Political Public Relations in the European Union: EU Reputation and Relationship Management Under Scrutiny

Abstract

This article examines the state of political public relations in the European Union by specifically focusing on reputation management and relationship management. Its arguments are based on a theoretical review of
the literature of political public relations, reputation and relationship management, and EU communication.
The article suggests an in-depth examination of the nature of some of the EU’s major problems in political public
relations, and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the possibilities and limitations of applying
reputation and relationship management constructs to a political context. The nature of the analysis is exploratory rather than definitive, and specific investigations are needed to thoroughly explore and better theorize political reputation and relationship management in various political contexts.

Full text

Public Relations Journal Vol. 7, No. 4
ISSN 1942-4604
© 2013 Public Relations Society of America
Political Public Relations in the European Union:
EU Reputation and Relationship Management Under Scrutiny
Chiara Valentini, Ph.D.
School of Business and Social Sciences
Aarhus University
This article examines the state of political public relations in the European Union by
specifically focusing on reputation management and relationship management. Its
arguments are based on a theoretical review of the literature of political public relations,
reputation and relationship management, and EU communication. The article suggests an
in-depth examination of the nature of some of the EU’s major problems in political public
relations, and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the possibilities and
limitations of applying reputation and relationship management constructs to a political
context. The nature of the analysis is exploratory rather than definitive, and specific
investigations are needed to thoroughly explore and better theorize political reputation and
relationship management in various political contexts.
INTRODUCTION
In many countries, government officials are the most important publics for international
public relations (Taylor & Kent, 1999). Governments and political institutions are not only
one of the most important publics for corporate/non-profit public relations, they are also
active players and active users of public relations knowledge. They develop their own
strategies and tactics to cultivate relationships with various publics and to manage
communication within and outside their organizations (Gregory, 2006). They need to
strengthen their political reputations for election days as much as their international
reputation as representatives of a country, handling international negotiations (Strömbäck
& Kiousis, 2011).
Despite the fact that public relations strategies and tactics are commonly used by political
actors, institutions, and governmental bodies (Cutlip, 1976; Lee, 2007), knowledge of the
state and development of political public relations outside the U.S. political context is not
particularly extensive (i.e., Kaid, 2008; Strömbäck & Kiousis, 2011; Valentini & Nesti,
2010). Since the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the European Union (EU) has gained
increasing power in establishing new legislation in Europe, and has become a key player
in international and trade relations. With the Lisbon Treaty at the end of 2009, the political
dimension and sphere of influence of EU institutions has further changed. The increasing
international role of the EU and its economic and political union of independent nation-
states makes the EU an interesting case study to investigate the nature of political public
relations in a non-U.S. political context.
This article examines the state of political public relations in the EU by specifically focusing
on reputation management and the relationship management of the EU’s three main
decision-making institutions. Its arguments are based on a theoretical review of the main

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literature of political public relations, reputation and relationship management, and EU
communication. The article suggests an in-depth examination of the nature of some of the
EU’s major problems in political public relations, and contributes to a more nuanced
understanding of the possibilities and limitations of applying reputation and relationship
management constructs to a political context. The nature of the analysis is exploratory
rather than definitive, and specific investigations are needed to thoroughly explore and
better theorize political reputation and relationship management in various political
contexts.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Political public relations is a subfield of public relations that focuses on the political sphere
and political institutions and their actors. This hybrid discipline draws from more
established fields such as public relations, political communication, and marketing. Political
public relations often shares similar communication approaches and techniques with the
other two disciplines to a degree that drawing lines between these three disciplines is often
difficult (Strömbäck, Mitrook, & Kiousis, 2010). While all three are concerned with specific
publics – the media for political communication and citizens for political marketing – or
broader public groups and their engagement, and while all three are grounded in strategic
communication, political public relations differs from the other two areas because it is
focused on building and maintaining mutual relationships and managing reputation
(Strömbäck and Kiousis, 2011, p. 8).
Two other research areas that overlap with political public relations are public diplomacy
and nation branding. Public diplomacy is often referred to as government communications
toward foreign publics with the aim of affecting their thinking and their government
(Malone, 1985), whereas nation branding is frequently defined as branding and marketing
communication activities that promote a nation’s image (Fan, 2006). These two areas have
lately emerged as prominent fields of inquiry when discussing political and international
public relations (c.f. Rose, 2010; Szondi, 2008; Yun, 2006; Yun & Toth, 2009). However,
studies of public diplomacy and nation branding primarily deal with publics that are
external to a nation-state. Clearly, it is hard to separate a government’s public relations
efforts targeting internal publics from those targeting external publics, since governments
and political institutions often tend to coordinate these efforts to achieve synergic effects.
Thus, reputation and relationship management are also central concepts for public
diplomacy and nation branding because having a strong international reputation and good
international relations are two fundamental outcomes of successful public diplomacy and
nation branding. This article, however, focuses on internal publics of a nation-state and/or
publics belonging to the same supranational polity, such as the European Union.
Therefore, the literature review will examine only those studies that focus on political public
relations. Specifically, it will explore the possibilities and limitations of applying reputation
and relationship management constructs to the EU political context. The following sections
will thus underline only some important elements of reputation and relationship
management literature for political actors and institutions, and major studies of political
public relations and the EU.

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Reputation management
Several definitions of reputation exist; indeed, Barnett, Jermier, and Lafferty (2006)
reported as many as 46 different definitions. Yang (2007) classified them into three main
perspectives: 1) those definitions that focus on the assessment of stakeholders regarding
an organization’s capacity to meet their expectations (e.g., Fombrun, 1996; Fombrun &
van Riel, 2003); 2) those that see reputation as an exchange of social evaluations and
beliefs held by a group (e.g., Bromley, 1993; Dutton, Dukerich, & Harquail, 1994); and 3)
those that stress publics’ cognitive representations of past organizational behavior and
attributes (e.g., Post & Griffin, 1997; Yang & Grunig, 2005). All three perspectives pinpoint
that a good reputation can stem from an organization’s capacity to manage impressions,
build strong relations with key publics, and manage criticisms (Brønn, 2010; Fombrun,
1996; Luoma-aho, 2005). Reputation is an assessment made by an organization’s key
publics (Fombrun, 1996) based on the communication they receive, as well as on the
organization’s past behavior and their expectations regarding its future behavior (Doorley
& Garcia, 2007; Brønn, 2010). Reputation is often more than the sum of the images that
publics can have; nevertheless, perceptions play a key role. Luoma-aho (2005) argues
that when organizations manage their reputations, they actually focus on those
communication activities that aim to impress publics positively. Elements that influence
reputation are an organization’s visibility, distinctiveness, authenticity, transparency,
consistency, and responsiveness (van Riel & Fombrun, 2007).
In the political sphere, reputation is referred to as “government popularity” (Canel & Echart,
2011), but in substance public evaluation and opinion of a government are a government’s
reputation. Political reputation is a general assessment comprising indicators such as
levels of trust in the political actor/institution, leadership, and performance (Canel & Echart,
2011). Communication plays a key role in this assessment because the general public
makes evaluative judgments of a government’s performance on the basis of what is
communicated directly or indirectly through mass media about government’s decision-
making, activities, and conduct of politicians (Canel & Echart, 2011; Elenbaas, de Vreese,
Boomgaarden, & Schuck, 2012). Wæraas and Byrkjeflot (2012) discuss the applicability of
the reputation construct to public sector organizations’ environment, and argue that the
political nature of public sector organizations constrains their reputation management
strategies. These scholars emphasize that public sector organizations have more
difficulties than do corporations in managing their reputations because they have trouble in
connecting with their publics emotionally, in presenting themselves as unique and
distinctive organizations, and in communicating as coherent organizations (Wæraas &
Byrkjeflot, 2012). In relation to managing communications in public sector organizations,
Gelders, Bouckaert, and van Ruler (2007) identify four main constraints (complicated and
unstable environment; specific legal and formal constraints; rigid procedures; and diversity
of products and objectives) that differentiate the corporate communication environment
from the public communication environment. Similar constraints can be found in the
communication of political institutions, which shares many of the characteristics of public
sector organizations. These constraints clearly challenge the capacity of political
institutions to communicate consistently and coherently as literature on reputation
management would recommend.

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In sum, recent literature on reputation management and public sector organizations
pinpoints some limitations in applying previous research on reputation management to
public sector organizations and to political institutions/actors in general, because of the
specificity and complexity of the political context.
Relationship management
The concept of reputation is highly intertwined with that of relationship. Several scholars
have pointed out that an organization’s reputation is affected by its organization-public
relationships (OPR) (e.g. Brønn, 2010; Grunig & Hung, 2002; Grunig, Grunig, & Dozier,
2002; Yang, 2007; Yang & Grunig, 2005). Huang (1998) defines OPR as “the degree that
the organization and its publics trust one another, agree on who has rightful power to
influence, experience satisfaction with each other, and commit oneself to one another”
(p.12). Research on OPR has focused a good deal on finding dimensions to assess and
measure relationship constructs. Various studies suggest diverse relational dimensions
influencing publics’ perceptions of their relationship with an organization. The dimensions
that are proposed most often across studies are trust, openness, involvement,
commitment, and investment in the relationship (Ledingham & Bruning, 1998). OPR
research has also focused on classifying relationships by attributes and types, identifying
factors that affect relationship formation, maintenance and termination, indicating
strategies for building relationships, and measuring possible relationship outcomes (e.g.,
Bruning, 2002; Bruning, DeMiglio, & Embry, 2006; Bruning, Dials, & Shirka, 2008; Hon &
Grunig, 1999; Hung, 2005; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998, 2000).
In recent years, relationship management has gained momentum together with the rising
use of social and digital media in corporate, non-profit, and political communications.
Levenshus (2010) used a relational approach to study President Obama’s use of social
media in his 2008 presidential campaign by analyzing the Obama website and its news
articles, and by interviewing campaign staff. Her findings indicate that social media were
primarily used for building and maintaining relationships between the President and his
constituencies. This and other studies often rest on the assumption that social media
communications foster dialogue and involvement, and that these can lead to relationship
building (c.f., Sweetser, 2010); but there is only limited empirical proof available that shows
some effects of social media communications for relationship management (Kent, 2010).
Outside the online environment, Ledingham (2001) conducted one of the first studies of
government-citizen relationships, validating the relational theory of public relations for
community building efforts. Taking a relational approach, Wise (2007) explored the
activities of lobbyists in Washington, D.C., and observed that an essential element of
lobbyists’ activities is relationship management – pointing toward an area of research that
is still not well known. On the premise that trust is a fundamental constituent of good
relationships, Hong, Park, and Park (2012) conducted a study in the United States and in
19 European countries in which they segmented publics on the basis of individuals’
cognitive perceptions of government (how much they trust it) and participation in social
organizations, as well as media use and demographic characteristics. They proposed a
public segmentation model that regards trust as a major cross-cultural indicator of
government – public relationship quality. In the same line of research, Seltzer and Zhang
(2011) identified time, interpersonal trust, mediated communication, interpersonal

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communication, and dialogic communication as significant predictors of political OPR
strength. The majority of these studies were carried out in a U.S. context, and since
relationship building and maintaining strategies are often culturally bound (c.f., Hung 2003;
Shin & Cameron, 2002), they explain relationship management only within an American
political context.
Public relations research on the European Union
With regard to political public relations and the EU, theoretical and empirical knowledge
mostly deals with the EU’s external communication activities, media relations efforts, the
visibility of EU institutions and political actors in mass media, civil society activities for the
EU, and some case studies, for example, about past campaigns for enlargements, the
euro introduction and the European Parliament’s election campaigns (c.f., Brüggemann,
2010; Kaid, 2008; Laursen & Valentini, 2013; Maier, Strömbäck, & Kaid, 2011; Nesti, 2010;
Spanier, 2010; Valentini, 2003, 2008, 2010; Valentini & Laursen, 2012). The bulk of
existing studies of EU external communications are primarily about EU institutional
communications and the level of professionalization of EU media relations activities. In a
study of news management activities and practices of the spokespersons of the European
Commission (Spanier, 2010), and in a recent study by Laursen and Valentini (2013) on the
Council of the European Union, findings show a certain level of professionalization of
media relations activities. Similar conclusions were reached in Brüggemann’s (2010) study
of the German Representation of the European Commission’s activities in relation to
enlargement, and by Martins, Lecheler and de Vreese (2012) in their study of the
perceptions of Brussels correspondents regarding the Commission’s information quality. In
general these studies depict only minor improvements in EU communication management.
However, other studies show that the presence of EU topics in national media is still
insufficient (Trenz, 2008), and in particular that there is limited positive coverage in
national media as well (e.g., Gleissner & de Vreese, 2005; Machill, Beiler, & Fischer, 2006;
Vliegenthart, Schuck, Boomgaarden, & de Vreese, 2008). When EU topics are covered in
news media, news reporting on EU political processes emphasizes different aspects than
those presented by EU institutions in their media relations activities (Bijsmans & Altides,
2007). Valentini and Laursen (2012) argue that low effects in media visibility and in agenda
building are due to the EU institutions’ limited provision of attractive EU news material (c.f.,
Statham, 2010; Statham & Trenz, 2012), and to the reactive approach to media relations
of most EU institutional communications (c.f., Laursen & Valentini, 2013; Statham, 2010).
If we exclude a recent work by Elenbaas et al. (2012) on the impact of performance
information on Europeans’ perceptions of EU governance, no scholarly study of public
relations has yet been conducted in the field of reputation and relationship management of
EU institutions.
EU “STRATEGIC” COMMUNICATION MANAGEMENT
In this article, only the political public relations activities of the three most important EU
institutions will be discussed. The three most important EU decision-making institutions are
the European Commission, the European Parliament, and the Council of the EU. The
European Commission has executive powers, whereas the European Parliament and the
Council of the EU have legislative powers. The Parliament is directly elected by Europeans
every five years and comprises 754 members, known as MEPs. The Council represents

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the governments of the individual member states; and depending on the policy area under
discussion, different ministers from national governments attend and work in the Council’s
meetings according to different configurations (Nugent, 2010). Typically, new legislation
proposals are drafted by the Commission, which is considered the initiator of the policy-
making process, and then approved, today in most of the policy areas, by the Parliament
and the Council through a co-decision procedure (Nugent, 2010). In other words, both the
Parliament and the Council need to jointly agree and adopt proposals.
The three main EU decision-making institutions have their own communication apparatus
as well as sub-units at political party and national levels. Each unit and sub-unit
coordinates its external communications to the general public as well as to specific public
groups such as journalists and interest groups. The three institutions, however, do not
seem to coordinate their communication activities (Thiel, 2008). On several occasions, EU
institutions have been seen to compete against each other for media attention rather than
cooperating, for instance when their external communications overlap or simply take place
at the same time, thus forcing journalists to choose which press conference to attend
(Martins et al., 2012).
The three main decision-making institutions also have different political interests in
communicating their role as decision-making institutions, and in their specific political
agenda (c.f., Valentini & Laursen, 2012), even within their own institutional settings
(Laursen & Valentini, 2013). For example, the Council is the EU institution representing the
political position of 27 member states. Communicatively speaking, it is a multi-vocal
political player because by mandate its institutional communications must present different
voices about the multiple and often contrasting political positions of each member state.
However, within this institution spokespersons and press officers of each national
government communicate their own position to the media and to the general public (c.f.,
Laursen & Valentini, 2013). In comparison, the Commission’s institutional communications
are more nuanced and more political in character (Meyer, 2009). The Commission has an
interest in promoting its political agenda for two reasons. As the initiator of the legislative
process, the Commission needs endorsement of its proposals by national governments;
otherwise these proposals can be rejected or amended by the Parliament and the Council.
When a proposal is accepted and becomes law, the duty of the Commission is to oversee
its compliance in member states (c.f., Pollack, 2003; Princen, 2007). Member states, in
fact, often retain the possibility to decide when and how to conform to approved EU law
(Mbaye, 2001; Börzel, Hofmann, Panke, & Sprungk, 2010). In too many circumstances,
member states have managed to postpone, alter, or even completely avoid complying with
supranational policies with consequent violations of EU laws (Börzel et al., 2010). Non-
compliance or partial compliance to EU supranational legislation by member states is not
only problematic in terms of general governance and the legitimacy of EU institutions, but
also has some impact on European public opinion and public expectations about the EU’s
political performance. So it can undermine the image that Europeans have of their
supranational governance. In both situations, the Commission, through the use of various
political public relations techniques, has a clear interest in promoting its own agenda and
cause.
The Parliament represents the position of a number of different political parties and
interests through its communications. Communications regarding decision-making

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processes can take place at the institutional level, where neutrality is requested in official
communications as it is in the Council, but they can also occur at the party and politician
levels too. Each political party has its own communication apparatus and can provide its
own interpretation and position on the issue under discussion
1
. The Parliament is the only
institution that is directly elected, and thus each political party and even certain MEPs have
a strong interest in seeking media visibility especially when elections are imminent. In
practice, this means that the Parliament can speak simultaneously according to “three
voices”: an institutional voice, a party voice, and a political actor’s voice.
As a part of a new strategy for communicating to citizens, in 2001 the Commission
launched a proposal titled A new framework for cooperation on activities concerning the
information and communication policy of the European Union, in which an Inter-
institutional Group on Information (IGI) was created. The IGI comprises the Commission,
the Parliament, and the Council, and its main function is to agree on an EU communication
strategy and to select common communication priorities for EU institutions and member
states (COM569 final, 2007). Despite the initial intentions of integrating and managing EU
communications consistently, EU political public relations is still too often fragmented and
disjointed (c.f., Meyer, 1999; Martins et al., 2012). Overall, the communications of EU
institutions are multi-vocal, but they are not sufficiently well coordinated across and within
institutions (c.f., Valentini & Nesti, 2010) to be considered polyphonic, i.e. organizational
communications that are independent of each other but also combined into a coherent
communication plan (c.f., Christensen, Morsing, & Thyssen, 2011). As some
organizational scholars (c.f., Cheney, 1991; Christensen, Firat, & Torp, 2008; Christensen
et al., 2011) argue, polyphony can make organizations more adaptable to possible
changes in the environment. However, polyphony needs to be managed to avoid
confusion in the minds of publics. The communications of EU institutions are polyphonic by
nature; however, the EU has not yet found an approach to manage multivocality.
EU political reputation management
If the reputation indicators specified in the literature review are applied to the EU, its
political reputation becomes rather shaky. According to the latest Eurobarometer
survey
2
(2012), only 31% of EU citizens trust EU institutions, only 44% of Europeans are
satisfied with how democracy works in the EU, and only 31% of EU citizens have a fairly
positive image of the EU against 28% with a negative image and 39% a neutral image
(Eurobarometer, 2012). The Pew Research Center (2012, May 29) surveyed the
leadership performance of eight major EU member states, namely Germany, Britain, Italy,
France, Spain, Poland, Czech Republic, and Greece. When Europeans were asked to
assess the performance of their own political leaders and those of other countries with
1
More information on the EU political party structure and organization at URL:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/aboutparliament/en/007f2537e0/Political-groups.html
2
The Eurobarometer survey is the official EU public opinion survey. Each survey consists of approximately
1,000 face-to-face interviews in each member state, and is conducted between two and five times per year,
with reports published twice yearly, see URL: http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/.

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regard to their handling of the economic crisis, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had the
highest favorable overall score, whereas Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos had the
lowest favorable overall score. Because some policy areas are either fully or partially
under the auspices of member states, it is often hard for EU citizens to judge the
performance and leadership of national representatives and supranational political players.
Interestingly, there seems to be a negative correlation between what Europeans think
about their national governance and EU governance. The more favorably Europeans value
the performance of their own national political institutions, the less favorably they value the
performance of EU political institutions (Desmet, van Spanje, & de Vreese, 2012).
However, a recent study indicates an improvement in the opinions of Europeans regarding
the performance of EU political institutions when performance-related information is more
visible in news media (Elenbaas et al., 2012), thus corroborating the idea that visibility is
an important variable for political reputation when predicting citizens’ evaluation of EU
performance. As previously discussed, media relations efforts by EU institutions are still
perceived by journalists as insufficiently appealing or interesting (Statham, 2010),
therefore it is hard for EU institutions to reach European citizens and communicate their
activities and their performance via national mass media.
Beside the problems of the visibility and coordination of its various communications, the
EU also suffers from a limited implementation of the transparency principle. The critique
that some authors (c.f., Bijsmans & Altides, 2007; Laursen, 2012; Meyer, 1999) have put
forward refers to the lack of specific information on the stances and roles of political actors,
political parties, and member states in the various policy decision-making processes (the
accountability dimension). Most Europeans do not exactly know who is responsible and
accountable for various regulations that affect their lives (c.f., Bijsmans & Altides, 2007;
Meyer, 1999; Thiel, 2008). Without knowing who is responsible, it is hard to evaluate the
performance of EU institutions, EU political parties, and even the political representatives
of each member state. So despite the fact that transparency is one of the core principles of
EU communication to its publics (c.f., Laursen, 2012; Nesti, 2010), the EU is not able to
fully satisfy the expectations of citizens and the media with regard to full transparency in
decision-making processes.
EU political reputation management is clearly affected by the lack of strong and positive
media visibility, the overall polyphonic nature of EU communications, the limited disclosure
of information regarding decision-making processes, and the complexity of the
supranational polity that makes responsiveness to citizens’ socio-economic-cultural needs
harder to tackle than in national political contexts. These issues are exacerbated by two
problems: one related to the institutional understanding of the function of communication,
and the other related to the specific nature of EU politics and the lack of a clear
institutional identity. Previous studies (e.g., Glenny, 2008; McNair, 2007) in government
communication indicate the existence of two types of civil servant communicators: those
who are appointed to be a-political and non-partisan, so-called public information officers;
and those who are politically appointed and work to promote an institution or a specific
political actor, often referred to as political communication officers. At the institutional level,
only the Commission can be considered to have a proactive, image management
approach in its political communications (c.f., Meyer, 2009; Thiel, 2008; Spanier, 2010;
Valentini & Nesti, 2010), whereas institutional communications in the Parliament and in the
Council seem to follow an a-political, non-aligned and reactive approach (c.f., Anderson &

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McLeod, 2004; Laursen & Valentini, 2013). In sum, the institutional understanding of
communication in the EU decision-making institutions, apart from the Commission,
promotes a culture of impartiality, neutrality, and lack of promotion in which the primary
goal of communication is to abide – whenever possible – by the transparency principle and
to make information on specific institutions available to the general public as well as to
specialized publics. This institutional understanding of communication corroborates one of
the findings of Grunig and Jaatinen (1999)’s study, which indicated that public relations
activities in public administrations mostly follow the public information model, despite the
fact that it may not be the most suitable approach for building realistic and appropriate
public expectations regarding the performance of a government (Canel & Echart, 2011) or
a supranational government like the EU.
A second explanation for the above-mentioned reputational problems is the nature of EU
politics and the lack of a clear institutional identity. An organization that ought to promote
its own specific image and consolidate a strong reputation first needs to have a defined
and agreed institutional identity. Up until now, there is no common agreement on what
constitutes a European identity, which is the foundation for the EU institutional identity.
Leonard (1999) defines the EU as an “unfinished project”, an “evolving entity” or “network
of networks” characterized by multiple tiers of sovereignty and governance. Valentini
(2005) presents two perspectives in explaining the origins of European identity, one based
on political origins and the other on history, territory, and language. Another commonly
discussed perspective is grounded in the idea of collective identification. Accordingly, the
European identity is seen as an emerging collective identity constructed around the
concept of belonging to a certain entity whose objectives have been agreed upon by
combining collective identities (c.f., Burgess, 2002; Robyn, 2005). Delanty (2002) offers a
different analysis of what may constitute a European identity based on four main
conceptions: moral universalism, post-national universalism, cultural particularism, and
pragmatism. These are a few of the main discussions on a European identity. Many others
exist, yet a common agreement of what constitutes a European identity has not been
reached.
An undefined identity is problematic especially when an organization wants to
communicate what it does and what it stands for. According to Orlitzky et al. (2003) and
Roberts and Dowling (2002), important relationships exist between organizational identity,
image, reputation, and organizational performance. Reputation management is often about
aligning public perceptions and expectations of an organization with the perceptions and
expectations that the organization ought to communicate about itself (Sanders, 2011).
When an organization, in this case the EU and its institutions, lacks an agreed-upon
identity, a clear problem exists in setting up a reputation management plan for use in
communicating what the EU is all about and consequently for managing its reputation.
This is one of the fundamental dilemmas of bureaucratic organizations, as Cheney (1991)
postulated more than twenty years ago. He argued that “Large bureaucratic organizations
are in the business of identity management; their controlling members must be concerned
about how to represent the organization as a whole and how to connect the individual
identities of many members to that embracing collective identity” (Cheney, 1991: 15). This
is a challenge that EU institutions face on a daily basis. They need to represent
themselves as a whole organization – the EU – but they also need to connect the
individual member states’ identities and political identities to specific EU institutional

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frameworks. A solution for a common definition of what the European identity constitutes is
troublesome. An organizational identity is not a fixed and immutable definition of an
organization, but is discursively created and reshaped. It may, therefore, be more viable to
work around the idea of agreeing on common values which, through a flexible integration
as exposed by Christensen et al. (2008), could help the EU to solve its “identity problem” –
at least in part.
EU political relationship management
The EU has a clear interest in developing a relational approach to political public relations
with various key publics (Valentini & Nesti, 2010). Traditionally, the European Union has
four major key publics with whom it has tried to build and maintain mutual relationships.
These are: 1) national governments, who can affect the decision-making process in the
Council of the EU and the adoption of new legislation in the member states; 2) journalists
and the mass media in general, which affect the way the EU is perceived by citizens; 3)
EU citizens, whose engagement is necessary to further integrate the Union; and 4) interest
groups representing particular and often minority interests that democratic institutions
cannot avoid taking into consideration when deliberating specific issues.
While OPR studies dealing with the EU and governments of member states are scarce,
some studies (e.g., Martins et al., 2012; Meyer, 1999; 2009; Laursen & Valentini, 2013) on
media relations and the EU can provide some insights into EU relational activities.
Relationship strategies with the mass media seem to be extremely dispersed (Thiel, 2008),
although they have improved since Anderson and McLeod’s (2004) study of the European
Parliament’s Press and Information Directorate, and Meyer’s (1999) research on the
European Commission’s media communication activities. The findings of these studies, in
fact, portrayed EU press officers as “amateurs” in media relations. Communications to
journalists have become increasingly professionalized, and EU institutions have developed
better media products together with facilities and tools for providing more useful
information (Valentini & Nesti, 2010). However, despite various “white papers” on
information and communication strategies, EU communication strategy is still quite
ambiguous and introduces too many unspecified suggestions: there is uncertainty about
which public groups should be involved and how they should be involved (Thiel, 2008);
communication initiatives are often not emotionally appealing to citizens (Moore, 2009);
and EU media relations activities are not integrated and consistent (Valentini & Laursen,
2012).
Relationship initiatives with citizens have been the least developed of these areas. In the
past, European leaders did not regard the involvement of citizens in the European
integration process as being of any great significance, mostly because they believed they
held a “permissive consensus” since citizens seemed to be uninterested in EU politics.
Thus, for many decades, they pursued their own policy interests without official public
support (Hooghe & Marks, 2008; Inglehart, 1971; Lindberg & Scheingold, 1970). Since the
rejection of the ratification of the EU Constitution in 2005 by France and the Netherlands,
greater attention has been devoted to involving citizens (Valentini & Nesti, 2010). E-
polling, e-consultation platforms, blogging, e-voting, e-petitions, and e-campaigning are
new political public relations tactics that have been used to boost citizens’ participation in
politics and even to build relationships (Levenshus, 2010; Tomkova, 2010). Examples

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such as the Debate Europe Website, Your Voice in Europe and Citizens Agora, and online
platforms for public consultations in which citizens can discuss EU issues show that
citizen-publics do not recognize a similar problem and thus do not act consistently on it –
as in Grunig and Repper’s definition of publics (1992). Consequently, their power in
affecting EU policy-making processes is extremely weak – as is their impact in stimulating
dialogue, reciprocity, and two-way learning (c.f., Tomkova, 2010; Just, 2010). Just (2010)
studied conversations on the Debate Europe forum and observed a certain level of
openness, involvement, and commitment by forum participants; however, the level of trust
varied substantially across the topics discussed and the participants in question. The
participation rate was also quite low. Overall, the above-mentioned initiatives had the
potential to develop covenantal relationships between the EU and its citizens, i.e.,
relationships in which both sides commit to a common good by their open exchanges and
the norm of reciprocity (Hung, 2005, p. 398). However, this did not happen.
The EU and especially the Commission have a great interest in developing mutual and
beneficial relationships with interest group publics because they rely on key publics such
as area/policy experts, think-tank organizations, interest groups, and civil society
organizations to collect information and positions on diverse policy issues with a view to
drafting proposals. It is a mutual and beneficial relationship. Key publics can influence
legislative proposals by providing their own reading of the political issue in question, often
backed up by factual analyses. On the other hand, the Commission can save resources by
allowing these key publics to conduct their own research on policy issues, and, at the
same time, it can gain important insights and research-based material across a variety of
regions and positions. While relations with interest groups and think tanks have a long
history, not until recently has the EU had a clear strategic approach for relationship
management with this group. In 2005, the Commission called for more cooperation and
dialogue with civil society with a position paper titled Plan D – for Democracy, Dialogue
and Debate (COM494 final, 2005), and later in 2007 with a follow-up paper called
Communicating Europe in Partnership (COM568 final, 2007), in which it clearly indicated
the willingness to establish a close dialogue with civil society organizations and to create a
network of partners for EU communications at a local level. In sum, to boost participation
and to decentralize information and communication activities, the Commission decided to
open up to civil society organizations more formally.
Various political public relations activities were used to create mutual relationships with
organizations with diffused interests, such as non-governmental organizations involved in
the environment, human rights, women’s rights, or consumerism. For the first time, these
organizations saw an opportunity to influence the very beginning of the EU political
agenda, and thus welcomed the Commission’s initiative (Valentini, 2010). Relationship
activities were handled by the local Europe Direct network, which is a network of 468
national and regional information centers across the European Union’s 27 member states.
These centers were empowered to establish cooperation with local civil society
organizations. This relationship management initiative with local civil society is still in force,
although results indicate a misalignment between civil society expectations and those of
the EU regarding the nature and benefits of relationship initiatives (c.f., Valentini, 2010).
The Commission has managed to build a network of highly relevant relationships with
certain interest groups of an economic and social nature, but the majority of civil society
organizations still have limited power in influencing the EU political agenda (c.f., Steffek,

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Kissling, & Nanz, 2008). Despite the initial presumptions, most of the relationships
between the EU and civil society organizations fall outside the relational win-win zone as
indicated by Hung (2005), more often describing a contractual relationship type.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
A strong political reputation and the existence of mutual and beneficial relationships
between key publics and political actors/institutions are extremely important in today’s
globalized, interconnected world – particularly in democratic societies. Managing
reputation and building strong relations with constituencies, citizens, and organizations of
various types are not only desirable activities when elections are imminent. They are also
necessary in any political action in which multiple publics are involved. Strong relationships
with key publics can facilitate the process of decision-making, because when political
actors and key publics have a strong relationship, they trust each other and they trust that
actions proposed by the trustee conform to their expectations. Therefore, good
relationships can help political actors to reach agreements faster and to make negotiations
smoother. Good relationships can also help in building a strong reputation – although the
reverse is also true. A politician, government, or political institution that holds a positive
reputation may encounter fewer obstacles when establishing new relationships with key
publics. However, there are challenges in managing relationships with key publics and in
building strong political reputations.
This article has examined the state of EU political public relations by focusing on the
communication activities of the three most important decision-making institutions, namely
the Commission, the Parliament, and the Council. It contributes to the field of political
public relations by providing a critical review of EU political public relations and exploring
the extent to which current knowledge of reputation and relationship management can be
applied to the EU political context. In its exploratory nature, it offers a more nuanced
understanding of the possibilities and limitations of reputation and relationship
management in a political context. The case of the European Union was chosen as an
example to illustrate some of the challenges that, for instance, national governments may
have when trying to abide with reputation and relationship constructs. The case of the EU
indicates that building a positive reputation may be more difficult than expected due to the
complexity of the political system, which does not help in defining a clear identity and does
not provide incentives for image and reputation management. However, the literature
indicates that having an ambiguous political identity undermines reputation management
efforts. The article also pinpoints that it may be a difficult exercise to build and to maintain
mutual relationships with all different publics in a political context such as the EU. One
group may enter into a relationship with a political actor for one reason, while another
group may do so for contrasting reasons. How can a political public relations manager
handle discrepancies and contrasting expectations on behalf of a politician, political party,
or even a national government? Are all relationships of equal importance? And how can a
political actor/institution handle mutual and beneficial relationships without being accused
of giving preferences to specific voices or even being suspected of favoritism, nepotism, or
graft?
This is not to say that political actors/institutions should not embark on reputation and
relationship management due to the complexity of their constitutive environment, nor that

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2013
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they should prioritize reputation management over information management. The provision
of balanced accounts of political discussion is, indeed, an essential element of democratic
societies. Still, the quest for democratic legitimacy of a supranational institution such as
the EU indicates a need for more and better reputation and relationship management.
Without legitimacy – i.e. “a license to operate”– the whole existence of the EU is
undermined. In the light of this legitimacy issue, the discussion of EU political public
relations does raise a number of questions about how political reputation and relationship
management should be understood, taking into consideration the specific constraints that
previous literature on public sector organizations has indicated and, at the same time, the
democratic duty of political actors/institutions to inform citizens of political matters. These
are questions that require further study. Research is needed to unfold the extent of the
issues of managing reputation and relationships with key publics that are specific to the
political context and how they vary.

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