Tag Archive: lobbying


Public affairs – What I want is data

Filed under: public affairs — 2 Comments
January 19, 2011

Thanks to my good colleague Christian Thams in our Brussels office for mailing me a paper by Dr. Heike Kluever on “Lobbying and the issue context: a quantitative analysis of issue group influence in the European Union“.

The findings of Dr. Kluever’s paper are not in themselves surprising. In examining a town (Brussels) that is based on consensus, her paper concludes through a quantitative assessment of Commission consultations, interest group responses and Commission proposals that:

(a) interest groups with relatively broader coalitions are more likely to be more successful in achieving their objectives.

(b) coalitions of interest groups that are relatively smaller than their opponents will find it harder to win the more “public” the debate becomes. (saliency in Dr. Kluever’s language).

I can think of campaigns I have been involved with that support, even through anecdote, the findings of the paper. Issue context and within that relative size are, as I’ve argued elsewhere in this blog, important in public affairs.

The paper does have its limitations – many of which are recognised by the author. For example, it only focuses on policy formulation rather than the later stages of policymaking (Council and Parliament). It also does not prove that complexity of an issue or the level of conflict affect the influence of interest groups – two factors the author suggests merit attention. I think we can forgive the initial focus on the policy formulation stage given it is pretty standard counsel to suggest that the longer you go on in a policy process the harder it becomes to shape. I would also argue that the very reason that Brussels is such a hub of public affairs activity is due to the generally complex nature of the policy and legislation being discussed and the relatively small manpower/expertise of the institutions, which makes them reliant on outside viewpoints on most issues.

Whatever you think of the paper, it underlines the following more general points about Brussels public affairs. As a profession we need to start being more data driven. Experience and gut, however well informed, only gets us so far.  Informing our public affairs strategies and the tactics we chose to implement them should require more from us. We need more data on audience and more data to measure success (on the former FH Brussels will be releasing its latest EP survey in the coming weeks – you can register here for further information).

Articles like this one can also only help but dispel some of the myths that surround public affairs in Brussels.  It’s not rocket science, nor is it cloak and dagger. Rather its practice is common sense, its process is open, its results can be measured. It’s part of a healthy democratic process, of which in comparison with other jurisdictions we should be proud.

Contributions like Dr. Kluever’s are helpful to the development of what we do. It would be great to see Dr. Kluever and others take some of their work and bring it to those who practice public affairs. We need this kind of debate.

James

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A U.S. take on lobbying and why it’s important

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December 3, 2010

A video from the American League of Lobbyists on the benefits to society of lobbying (via K Street Cafe).

While it clearly plays for a U.S. audience (I can see an E.U. being quite different in focus) it does at least reflect my thoughts on the need for  the government relations and public affairs industry to have a communications campaign as expressed in this blog post.

James

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Two lessons worth repeating

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November 30, 2010

I was back in Brussels last week for the second time in two weeks.  As ever there was a lot going on in our busy and rapidly expanding FH Brussels universe. It seems that we ran out of desks some time ago as I ended up in the playpen with our great body of undergrad interns*.

During my visit I was reminded of two very important points for reaching your public affairs objectives in the E.U. whether you are a corporate, trade association or indeed NGO. These points may seem obvious (especially to any visiting U.S. readers of this blog), but it would appear they still need repeating.

1. Be as strong outside the Bubble as you are within it

Having a crack team in Brussels is all well and good (FH can help here), but if you’re really going to shape what’s happening in the E.U. processes you will need strong teams in key Member States (happily we can help here too) working in a coordinated fashion on E.U. policy. After all, one half of our legislature is based in Member State capitals (the perm reps are important, but decisions are still taken back home in many cases) and as our MEP survey last year showed, many of our Members of the European Parliament look homeward (media, influencers) for inspiration.

This is of course easy to say, hard to do. Lack of resources and rigidity of your organisation’s structure may make it difficult. Your national level teams may well report to business units focused on the market rather than the ever ephemeral Europe, if of course they exist at all. You are not alone if your organization relies on business managers at a market level to do public affairs as an evening job. Even if there is a dotted line between Brussels and the national capitals, when push comes to shove national priorities still are likely to take priority over European legislation. It’s only natural. There is also a tendency in Brussels to, well, think only about Brussels.

My advice; seek ‘owned’ teams in markets where you are strong (home market, key markets – normally the big five) and plug and play with trade bodies and consultants elsewhere as needed.

2. It’s the media stupid

U.S. readers will be shocked to hear this advice, but Brussels based actors need to keep reminding themselves that while media may not drive the agenda within the Bubble, it sure does at a national level.  As such, not only do those on the ground at Member State level need to be strong enough and motivated enough to liaise directly with government on E.U. issues, they also need the ability to drive and manage public policy issues in the other channels that influence the people we’re trying to persuade. Meeting the right folks at Member State level with solid facts and argumentation counts for close to zero if the media wind is blowing around your policy issue and against you. The policymaker may agree with you, but politically they just won’t be able to support you. Going to see them again will have little effect.

Again, this is a hard ask. Other channels of communications (earned and paid media, online, third parties) do not tend to be the remit of public affairs in organizations in Europe, nevermind the E.U. public affairs function out of Brussels! Nevertheless in terms of shaping the policy environment they’re an essential part of our toolkit. As such, public affairs functions need to start making a case that all communications functions (including public affairs) need to be audience centric, rather than tactic dependent. Either public affairs needs to have the specialists within it that can work all the aspects of communication towards policymakers or they need the access to others within the organization that can help and are directed to do so as part of their day jobs.

In summary, if you wish to be effective in Brussels (1) ensure that you have a strong national network to support your Brussels based activities and (2) ensure that your public affairs function is audience centric rather than tactic dependent.

All this will hopefully be common sense. But it surprises me how often it is not. Here’s the hoping that this little reminder has proved useful to some.

James

*Thanks to Rosalyn, Rosie, Irina, Freddie and Kamila for making me feel welcome in their space. Proud to see so many great undergrad interns now part of the program I put in place.

If you want to become an undergrad intern in at FH Brussels you need to get your course leader to contact our office in Brussels directly about the program. They should do so now. We only accept applications via partner universities.

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Thoughts on global public affairs

Filed under: public affairs — 2 Comments
November 19, 2010

Earlier this week saw me return home to Brussels for the first time since I moved out here in early May. I was lucky enough to be invited to come back to Europe to share my thoughts on global public affairs with a client in an interesting two hour long to and fro.

Much of my comments focused on the learning from my relatively short time here in D.C. about the differences between the two political systems and public affairs and based on this what this means for the future of public affairs around the world. A true consultant, my deck was as expansive as it was insightful. However, I thought I’d share two slides with the readers of this blog.

The first answers the question what is public affairs from my perspective. As I’ve mentioned before that term has a very different connotation here in D.C. compared to Brussels, Berlin or London. It is also true that government relations is very different in Brussels than it is in D.C. Both points still shock people I speak to on both sides of the Atlantic, despite the fact that due to the differences in political system it’s pretty obvious they will be difference in what we do. In any case, here’s my take on communications, public affairs and government relations.

 

My own view of public affairs and government relations

The second point thought I’d thought I’d share is based on where I think we should go (particularly in the Brussels market). In essence, I argued for a move from a tactic dependent government relations centric approach to a proactive public affairs centric model. The latter, as my diagram above shows, does not preclude the former. In fact, I would argue in order for public affairs to be successful, government relations is actually needed.

 

My suggestion for moving us forward

If you want to have the diagram explained in words, here’s something I wrote in a comment recently that does a decent job of it.

James

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It’s not the size of your pencil…

Filed under: public affairs — 2 Comments
July 19, 2010
Cover of "Jerry Maguire"
Is this post my Jerry Maguire moment? Cover of Jerry Maguire

When asked why I was leaving a successful role in our Brussels office to come to D.C. my answer generally went along the lines of “I want to learn new things about public affairs after 8 years here in Brussels. Where else would one go other than Washington? Public affairs is just bigger and better the other side of the pond.”

I was of course proved right. It certainly is bigger. There are far more people here doing it. Those people do it more publicly. There’s a far larger media coverage of it. This coverage drives the day’s agenda. Something which can only be dreamed of by the European Voice staff. There’s a public that takes an interest in the issues, which in turn impacts elections and the elected. Something which most of us from Brussels can only dream of.

This all leads to the public firmly being put in public affairs. Sure, government relations – see this post if you’re from Brussels – is vitally important but no amount of time on Capitol Hill is going to get cap and trade passed if Americans think it’s gonna cost jobs and increase fuel bills in a time of recession and elections. The canvas on which you will need to work is a lot bigger and your team will have to be bigger because of it.

However, it occurred to me on the Metro home the other evening that bigger may not necessarily mean better. This rather heretic thought (for someone who works at an agency) popped into my head as I looked at a full page ad by a defense contractor. It was followed several pages later by another full page ad by another defense contractor. Above my head was a message from one of the same advertisers. They were competing for the same defense contract and wanted to tell all those on the Red Line how great their plane was and how rubbish the other guy’s plane is.  Now clearly the rewards of winning the contract are high, but my mind wandered to the thought  that they would both be better off agreeing not to engage in such tactics. The two competing contractors could simply both agree just to present to the people making the decision and leave it at that. May the best man/woman/supplier of hunter-killer-missile-laden-flying-things win.

This reminded me of a scene from Mad Men‘s 1st series (what else?), when Stirling & Cooper’s client campaign falls apart on the back of  a regulatory decision to ban the  use of health claims in advertising for cigarettes. Don and the team wander around in a daze until the fateful meeting with the client, when he realizes in a spark of nicotine induced genius that actually this is liberating for him and his client. Now they can make any claim they want. They are freed from having to compete with others on this factor alone.

My point is this: size is relative.

Firstly, throwing resources at something is only likely to result in a draw if the other guy is doing likewise. It seems to me that the nature of public affairs in Washington has simply raised the barrier to entry in comparison with Brussels. It may not have made it better.

Secondly,  throwing resources at an issue is not necessarily enough to move the policy agenda in your favor, even in the absence of others doing the same. A certain level of resources are necessary in every market, but they are not sufficient.  Amongst other things the facts of the case, your message and how you communicate it, your reputation and that of your industry, who’s for you and against you and of course the interests of those you’re trying to persuade are all going to dictate whether you will have an impact on policy.

All this to say that it’s probably not the size of your pencil that matters in public affairs but more how you write your name. More on that point later.
James

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A rather European view on regulation

Filed under: politics and policy — Leave a comment
July 16, 2010

An interesting piece in this morning’s Washington Post about business schizophrenia when it comes to asking for regulation that does not harm the economy in these troubled times. Much of which resonates with experiences the other side of the Pond.

It strikes me that Europe and American companies share the same short term pressures. The pressure on numbers and share price lead to pretty short CEO life spans.

In comparing Brussels and D.C. the difference may be the nature of our legislative system, which would appear in the case of the former to be at least a little more conducive to decisions that have an eye on the longer term.

In Brussels consensus rather than conflict is the modus operandi. While every piece of legislation proposed by the Commission may not be perfect, advocates tend to base arguments on the basis of ensuring that legislation is effective, proportionate and provides the kind of regulatory certainty that the Post argues for. You’re less likely to hear business groups asking for it to be withdrawn completely. Equally our politicians are freed from the chains of public opinion through less frequent elections and scant media coverage.

O.K. Brussels’ consensus based decision-making may often equate to imperfect outcomes, and needless to say imperfect democracy, but perhaps it is also more likely to allow for planning for the long term.

James

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Does the public affairs industry need a communications campaign?

Filed under: public affairs — 3 Comments
June 13, 2010

The tragedy unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is causing much deliberation from the communications profession. It seems we delight in taking pot shots at the communications strategy of the participants, safe in the knowledge that we have not been dealt this particularly poor communications hand.

I think we can all admit that as challenges go this one is a tough one, whoever has it. And the communications profession may not like it, but the only way to solve this communications challenge is for someone to come up with an engineering solution. Until then, Anderson Cooper will be on that beach every night in his tight black t-shirt.

One thing that caught my eye in the debate about BP’s communications approach was the criticism of the company’s use of search engine marketing (SEM). It strikes me that in any crisis, and I think we’d agree this is the mother of them all, it should be one of the first tactics you would advise to ensure that people are informed about what you are doing. After all, search traffic pretty much mirrors news events.

However when I tweeted my incredulity at the response to BP’s use of SEM, I had a response from a colleague along of the lines of ‘Ah, it may seem normal to you but the rest of the world doesn’t understand what we do’. If he’s correct, it may well be the public affairs profession itself that has a communications challenge.

The fact is that whether one is talking about public affairs or government relations, we are not talking about a mystic art form handed down by Tibetan monks in sacred scripts. It’s not astro-physics or rocket science. It’s mostly about process and common sense. The general public may be surprised by this, but it’s the truth.

In a world where citizens are as familiar with some of the tactics used as the professionals, the fact that opponents of organizations can highlight the use of a particular tool as evidence of the malign nature of a corporation’s activities is somewhat bizarre. Back in Brussels we have the “Worst Lobby Awards” on an annual basis. These are awarded to industries with whom the NGO community disagrees. Not because they are doing anything illegal or underhand in their government relations, but because they happen to be advocating a view to which the NGOs do not subscribe.

How do we as industry respond to such attacks? Transparency. In Brussels, you can check out who is advocating towards the institutions on the European Commission’s website. In D.C., the government relations industry is even more heavily regulated, while public affairs is really public. Issues are played out in an aggressive media environment and pretty much everything one advises a client could potentially end up in the public realm. If you want to know who’s trying to communicate and what their message is, pick up a copy of any of the half dozen daily beltway publications and just read the advertisements.

What we need as an industry is to start following our own advice. All our talk of ‘transparency’ gives credence to the idea that there may be something inherently wrong in what we do. Instead we need to get on the front foot and start talking about not only why what we do is important to our clients but also why it’s important to society as a whole. Go on, I dare you. Next time you’re asked what you do, tell them the truth. And be proud of it.

James

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