Public Affairs in a social perspective

Our book will be published on Thursday, August 29 Public Affairs in a social perspective, which we have been working hard on lately. The book was written by Arco Timmermans, Robbert Coops, Sybrig van Keep, Rob de Lange and Erik van Venice. In the run-up to the presentation, we will explain some elements from the book in a series of blogs.

Why a new book on public affairs?

When issues become more complicated, you can no longer manage with your intuition alone. Then systematic knowledge is over public affairs (PA) needed. That is one of the reasons why we wrote this book.

A few years ago, Rob de Lange came along with the proposal to write a book about public affairs. Not yet another book with do's and donts. No, the public affairs profession needs more integration between science and practice. It is high time for an inspiring integration, seen through the eyes of the 'reflective professional'. From his years of experience as a university lecturer, Rob had already put some thoughts on paper. He looked for people who could provide additions from science and practice, seen through the eyes of the world reflective practitioner.

Soon, a group of five enthusiastically started working on building that bridge between science and practice. Two scientists, Arco Timmermans and Rob de Lange, and three people with years of experience in public affairs practice and with an interest in science: Robbert Coops, Sybrig van Keep and Erik van Venice.

Does PA really need science?

We spent many Friday afternoons at the Hague Campus of Leiden University, Arco's workplace. We discussed whether a public affairs professional needs a scientific background, or whether public affairs is an independent field. And is public affairs part of communication affairs or the other way around?

Sometimes we sighed that we would be happy when the book would finally be finished. Sometimes we speculated on a revised version or an English translation, because it couldn't stay with this version. And we often laughed about each other: about Erik's models and tables, about the stacks of books that Rob carried to every meeting, about Robbert's Chinese adventures, about Arco's monologues and about Sybrig's belief in social change.

Not just politics anymore

In our book we take our shared belief as a starting point that advocacy focuses less and less on politics alone and increasingly on stakeholders in society. The time when a lobbyist could limit himself to 'The Hague' is over. Nowadays, the public affairs professional must focus his/her work on the broad environment of the organization. That is the social perspective that we explore in our book.

A second reason for writing this book is the added value of the combination of science and practice. A professional can come a long way based on experience and intuition. But issues are becoming more complex. Public affairs professionals increasingly have to deal with... wicked issues: persistent themes where every solution causes new problems.

You will no longer be able to make it by working 'on your instincts'. Then rational knowledge is needed, derived from systematic research, also from related fields. In our book we have described various theoretical perspectives that can support and inspire professionals.

A third reason for writing the book was of course that it was just fun to work on our field and think about how it is developing.