Across the Continents: the Global Reach of Public Affairs

Published date01 May 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1613
Date01 May 2016
Editorial
Across the Continents: the Global Reach
of Public Affairs
Public affairs has grown from an industry and re-
search base focused on North America and Europe
to one reecting the world and incorporating the
growing consumer strength and development of
Asia. When we launched this journal a decade
ago, it was dominated by North American research
and practice, reecting much of the then existent
economic and cultural hegemony. Increasingly, this
was balanced by European contributions as the
European Union evolved, and the UK lobbying
and communications industry developed alongside
its Commonwealth connected partners.
This general issue reects the new world with au-
thors, contributing from Brazil, China, Ghana, Italy,
Kenya, Korea, Pakistan, South Africa, Sweden,
Switzerland, Thailand, the UK and the USA. It
allows one to evaluate and assess similar issues in
each region and state and the campaigns and policy
development to aid clarity, accountability, good
governance and transparency.
The rst paper is by John G, Blair of the Uni-
versity of Geneva, Switzerland and the School of
English and International Studies at Beijing Foreign
Studies University, Beijing, China. It is a commen-
tary piece entitled The Dual Governing System of the
Peoples Republic of China and reects his consider-
able knowledge, reections and distinguished
collaborations across Beijing and China over the
past decade and more reecting on the differences
between the USA, the West and China. His latest
book with Jerusha McCormack, Thinking through
China(2016) is a cause celebre of understanding
the differences between Chinese and European and
American thinking and will be reviewed in the next
issue. The invited paper outlines how the basic pol-
icy-making system and management of the political
process in modern China works. The diagram
contained in the article will be invaluable to enable
understanding by public affairs practitioners, policy
makers and international business gures. We seem
to have good diagrams and maps of political deci-
sion-making in Brussels, London, Washington and
other political centres but do not have a great deal
on how Beijing and Chinese policy decision-making
works. This is an invaluable contribution and will
allow us to better understand the process, policy
making and decision making governmental system
of China.
Blair outlines how the dual governing system of
China has proved to be a very effective way of over-
seeing the extraordinary multi complexities and the
resultant dynamic issues of managing a state as di-
verse and on such a vast scale as the China. Because
it is unusual in the world today, perhaps even
unique, it is important to clarify how the present
structure of government and governance came
about and how it functions. Some outsiders may un-
thinkingly assume that the Chinese government
operates as the power governing the country. But
in China, the government is in fact the outward
and visible face of the governance system. Behind
(and above) the government is the Communist
Party of China. The Party now has around 85mil-
lion members, between 5% and 6% approximately
of the population. This group denes the political
class in todays China and functions as a leadership
group. The Party determines policy and oversees
appointments at all levels of public service. These
ofcials are in fact in charge, managing their gov-
ernment counterparts through the dual system of
governance.
The second article is entitled, Bridge or Buffer:Two
Ideas of Effective Corporate Governance and Public
Engagement. It is a commentary piece by Kim, Soojin
of the Singapore Management University, Lee Kong
Chian School of Business, Singapore and Kim,
Jeong-Nam of Purdue University, Brian Lamb
School of Communication, West Lafayette, Indiana,
USA. The paper identies organisational factors
that inuence corporate governance and for-
mulation of public relations strategies for public
engagement. The study explores intertwined rela-
tionships between public relations strategies and
organisational factors. A total of 22 qualitative
Journal of Public Affairs
Volume 16 Number 2 pp 107110 (2016)
Published online in Wiley Online Library
(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1613
Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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