Conor McGrath

• PhD
• Lecturer at University of Ulster

This paper explores the development of the field of public affairs (PA) through the observations, research and experiences of two of its most cited scholars, deputy editors, and longtime contributors to the Journal of Public Affairs. We examine how PA and its practitioners have moved non‐linearly from 2000+ PA, to Public Affairs 2.0, toward a still...

Purpose The paper aims to analyse the published work of Ireland's pre-eminent public relations (PR) educator, across a number of literary genres in which he has written. More broadly, it considers the writing life of academics. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines Carty's writings about his own history, Irish history, the development of...

Lobbying is a significant component of the modern politics industry in Britain, but we know relatively little about its historical origins and evolution. This article draws on parliamentary debates and three databases which together account for 51 newspaper titles, in order to explore how lobbying was discussed in parliament and the media between 1...

Published in 1963, Lester Milbrath’s The Washington Lobbyists has become indispensable for understanding how lobbying operates and the societal benefits it brings. Milbrath there presented the first detailed survey of lobbying activities, and his findings have been generally affirmed by a range of later studies, although his conviction that lobbyin...

Each country chapter of this volume provides an overview of the national lobbying industry, taking into consideration also institutional, historical, and cultural variables, and placing the analysis of lobbying and public affairs into a wider picture. A short overview of the country’s political system is given, illustrating the institutional struct...

This article traces the development of Barack Obama's sometimes ambiguous and sometimes antithetical attitudes and relationship to lobbyists. During his childhood in Indonesia, his stepfther was a lobbyist for a US oil company. Obama engaged himself in what many would consider to be lobbying in his career as a ‘community activist’ in Chicago. As an...

This article provides the first ever detailed analysis of the work undertaken by the man who seems to have been the first person in the UK to have had ‘parliamentary lobbyist’ as his job title: Charles Weller Kent. It focuses on Kent's period as the first lobbyist for the National Farmers’ Union from 1913 to 1916, and deals briefly with his persona...

This paper explores the importance and approach to managing public affairs as an increasingly important external-facing function in corporations operating in an increasingly complex, interconnected and politicized global business environment. Drawing on evidence gathered from a multi-site case study of the public affairs function operating within a...

This article proposes that political marketing and lobbying have much to learn from each other. Both are essentially persuasive forms of communication; both have some basis in more general marketing theory; both involve exchanges, networks, and relationships. However, while much lobbying practice is underpinned or informed by (political) marketing...

This article considers the prospects for lobbying regulation in Ireland following that country's February 2011 general election, which produced a new Fine Gael/Labour Party coalition government. Both these parties had published, prior to the election, legislative proposals, which are analysed here. The government has now committed itself to the int...

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 ar...

In common with most other nations, Ireland currently has no statutory regulation of lobbying activities. Equally, and also in common with many countries, lobbying regulation is becoming a more prominent subject of political debate. This paper considers the pervasive context of political corruption and scandal highlighted by one lobbyist now in jail...

Oral History: The Challenges of Dialogue shows contemporary oral history at work in a variety of contexts, levels, and engagements. The issues developed in the book correspond to different stages of research: preparing and conducting the interview, evaluating and analyzing the collected material, publishing in the broad sense of speaking to differe...

This article reports on a survey of seventeen national political science associations in Europe, which was undertaken as part of discussions leading up to the first Annual General Meeting of a European Confederation of Political Science Associations (ECPSA) held in Spain in summer 2008. The survey provides a detailed overview of the landscape of as...

This paper focuses on lobbying as a political activity and the emergence of lobbying regulation in 10 new member states of the European Union (EU). The analysis begins with general observations about lobbying in post-communist states and on the development of lobbying in three of the larger new member states: Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic....

The concept of product positioning is well established in the commercial communication sphere, as are the notions of issue definition and agenda setting in the field of political science. Less thoroughly researched, though, is an area which intersects these two fields—the way in which lobbyists use language in order to frame policy issues so as to...

Lobbyists are inextricably intertwined with the electoral process in the United States, but rarely have they ever featured so prominently in an election year as in 2006. The midterm elections came at the end of a year in which the political news was often dominated by stories of lobbying scandal, most notably that involving Jack Abramoff. Lobbying...

Purpose Lobbying and lobbyists have for some time been regarded with suspicion and even outright mistrust by journalists and the wider public. While to some extent, popular (mis)perceptions about lobbyists are understandable, they are also regrettable: lobbyists operate in every political system, and generally do so in an entirely proper fashion. T...

Ministerial codes provide often revealing insights into the formal processes which governments operate internally. A ministerial code can be read as a map of the institutional framework of any particular system of government – an overview of the processes through which public policy is arrived at, and through which a government operates as a cohesi...

Many academic writers refer to lobbying as a profession. This paper takes issue with that characterization: lobbying is now a well-established occupation, but it falls very far short of having attained professional status. It reviews the generally accepted elements of professionalization, and goes on to explore the ways in which lobbying and lobbyi...

Over the past decade, America's National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) has transformed itself from an organisation lacking much political influence into one of the most powerful interest groups on Capitol Hill. The NBWA has been described as “the toughest lobby you never heard of” (Birnbaum 1998: 148). Its strategy over this period provides a...

As a contemporary means of political communication, those memoirs of participants that offer insights into the formulation of public policy are significant resources for researchers. This is even more so when a range of accounts can be examined together and their assertions tested against each other. The development, implementation and ultimate fai...