Lobbying, public affairs, politics, and government PR

Abstract

Lobbyists are important creatures of our age. Their activities are seldom long out of the news in the United States and the United Kingdom, and scandals involving lobbying infect most democracies from time to time. The word is often used in the same breath as PR, so there is plenty of guilt by association. As with PR, and as the title of this chapter reveals, this has led to some awkwardness about what to call the “lobbying.” Although it may be the term in general use by laypeople, and the one, crucially, that is used in the media, in the United Kingdom practitioners seldom call themselves lobbyists. Many opt for “public affairs,” which is often the term preferred by the big international consultancies, although those who work in the not-for-profit sector tend to dodge all these terms (just as they avoid calling what they do PR) and lump their activities together as campaigning.