sense, we see this essay as a form of precursor
to the forthcoming anniversary special issue of
the Journal of Public Affairs, which we hope
will stimulate further reflection and thought
about public affairs as well as ‘wetting readers’
appetite’ for the forthcoming special issue. As
such, we would particularly welcome com-
ments and reflections from other colleagues,
particularly those which consciously contri-
bute to the building up of an explicitly
European perspective on public affairs.
It is perhaps important to be clear from the
outset about the almost inevitable limitations
of this or most literature reviews. First, the vast
majority of the literature in the public affairs
domain comes from Western sources (specifi-
cally, predominantly US sources), and hence
there is as yet no comprehensive cross-cultural
and genuinely global perspective of public
affairs practice (Meznar, 2002; Harris and
Fleisher, 2005). Nevertheless, the increasing
international range of academic and professional
contributions to the literature suggests a grow-
ing possibility of challenges to what has been
thus far an almost exclusively Anglo-Saxon
view of public affairs. What is needed now is
for academic research to catch up with the
startling growth in public affairs practice in
many regions and nations, which we may be
aware of anecdotally but which scholarly work
is often slow to capture adequately. Secondly,
as Windsor (2005, p. 401) notes: ‘There is no
‘‘grand’’ theory of public affairs – no integra-
tive or overarching framework’, but he does
also go on to draw attention to the various
theoretical debates which surround this area
and which can inform academic thinking on
public affairs – an argument that is also sup-
ported by Getz (2002) and Griffin (2005). In
Schuler’s (2002) view, this lack of a single –
central – theory makes it problematic for
researchers to extend knowledge, while others
suggest that a grand theory is unachievable
and even if it could be achieved, it would
be undesirable (Hillman, 2002). There is a large
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
volume of academic literature around various
aspects of public affairs, but this has tended to
emerge in a piecemeal fashion rather than
as part of a concerted effort to build a unified
body of knowledge. These two considerations
alone might be capable of generating sufficient
thought and work to fill the pages of this
journal for the next decade.
Defining ‘public affairs’
Public affairs, like so many other functional and
professional fields, has witnessed a growing
interest in attempts to define what might
constitute ‘best practice’. Here attempts to
define best practice face something of a
fundamental conundrum in that there is no
universal academic consensus about what is
meant by the term ‘public affairs’ (Fleisher and
Blair, 1999). Unsurprisingly, this has the effect
of producing often quite tortuous and circular
scholarly debate. Moreover, this lack of scholarly
consensus is arguably mirrored in the diverse
approaches which organizations appear to
take to the organization and practice of public
affairs. There is also the difficulty that ‘public
affairs’ tends to be used differently across
cultures. ‘Public affairs’ may be nothing more
than a euphemism for ‘lobbying’; it may refer
to the nexus of politics, management and
communication whereby an organization seeks
to deal with external public policy challenges;
it can suggest a broader engagement with
issue management across the range of corpor-
ate stakeholders; or it is (particularly in the US)
simply the preferred way in which a body
describes its public relations function (Arm-
strong, 1982). The most prominent public
relations theorist, James Grunig, has written –
in a report on evaluation in public affairs – that,
‘we will use the terms ‘‘public affairs’’ and
‘‘public relations’’ interchangeably’ (Grunig
and Grunig, 2001, p. 2). One suggested point
of distinction between these two disciplinary
fields has been that, ‘Public affairs is the
management of issues, whereas public
relations is the management of the interface
between the company and the outside world’
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The evolving discipline of public affairs
(cited in Harris et al., 1999, p. 209). This
argument is reinforced by a Canadian lobbyist,
Duncan Edmonds who has suggested: ‘Public
relations sold the corporation to society,
whereas public affairs educated the corpor-
ation about the outside world. Public affairs
sensitized the corporation to what society
wanted the corporation to do’ (Sawatsky,
1987, p. 70).
One US consultant sees the three key
components of public affairs as being ‘com-
munications, government relations, and public
issues management’ but goes on to note that
how professionals describe themselves is vari-
able – ‘The term ‘‘public affairs’’ is ambiguous
because some government relations and public
relations practitioners have adopted ‘‘public
affairs’’ as their title, even though they are
involved in only one component of it’ (Steckm-
est, 1982, p. 40). This problem of a lack of
clearly understood ‘identity’ for public affairs is
one that we noted a decade ago in that first
issue of the Journal of Public Affairs: ‘Para-
doxically, at a time when there are more
practitioners than ever who, at least nominally,
are employed in ‘‘public affairs’’ departments/
functions, the term ‘‘public affairs’’ remains
one that is surrounded by ambiguity and mis-
understanding. In short, public affairs remains
a function in search of a clear identity’ (Harris
and Moss, 2001b, p. 102).
According to a pamphlet written by a former
British civil servant, ‘Public Affairs is a term
rather wider than Government Relations. It
is when an Interest Group has a wide range
of relationships with government and the
political process, locally, nationally and inter-
nationally; in the UK, its chief part is about
relations between an Interest Group and the
Central Government’ (Morris, 1997, p. 4). Thus,
public affairs is said to be more than government
relations, yet relations with government is its
chief part! A London-based consultant has told
one of the authors that the term public affairs
itself is not yet universally accepted by pra-
ctitioners, or the activities which it encompasses
fully agreed: ‘I suspect if you read any brochures
of any of the firms, they’re all the same . . . but
they won’t really tell you what public affairs is
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
and that is really because, as an industry, we
are still struggling to find out’.
Drawing on a synthesis of views from some
of the leading scholars and exponents of public
affairs, it appears that in very general terms,
public affairs encompasses all corporate func-
tions related to the management of an organi-
zation’s reputation with external audiences –
usually including lobbying or government
relations, media relations, issues management
and community relations (Post, 1982; Toth,
1986; Dennis, 1996; Fleisher, 2001; Harris and
Fleisher, 2005; Lerbinger, 2006). It is import-
ant to note a focus on reputation. Meznar and
Nigh (1995, p. 975), for instance, emphasise
this aspect when they define public affairs
as ‘the organizational function responsible for
maintaining external legitimacy by managing
the interface between an organization and its
socio-political environment’. The idea here is
essentially that an organization must have won
a measure of ‘social legitimacy’ (Shaffer, 1995,
p. 501) as a necessary precondition to being in
a position to achieve political goals (Oberman,
2008) – though there is a somewhat circular
argument here since legitimacy not only pre-
cedes public affairs but is constantly strength-
ened or damaged as a result of the firm’s
political engagement.
As one scholar of EU lobbying has suggested:
‘Public affairs may be defined as the manage-
ment skill that internalizes the effects of the
environment in which an organisation oper-
ates and externalizes actions to influence that
environment’ (Pedler, 2002, p. 4). A similar
view was expressed by Post (1982, p. 30)
when he asserted that, ‘the critical role of the
public affairs unit is to serve as a ‘‘window out’’
of the corporation, enabling management to
act in the external environment, and a ‘‘window
in’’ through which society influences corpor-
ate policy and practice’. This duality – by
which public affairs seeks both to influence
public policy in the organization’s favour and
to ensure that issues of importance to the
wider world are reflected within the organiz-
ation’s internal thinking – is reflected in van
Schendelen’s (2010) insightful and thoughtful
conceptualization of EU public affairs manage-
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ment, and has been characterized well by
Fleisher (1998, p. 7) as the effort to ‘potentially
bring alignment between organisational and
public policy’. Perhaps one of the most dra-
matic examples of how public affairs can relate
to another functional area within organizations
is found in the case of America’s B-1 bomber.
Its manufacturers ‘gave their political consult-
ants equality with the purchasing agents in the
selection of suppliers and parts manufacturers
for the aircraft. Eureka! They gave a stake in the
B-1’s future to people in all 435 congressional
districts, assuring continued production
regardless of expert criticism by rivals
and other opponents’ (Wittenberg and Witten-
berg, 1989, p. 6). While an extreme example,
this case does illustrate how public affairs
relates to everything else that any organization
does.
A potentially interesting way of thinking
about public affairs was expressed by Meznar
and Nigh (1995) in their concept that the
function acts as a ‘buffer’ and/or ‘bridge’. By
this, they suggest that some public affairs acti-
vities are intended to ‘buffer’ the organization
from external challenges – here, we might see
public affairs in having a somewhat defensive
role, in trying to protect the organization from
stakeholder demands and legislative require-
ments. As they put it, an organization engaged
in buffering ‘either resists environmental
change or tries to control it’ (Meznar and
Nigh, 1995, p. 976). Conversely, other public
affairs activities are designed to ‘bridge’
between the organization and the outside
world – for instance, more proactively seeking
to reach out to stakeholders and to meet the
expectations which society wants to place
upon the organization. Here Meznar and Nigh
go on to assert (1995, pp. 976–977) that, ‘In
bridging, firms promote internal adaptation
to challenging external circumstances’. Any
organization might reflect either of these
approaches to varying degrees – or both
simultaneously, since they are not mutually
incompatible, by buffering on one issue and
bridging on another. A further dichotomy is
expressed by Hillman and Hitt (1999) in their
division of political activity by firms as being
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
‘relational’ (by which companies seek to
build long-term relationships with government
across a range of public policy issues) or
‘transactional’ (suggesting that political
participation is less regular and more focused
on individual issues). Support for this dis-
tinction is found in a study of business–
government relationships in China (Luo,
2001), and in another comparing China and
America (Gao, 2006). Post and Kelley draw on
the duality of public affairs to emphasise the
connection between its external and internal
essentials:
The legitimacy of the public affairs func-
tion is tied to its effectiveness as a means of
organizational interaction with the political
and social environment. The success of
public affairs managers, however, is tied to
their ability to span the boundary between
the organization and the environment –
that is, they must have internal credibility
with senior and operating managers
and external credibility with stakeholder
groups (1988, p. 353).
A summary of these different perspectives
of public affairs in terms of the key descriptors
used by different authors is provided in
Figure 1 below.
The scope of corporate public
affairs
As we have already seen, there is a lack of
consensus over what public affairs is said
by academics to involve. This does make it
problematic to conceptualize research in the
field, and thus to utilize existing work to
suggest what ‘best practice’ might look like.
One commonly adopted definition of ‘corpor-
ate’ public affairs states that it is ‘the manage-
ment function responsible for interpreting the
corporation’s non-commercial environment
and managing the corporation’s responses
to the environment’ (Foundation for Public
Affairs, 1999, p. 2). That, though, is undeniably
general and leaves unsaid both whether this is
done in a reactive or proactive manner (Grant,
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The evolving discipline of public affairs

Authors Date Key Descriptor/ Implied Core Descriptor of the

Metaphor Role for Public Role
Affairs
Meznar and Nigh 1995 ‘Buffer or Bridge’ Interfacing role PA helps cushion
Boundary the organization
spanning from outside attack
& reach out to key
stakeholder groups
Hillman and Hitt 1999 ‘Relational vs. Political exchange PA can either
Transactional’ activity vs. engage in short
Political term political
Relationship engagement-
building lobbying, etc or
longer term
relationship
building with
Government
Post 1982 ‘Window–out and Political boundary PA ensures
Window–in’ spanner management have
understanding
of political realities
[window in] and
equally that their
views are known
amongst key
political figures
[window out]
Van Schendelen 2010 ‘Political alignment’ PA focuses on
Fleisher 1998 facilitating and
building
relationships and
interaction with
actors in the
political and social
environment so as
to align corporate
and public policies

Figure 1. Conceptualizing public affairs.

1983) and precisely what activities might be
said to constitute ‘public affairs’. We have
previously suggested that,
The lingua franca of what appears to be
the principal two arms of public affairs –
government relations/lobbying and com-
munity relations/corporate responsibility –
can be seen as ‘dialogue at both a societal
and government level’. By implication,
those working in the public affairs field
increasingly are required not only to be
proficient communicators, but to have a
sound appreciation of how the political
parties work, develop policy, are influ-
enced, run campaigns and are funded.
Moreover, the type of issues and challenges
that normally fall within the public affairs
domain generally require far more com-
plex and sophisticated solutions than those
required when tackling market-related
promotional campaigns (Harris and Moss,
2001b, p. 108).
Others suggest alternative boundaries
(McGuire, 1982; Post et al., 1983; Stanbury,
1988; Hoewing, 1996; Fleisher and Blair, 1999;
Richards, 2003; Hawkinson, 2005; Showalter
and Fleisher, 2005). For instance, Carroll (1996)
argues that corporate public affairs encom-

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passes public policy, issues management and
crisis management, while Marcus and Irion
(1987) suggest that corporate public affairs
departments generally have four key functions
– government relations, issues management,
PR and community affairs. Mack (1997, p. 5)
suggests government relations, PR, community
relations, educational support, philanthropy
‘and the like’. It is perhaps telling that a recent
handbook of public affairs written by and
for practitioners in the UK includes chapters
dealing with lobbying, media relations, crisis
management, issues management, stakeholder
relations and corporate social responsibility
(Thomson and John, 2007).
Of course, like many organizational func-
tions, it is perhaps only to be expected that the
boundaries of public affairs might change over
time – a fact that a number of scholars have
acknowledged (Baysinger and Woodman,
1982; Moore, 1982; Titley, 2003; Holcomb,
2005; Johnson and Meznar, 2005). Indeed, a
1982 survey of almost 400 firms by Post et al.
indicated that while the two activities most
commonly mentioned were community rela-
tions and government relations, the respon-
dents to that study did not include other
activities which are by now commonly to be
found in public affairs. These include crisis
management, issues management or employee
relations – which is often currently relevant in
the context of grassroots lobbying (Lord, 2000;
Hawkinson, 2005). In addition, the boundaries
of the practice vary according to regional
location. A recent survey of practitioners in
Asia (Centre for Corporate Public Affairs and
Public Affairs Council, 2009) lists 21 activities
which are considered part of public affairs
there; the first 11 of these are core activities
mentioned by the majority of respondents:

Corporate communications.

Corporate social responsibility.

Crisis management.

Community relations.

Issues management.

Media relations.

Employee communications.

Philanthropy.
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.

Stakeholder relations.

Government relations.

Trade association oversight.
Most of these activities might commonly be
considered components of public affairs in
organizations in Western democracies, although
the relative importance of each may be some-
what different. Other activities which would
not normally be considered part of public
affairs in an Anglo-Saxon context were
included by respondents to this Asian study
– notably, corporate marketing (43% of respon-
dents), brand image (40%), investor relations
(23%) and advertizing (20%). These results are
somewhat at variance with another recent
survey of Asian practitioners, in which respon-
dents were asked to assess the importance of
various activities. Here, political activity was
ranked much higher, with several descriptors
(such as ‘advocacy’, ‘government affairs’, ‘lob-
bying’ and ‘political monitoring’) being rated
as important or very important by between
44% and 75% of respondents (Public Affairs
Asia, 2009).
What these findings appear to suggest is
that public affairs is a function in which
practitioners and academics are still defining
and redefining the boundaries – in effect it is
a function still searching for a clear identity.
While we first made this charge 10 years ago,
the inability of scholars and professionals to
reach a common, settled, definition of public
affairs is as true today as it was then. Perhaps,
though, we should be more optimistic and take
this as healthy evidence of the continuing
vitality of public affairs. Practitioners are con-
stantly expanding the function, and academics
will face a continual challenge to keep pace
with real-world developments. This is as it
should be, and the Journal of Public Affairs
will continue to serve as a forum for this
dialogue.
‘Corporate political activity’
There is now a significant body of academic
work, most often found under the rubric of
‘corporate political activity’, which is arguably
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The evolving discipline of public affairs
better conceptualized and certainly more
empirically driven than its ‘public affairs’
counterpart (Griffin, 2005). This scholarly
niche does not wholly map onto the full
spectrum of what might be considered ‘public
affairs’, but certainly connects with key com-
ponents of it (Windsor, 2002, 2005; Keim, 2005;
Dahan, 2009). Getz (1997, p. 33), for example,
accepts that if corporate political action is
defined (as it is by some) as being made up of
actions by firms which are intended to
influence government policy, then it ‘does
not include many standard public affairs
functions that may be directed toward the
social environment’. Interestingly, this is work
which tends to be undertaken by business/
management academics, while public affairs
research is largely pursued by political scien-
tists. It is predominantly US-based, but is
beginning to inform research undertaken in
other national contexts (Gao, 2006; Tian and
Deng, 2007).
This school of work pays much closer
attention than does ‘public affairs’ scholarship
to the question of why organizations engage in
political activity: while public affairs research
predominantly examines behaviour, corporate
political activity research begins by first asking
what motivates firms to undertake that beha-
viour. It tends to be based on an assumption
that companies will try rationally to maximize
their profits by utilizing their available resources
to best effect (Dahan, 2005) – although recent
work by Lowery (2007) suggests that the more
fundamental purpose of lobbying is to assure
organizational survival. In arriving at this
complex calculus, managers have a wide
variety of potential tools at their disposal,
and so corporate political activity researchers
consider why managers might choose to
engage in political activity at all and also
relative to the other activities which the
organization undertakes. This view is explicit
about the fact that within an organization,
there is competition between different func-
tions for finite resources; that highlights the
need for the public affairs function to make a
convincing case for investment, and to be able
to demonstrate that any investment has been
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
used effectively and efficiently. Research has
suggested a number of factors which promote
the importance to firms or associations of
corporate political activity, some of which are
particularly instructive for the purposes of this
review.
Firstly, several studies show a positive link-
age between the degree to which a corpor-
ation is diversified and its propensity to engage
in some form of political activity (Schuler,
1996; Hillman and Hitt, 1999; Hillman, 2003;
Brasher and Lowery, 2006), although it should
also be noted that diversification can itself
make it more rather more difficult for any
organization to decide on which public policy
issues it should prioritize (Shaffer and Hillman,
2000). Second, the corporate political activity
is influenced significantly by the degree to
which a firm is dependent upon government
(Dickie, 1984; Wilson, 1985; Grant, 1993;
Mitchell et al., 1997; Hillman and Hitt, 1999) –
either in terms of its sales to public authorities
(e.g. pharmaceutical manufacturers in the UK
or defence contractors in the US), or of the
scope and intensity of regulation in its sector
(such as food products or car safety). Third,
competition exists not just between functional
units within an organization (for resources) but
also between organizations – thus we have
empirical evidence that as one organization
becomes politically engaged, its competitors
will be aware of this and seek to match or
exceed their rival’s activities (Keim et al.,
1984; Gray and Lowery, 1997; Hersch and
McDougall, 2000; Baumgartner and Leech,
2001). This situation is often graphically
illustrated in academic research and the
popular media in accounts of what can come
to look like an ‘arms-race’ between firms in the
same sector as regards their financial contri-
butions to politicians. Fourth, this body of
research includes work (Hillman and Keim,
1995; Hillman and Hitt, 1999; Keim, 2002;
Schuler et al., 2002; Hillman, 2003) which
considers corporate political activity in a
‘political marketing’ perspective. Here, studies
view legislators and organized interests as the
supply and demand sides of public policy and
consider information, money and votes as
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goods which may be exchanged in a political
market, and find that they correspond with
elements of the public affairs toolbox. And
finally, research in this area also discusses
(unlike traditional public affairs scholarship)
the integration of a firm’s business or market
strategy with its political strategy – Keim and
Baysinger (1988), Mahon and McGowan (1996)
and Baron (1995, 1997), for example, all argue
that neither element can be fully effective
unless it is closely allied with the other
element.
Public issues life cycle
One particular area of interest to emerge from
this review of the literature relates to how an
organization might move towards best practice
in public affairs – conceptualizing what has
been termed the ‘public issues life cycle’. Here,
issues are regarded as evolutionary rather
than static (Stanbury, 1988; Meng, 1992; Mack,
1997; Tian and Fan, 2008). Issues are thought
of as potentially having different stages, and
the role of public affairs in responding to issues
should also be dynamic. Four separate stages
on the continuum of the public issues life cycle
have been suggested by Post (1978):
(I) Changing Public Expectations – as
societal interests and demands change,
so too do people’s views of how respon-
sive an organization is to the new environ-
ment. This change is often sparked by a
single publication (as, for instance,
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring galvanized
the new environmental activism in the
1960s) or it may occur when a series of
events eventually create a tipping point in
stirring public consciousness. Either way,
corporations will be expected to meet or
exceed the new standards which society
sets.
(II) Political Controversy – when social
expectations reach a certain level, the
issue is likely to become politicized, as
it is taken on board by legislators, regu-
lators and activist groups. At this point,
political actors begin to consider how
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
they should respond to the expectations,
often through new or amended laws and
regulations.
(III) Development of Legislation – once legis-
lation is introduced, debated and enacted,
society’s expectations are being set in
stone, and organizations will be subject
to new rules which they must work
within.
(IV) Government Litigation – simply passing a
law or writing a regulation is not the end
of the issue (even though it may well be
slipping from public consciousness now
as other interests emerge to create another
new issue). The implementation and over-
sight of the new rules will be subject to
transition and negotiation, and litigation
may well occur in order to clarify the rules,
win exemptions and enforce compliance.
(In another iteration of the public issues
life cycle, Marx (1990) retains Post’s termi-
nology for the first three stages, but
describes this last one as ‘Social Control’.)
This model (which is relatively under-uti-
lized in the academic literature) has been sum-
marized most succinctly by Wilson (1982) as:
‘The social expectations of yesterday become
the political issue of today, and the legislative
requirement of tomorrow, and the litigated
penalties of the day after’ (quoted in Marx,
1990, p. 12). According to Marx (1990, p. 12),
the public issues life cycle is so important as to
be the ‘key concept in integrating strategic
business and public affairs planning’. What
should be apparent is that the capacity of a
public affairs unit to influence an issue
diminishes progressively as the issue moves
from one stage of its life cycle to the next.
Here the obvious implication for public affairs
management is that timing is inevitably critical
in any issue management cycle. Hence the
importance that should be attached to the early
forecasting of trends within the socio-political
environment, to timely engagement with issues
which emerge from that external environment,
and to the organization’s interaction with its
environment. If we overlay this life cycle model
with a consideration of how well equipped an
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The evolving discipline of public affairs
organization is to address policy issues, we can
see a similar evolution in reverse.
By the time any issue is at the point of
Government Litigation/Social Control, there is
relatively little scope for that issue to be
fundamentally affected by an organization.
Companies in which public affairs is not a
priority may only enter the public issues life
cycle at this final stage. At the penultimate
step on the issues cycle is the Development of
Legislation, and here there is scope for an
organization to seek to attempt some influence
as final policy decisions have not yet been
made. However, it is quite late in the process to
bring about any substantial change as the
broad outlines of policy will have been set by
this point, so organizations may only be able
to have some limited input into the detail of
legislation/regulation. In other words, there
are opportunities for influence, but they are
marginal. Public affairs at these levels is
essentially reactive and defensive. As Marx
(1990, p. 12) puts it, the chances that at these
phases any organization will have for ‘effec-
tively integrating private and public goals in
the company’s business plan are very limited’.
Thus, firms which only begin their public
affairs work on the issue during these stages
are inevitably faced with direct and immediate
threats which cannot be simply ignored yet
cannot be effectively challenged.
The phase of Political Controversy is
generally more fruitful territory for the public
affairs function. Here, the issue is being framed
as part of the general political discourse, and an
organization with well-developed public affairs
capabilities will be aware of the issue and will
be in a position to assess its possible impact,
thus opening the door to the possibility of
being able to positively and proactively engage
with it. Issues management and systematic
political monitoring (or environmental scan-
ning as some term it) will have alerted
companies to the issue as it gains intensity,
and government relations staff will be actively
involved in trying to affect how the issue is
understood by policymakers. At this level of
engagement, organizations might also have the
ability to shape and frame the growing public
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
and political debate on the issue, attempting to
suggest ways in which it could be resolved to
the satisfaction of both the public interest and
the organization’s private interest (Watkins
et al., 2001; Jaques, 2004; Taminiau and Wilts,
2006; McGrath, 2007).
Finally, those organizations in which the
public affairs function is well organized and
well managed are most likely to be able to
interact effectively with an issue at the earliest
point in its life cycle, the Social Expectations
stage. These firms will be characterized by a
capacity to undertake very sophisticated analy-
ses of the socio-political environment and
to identify and prioritize issues as they first
emerge. Dialogue between public affairs and
business units will produce some understand-
ing of whether and how an issue could be
of significance to the organization. Crucially,
these organizations will also have in place
internal processes which relate public affairs to
business needs. Here, public affairs will have
progressed from being merely proactive to
possessing an explicitly ‘strategic focus’. As
Marx (1990, pp. 13–14) puts it, firms able to
enter the public issues life cycle in this phase
will have developed ‘both a comprehensive
analysis of the external environment and
the supporting management structures and
systems needed to forge the links between
business and public affairs planning’.
We find similar expositions in Buchholz’s
(1988) work in which the life cycle stages are
compressed into three phases: (i) Public
Opinion Formation (public expectations/poli-
ticization), (ii) Public Policy Formulation
(legislative/regulatory) and (iii) Public Policy
Implementation (litigation). Similarly, Lerbin-
ger (2006) suggests four phases: (i) Emerging
Issues, (ii) Public Involvement, (iii) Legislative
and (iv) Regulation/Litigation. Both authors
map their life cycle stages directly onto diffe-
rent strategic audiences and choices for the
organization. For Buchholz, in the first stage,
an organization is essentially dealing with an
idea, and will seek to influence activist groups
through the use of PR tools. At the second
stage, the issue is taking the form of legislation,
and so elected politicians will be central to the
Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa

organization’s lobbying and political activities.
Finally, once the issue is enshrined as law,
attention shifts to bureaucrats and regulators
as an organization may utilize legal/regulatory
means to achieve compliance on the best
available terms. Similarly, Lerbinger argues that
as issues emerge, organizations will commu-
nicate with opinion leaders directly or through
publications with limited circulations. In his
model, mass media relations becomes appro-
priate as wider public opinion takes up an
issue, while lobbying and other political acti-
vity is employed at the legislative stage. Finally,
at the point of litigation/regulation, he suggests
that media relations again become important in
order to influence the public mood around
these detailed resolutions. It is worth empha-
sizing again the idea that it is only by having the
capacity to deal with issues at an early point in
their life cycle can an organization hope to
both integrate its issues management with its
business strategic planning process, and to
make a significant contribution to how the
issue comes to be regarded by the public and
policymakers (Marx, 1986). Conversely, the
issue’s potential to impact upon the organiz-
ation increases the further along its life cycle it
passes (Keim, 2005). Indeed, Palese and Crane
(2002, p. 285) go further, suggesting that
issues should be identified ‘before they cross
what we call the ‘‘public threshold’’, or the
point at which an issue becomes public. At this
point it is already too late’.
Issues management
Another significant theme found within the
public affairs literature is the debate about
the centrality of ‘issues management’ as a core
element of the public affairs function. There is
a significant debate around whether or not
issues management does in fact belong within
the ambit of public affairs (Hainsworth and
Meng, 1988). Some support the view that
issues management is a component of public
affairs, whereas others have argued that it is a
more overarching corporate activity which
draws upon public affairs but equally draws
upon other functions. This question of where
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
issues management should sit within the
organizational structure and whose responsi-
bility it is cannot necessarily be resolved
through academic debate, since each organiz-
ation will structure issues management as it
feels most appropriate. What does appear to be
clear is that issues management is a particularly
significant component of the work of public
affairs staff, whose expertize in understanding
the public and governmental policy process
will be critical in any meaningful corporate
engagement in such processes. Thus, it is in
the issues management arena that the full value
of public affairs is most likely to be demon-
strated to senior management and other
functional units (e.g. marketing, legal, finan-
cial, etc.). Indeed, arguably it is in the area of
issues management that public affairs makes its
most important strategic contribution to
organizational strategy and goal attainment.
This argument is reflected in a series of indi-
cators of best practice which has been developed
by the Issue Management Council (2005):

an organization has in place systems by
which current and future issues are ident-
ified;

some formal process has been established to
prioritize and analysis issues;

there is clarity as to who is responsible for
the issue management process;

the person/team charged with managing
each issue is clear, with appropriate levels
of responsibility and accountability;

management regularly reviews performance
and progress in respect of key issues;

there is a formal mechanism by which board-
level oversight of issue management is
achieved;

issue management is integrated into the
wider processes of strategic planning and
stakeholder relations;

the issue management process is regarded as
central to the planning and implementation
of all corporate activity; and

issue management is organized as a funda-
mental management role rather than as the
sole purview of an individual function or
unit.
Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa
The evolving discipline of public affairs
The literature reveals a wide variety of
models by which organizations operationalize
issues management – but one feature which
appears to be widely accepted is recognition of
the need to draw a distinction between issues
management and strategic planning. In other
words, issues management is generally recog-
nized as contributing to strategic planning but
ultimately the strategic planning process has
broader concerns related to future business
performance. It remains common for issues
management and public affairs to work closely
together in practice, but somewhat less
common for them to be formally integrated
within the same department. Greening and
Gray (1994) suggest that the development of
issues management by firms varies according
to five structural factors: (i) whether it has
been formalized into a discrete department; (ii)
whether the company operates a relevant
board-level committee; (iii) the extent to
which the function is resourced; (iv) how
well issues and integrated into business
planning and (v) the relationship between
issues managers and business line managers.
Post et al. (1982) found that much greater
cohesion between public affairs and strategic
planning was possible within organizations,
with most of their respondents in public affairs
stating that they did not review corporate
plans for ‘sensitivity to emerging social and
political trends’. They also found sizeable
minorities (in the 32–44% range) were not
being involved in ‘setting priorities for public
issues at corporate level’, ‘forecasting social/
political trends’ for other departments, or
‘setting priorities for public issues’. Clearly,
two decades ago, public affairs’ involvement in
strategic business planning was at a relatively
rudimentary stage; Marx (1990) attributes this
in large part to the tension resulting from firms
wishing to decentralize their strategic planning
so that business units could respond more
speedily to the market while at the same time
wanting to centralize public affairs so that
the firm could adopt a consistent and coherent
approach to public policy issues. Dickie (1984)
found that public affairs had most influence
over corporate planning when it engaged
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
in that process with a relatively short-term
focus. That situation appears to have improved
somewhat (Grant, 1993) over the intervening
period – although there is little hard empirical
evidence to this effect, there have at least been
useful efforts to conceptualize solutions (Heath,
1988; Sawaya and Arrington, 1988; Ashley,
1996; Shaffer and Hillman, 2000; Watkins
et al., 2001; Bronn and Bronn, 2002; Jaques,
2002; Palese and Crane, 2002; Mahon et al.,
2004). However, as a number of commentators
have suggested, it remains true that ‘enhancing
the public affairs/corporate planning relation-
ship is an important step in improving the
overall responsiveness of the enterprise to a
changing environment’ (Post et al., 1982, pp.
15–16). Chase and Crane (1996, p. 138) offer a
thoughtful call for companies to pay equal
attention to ‘strategic profit planning’ and
‘strategic policy planning’. Chen (2007, p. 293)
provides some empirical evidence from
research into multinational corporations in
China that there is a ‘positive relationship
between the participation of government
affairs in strategic management and excellence
in government affairs’. Activist groups have
recently challenged business to go further in
aligning lobbying efforts with corporate
strategy (AccountAbility, 2005). In Asia, for
instance, one survey found that only one-third
of public affairs practitioners are members
of their firm’s corporate planning committee,
although much larger percentages do have
some involvement in the strategic planning
process (Centre for Corporate Public Affairs
and Public Affairs Council, 2009).
While there are nearly as many definitions
of issues management as there are academic
articles on the subject, several basic features
which demand attention by practitioners are
clear from the literature (Jones and Chase,
1979; Steckmest, 1982; Stanbury, 1988; Gaunt
and Ollenburger, 1995; Mack, 1997; Heath,
2002; Wartick and Heugens, 2003; Heugens,
2005; Lerbinger, 2006). First, issues manage-
ment has to be concerned with identifying
potential issues which could impact upon the
organization – this is the essential precondition
to all else, as if an issue evades detection then
Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa

nothing can or will be done about it. Second, it
is necessary to prioritize issues in terms of
the extent to which they could matter to the
organization – the more important the issue
is to the organization (or what researchers
term the issue salience), the more likely the
organization is to engage in political activity
intended to influence the outcome; Mack
(1997) suggests using the Delphi process to
quantity the importance of each issue to the
organization. It is also worth considering that
no organization can pursue each issue in which
it may be interested to the maximum possible
extent, again making prioritization necessary:
‘Political influence used for one purpose may
well be unavailable for another. We expect
that the economic actor uses his assets to
gather the most valuable basket of plums from
the political tree’ (Esty and Caves, 1983, p. 24).
The rational organization will further prioritize
issues in such a way as to only focus on those
which are not merely important but also which
are most likely to be influenced effectively
(SustainAbility and GPC, 2000) – in other
words organizations should concentrate on
those issues which are critical to their strategic
objectives where the organization’s input will
make a material difference (Marx, 1990). Third,
there is little value in identifying issues unless
the process then goes on to set objectives
(Jaques, 2005), formulate a plan of action in
respect of each, and implement and evaluate
that activity (Oliver and Donnelly, 2007). Here
the organization is arriving at its own internal
policy position on the issue. And, fourth,
issues management must involve the organiz-
ation in attempting to influence public policy
since each significant issue will become impor-
tant not just to the organization itself but also
to its stakeholders in government, regulatory
agencies, pressure groups, public opinion and
so on (Crable and Vibbert, 1985).
Conclusion: contributions to the
debate
When the Journal of Public Affairs was
launched 10 years ago, the intention was that
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
it would encourage both academic and pro-
fessional debate about the development of
public affairs, and provide a platform to
publish the output of such debates. In parti-
cular, we wanted to help stimulate deeper
understanding of public affairs around the
world, and not just in the US or EU contexts.
In this article, which is intended in part as a
precursor to a full tenth anniversary special
issue of the Journal of Public Affairs, we have
sought to reflect on some of the principal
themes and debates found within the public
affairs literature over the past decade. Many of
these themes have found expression within
articles published in this journal, or have
inspired or provoked responses that in turn
have been published here. Reviewing the
range of articles which have appeared in the
journal during its first decade, it seems clear
that the original aims of the journal have to a
large degree been realized – and continue to be
met. The quality and diversity of the content
which has been published in the journal is a
remarkable testament to the research and
analysis being undertaken in the public affairs
field. As editors, we are proud to report that
this journal has featured work by some of the
most influential scholars and practitioners in
our field and by many of those establishing
their reputations. We have featured extraordi-
narily rigorous theoretical work as well as
profoundly insightful professional analysis and
commentary. Reviewing the journal’s content
over the course of its first decade, we are
particularly struck by the disciplinary diversity
of the articles and by the spread of geographi-
cal focus which they cover.
In the opening section of this article, we
highlighted the still contested understanding
of public affairs that existed a decade ago,
and equally, the predominantly Anglo-Saxon
bias within the literature. As this review has
revealed, despite a period of marked growth
and maturing of the discipline over the past
decade, there is little evidence of a consensual
definition and understanding of public affairs
emerging amongst academics or practitioners.
Does this suggest that public affairs remains (as
was suggested 10 years ago) a discipline in
Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa
The evolving discipline of public affairs
search of a clear identity; or is this fluidity
about the precise boundaries of public affairs
a sign of healthy and vibrant disciplinary
evolution? On balance, we favour the latter
judgement, albeit that such fluidity can and
does at times threaten to undermine the status
and position of public affairs within what are
often contested organizational hierarchies.
However, in many senses, arguably the
effectiveness and value of the public affairs
role is best realized when the function does
step outside the traditional organizational
hierarchy, acting (as it should) as the organ-
izational conscience and ‘balance check’
against what might otherwise be the over-
riding profit motive driver in corporate
decision making. Recognition of such a role
for public affairs is, in part, evidenced by the
growing significance attached to the issues
management function in organizations, and to
the recognition that public affairs may be the
best placed function to oversee the effective
monitoring and management of key issues that
may challenge organizational goals and policies,
or equally, create tremendous opportunities
for organizational growth. As this review has
shown; however, the challenge for public affairs
going forward is to retain its lead position in
managing the organizational issues management
process in the face of increasing encroachment
on this role from other functions.
This review has highlighted growing inter-
national acceptance and recognition of public
affairs in countries and regions outside the
traditional stronghold of public affairs practice
and scholarship – the western world. Of
course, with international expansion comes
a new cycle in the emergence and reformula-
tion of the boundaries of the public affairs
discipline. For example, evidence from studies
in Asia cited in this paper suggest a far broader
understanding of what might be expected to
fall within the boundaries of public affairs than
one would expect in most western organiz-
ations. Yet even here there appear to be
contradictions in the evidence, with some
research pointing to a more conventional view
of public affairs amongst Asian practitioners,
involving such core activities as government
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
relations, political monitoring, lobbying and
advocacy. What does seem clear is that the
‘appetite’ for public affairs continues to grow
around the world, perhaps driven by the often
claimed convergence of major issues affecting
many parts of the world, which often demand
global political solutions.
We believe that the next decade is more
likely to be one of even greater social,
economic and political upheaval as economic
power shifts relentlessly towards the rapidly
growing ‘developing economies’, and as new
global priorities such as financial reform,
climate change and terrorism assume even
greater prominence. Against such a backdrop,
there is likely to be a growing need for highly
skilled and experienced public affairs pro-
fessionals capable of analyzing and interpret-
ing – and even anticipating – major environ-
mental trends and developments, and capable
of counselling organizational leaders about
how best to respond to the challenges that
such trends present. It is the unique position
of public affairs at the nexus of business,
government and civil society that positions
it to play a key role balancing organizational
and societal interests. The Journal of Public
Affairs will hope to be a vehicle for exploring
and disseminating thinking about these devel-
opments and helping to push the boundaries of
the public affairs discipline forward.
In that spirit, we close with a request that
academic and professional colleagues continue
to submit their best work to this journal. Since
its launch, we believe that the Journal of
Public Affairs has become an indispensable
guide to the practice and study of public
affairs. To maintain, and even surpass, that
achievement over the next decade, we rely
upon a continuous flow of high impact and
high quality submissions. A special issue will
be produced in 2011 to properly mark our
tenth anniversary, and will present a number of
contributions reviewing the current state of
public affairs and predicting future trends. In
this general survey of the field, we have tried to
share our perspective on the key elements of
public affairs and to highlight themes which
seem to us to be particularly likely to generate
Journal of Public Affairs, 2010
DOI: 10.1002/pa

interesting and productive work in the years to
come. Over the next decade, we will continue
to focus on our central concern of how
organizations relate to government and society,
but are equally determined to maintain this
journal’s emphasis on multi-disciplinary app-
roaches. Our tradition of encouraging both
academic and professional insights to public
affairs will be maintained, and it is with a
genuine sense of anticipation that we look
forward to the future submissions received
from colleagues.
Biographical Notes
Conor McGrath is an Independent Scholar,
and Deputy Editor of the Journal of Public
Affairs. He was Lecturer in Political Lobbying
and Public Affairs at the University of Ulster in
Northern Ireland from 1999 to 2006. His books
include Lobbying in Washington, London
and Brussels: The Persuasive Communi-
cation of Political Issues (2005), Challenge
and Response: Essays on Public Affairs and
Transparency (2006, co-edited with Tom
Spencer), Irish Political Studies Reader: Key
Contributions (2008, co-edited with Eoin
O’Malley), and The Future of Public Trust:
Public Affairs in a Time of Crisis (2008, co-
edited with Tom Spencer). He edited a
collection of three books published in 2009
– Interest Groups and Lobbying in the United
States and Comparative Perspectives; Interest
Groups and Lobbying in Europe; and Interest
Groups and Lobbying in Latin America,
Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.
Danny Moss is Professor of Corporate and
Public Affairs at the University of Chester. Prior
to moving to Chester, he was co-Director of the
Centre for Corporate and Public Affairs at the
Manchester Metropolitan University Business
School, and Programme Leader for the Uni-
versity’s Master’s Degree in International
Public Relations. He also held the post of
Director of Public Relations programmes at the
University of Stirling where he established the
first dedicated Master’s Degree in Public
Relations in the UK. He is also the co-organiser
Copyright # 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Conor McGrath et al.
of ‘Bledcom’, the annual Global Public
Relations Research Symposium. Danny Moss
is co-editor of the Journal of Public Affairs and
author of over 80 journal articles and books,
the latest of which is Public Relations Cases:
International Perspectives (co-edited with
Melanie Powell and Barbara DeSanto).
Phil Harris is Executive Dean of the Faculty
of Business, Enterprise and Lifelong Learning
(and Westminster Chair of Marketing and
Public Affairs) at the University of Chester.
He was previously Professor of Marketing at
the University of Otago in New Zealand, and
Co-Director of the Centre for Corporate and
Public Affairs at Manchester Metropolitan
University Business School. He is joint found-
ing editor of the Journal of Public Affairs and a
member of a number of international editorial
and advisory boards. He has published over
150 publications in the area of communi-
cations, lobbying, political marketing, public
affairs, relationship marketing and inter-
national trade. His latest books are European
Business and Marketing (with Frank Macdo-
nald, 2004), The Handbook of Public Affairs
(with Craig Fleisher, 2005), Lobbying and
Public Affairs in the UK (2009), and The
Penguin Dictionary of Marketing (2009).
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