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[Commlist] cfp - ICA lobbying postconference

Mon Dec 17 18:10:16 GMT 2018





Public Affairs and lobbying within and across nations
Call for Papers

This call for papers invites the submission of abstracts for a one-day post-conference on international and domestic dimensions of public affairs and lobbying, in one the most significant global centres of communicative practice for political influence. Alongside the academic papers we expect the event to be addressed by significant keynote speakers from US politics and lobbying. Public affairs and Lobbying are vital foundations for the functioning of representative democracies. Between elections civic society groups undertake campaigns to inform and persuade elected representatives. In theory these campaigns by organisations and social movements provide a bridging link between the public and politics, as well as providing the rhetorical spaces to mobilise participation and strengthen policy proposals. However, public trust in the efficacy of civic participation and the integrity of policy-making is damaged by the perception that research-rich groups, particularly transnational corporations enjoy unfair advantages. This trust deficit is deepened by the growing unease at the scale of interest groups seeking influence across borders, the extent to which it is not just the citizens resident within a state who holds sway over policy agendas, but to varying extent foreign actors as well. The regular stream of controversies has resulted in a situation where practitioners struggle to establish their legitimacy as protagonists who make valuable contributions to societal problem solving, with regulatory actions enacted to both control corporate and civic society activism. The globalisation of influence has evolved in tandem with the application of digital technology and social media. A mediatised public sphere has increasingly incorporated social media logic and open software movements have developed as attempts to democratise the datafication of campaigns and politics. Over the last few years new networks of scholars interested in the communicative dimensions to public affairs and lobbying are being founded. Building on the collaborative events and research projects in Europe organised by the EUPRERA network on public affairs and lobbying, the networks are taking on new inter-regional dimensions and a presence at ICA annual conferences. At the ICA conference in Prague in 2018 the first post-conference on the theme of Lobbying and Democracy saw paper sessions range across themes such media strategies, contested notions of the public interest and the democratic legitimacy of lobbying within and across national borders.

The 2019 post-conference will build on this work. A diversity of theoretical, methodological and empirical papers is welcomed. Topics that will be considered for the conference include, but are not limited to, themes such as: * Dimensions of the link between inequalities and communicative power; * Lobbying or public diplomacy centred on influencing policy issues across national boundaries; * The relationship between lobbying strategies or practice and regulatory regimes; * How can communication strategies be evaluated against democratic norms; * Public discourses about and public perceptions of public affairs professionals; * The role of news media and journalists in public affairs; * Digital advocacy; * New methodological innovations for analysing lobbying, particularly those that open up the ability to utilise public data; * Tech and software innovations that can assist under represented or low resource groups to compete in the influence game. Submission Abstracts (up to 800 words) should be submitted to Scott Davidson - (sd310 /at/ leicester.ac.uk) - before January 31, 2019. Abstracts will be anonymised and reviewed with feedback and decisions on acceptance within two weeks of the deadline date. Submitters will be then asked to confirm their participation latest by end of February. All post conference participants are requested to send a full paper by April 30. The organisers are exploring the possibility of a special edition of a journal based on the conference and will be in contact with updates when there is more news on this.

Supported by: ICA Public Relations Division
ICA Public Diplomacy Division
ICA Global Communication and Social Change Division


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