The Many Faces of Public Affairs : A Study of Constructs, Conditions and Claims in a Disputed Field of Practice

Abstract: This thesis explores the communicative constructs and practices of public affairs in Sweden. As a mainstream communication function, public affairs is undertaken by a wide range of actors who wish to influence public policy, and the opportunity to do so is a vital part of any democratic system. At the same time, the practice of public affairs is closely associated with secrecy, inequality and accusations of poor ethics, which makes critical voices question whether lobbyists impede democratic processes. To join the conversation on the role of public affairs in society, this thesis approaches public affairs from several perspectives. The main focus is a specific group of public affairs practitioners, namely consultants. The thesis illustrates how lobbying has been framed and discussed in the media and considers how these discourses relate to the debate on lobbying in general. Further, it describes values, attitudes and conceptualizations amongst public affairs practitioners through the study of role conceptions. The studies in the thesis present new nuances or categories of roles and hence adds to previous research on the modelling of roles. Moreover, the results show that many public affairs consultants are claiming a proactive role where they pursue clients and assignments based on their own independent agendas and on personal ethics, and I discuss whether consultants should act as political agents or impartial advocates in their occupational role. The dissertation further engages with the issue of legitimacy and stigma surrounding public affairs and shows how the tainted image of public affairs serves as a resource and impediment in the construction of an occupational identity. Overall, the contribution of the dissertation is a more nuanced and varied understanding of various constructs of public affairs, conditions for public affairs work, and the consequences the practices have for society and the building of democratic cultures.