Freedom and transparency in turbulent times: Some thoughts and issues

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1673
• Author: Phil Harris
• Date: 01 August 2017
• Published date: 01 August 2017

EDITORIAL

Freedom and transparency in turbulent times: Some thoughts

and issues

This is a general issue and is composed of a broad and vibrant

collection of 20 articles and covers a range of issues and draws on

researchers and practitioners work from across four continents,

reflecting the depth of research in the public affairs area. It is almost

a menu for a banquet of public affairs issues. The issue covers

transparency, financial regulation, public administration management,

migration, gun laws, health care, lobbying, and political positioning

amongst its themes and reflects the growth and width of the industry

and research globally.

The first article is by Peter Jones, Martin Wynne, and Daphne

Comfort of the Business School at the University of Gloucester and

David Hillier of the Centre for Police Sciences at the University of

South Wales. It is a commentary piece on City Deals within the UK

which are basically bespoke packages of funding and decision making

negotiated between national government and local authorities and

are increasingly used to promote economic development. The paper

outlines the development and characteristics of the City Deals

programme and offers reflections on a number of the key issues

relating to the programme, particularly, accountability and evaluation,

the relationship between the local and national states, the role of

planning, and sustainable development.

The second article is by Kevin A Diehl of the Department of

Accounting and Finance, Western Illinois University QC, Moline,

Illinois, USA. In Professor Diehl0s Commentary piece, “Can the U.S.

government legally monitor private communications? If so, given the

U.S.0s significant protection of privacy rights, what government

cannot?”he topically and candidly reflects on the meaning of privacy

and human rights and government access to citizen0s communications.

He focuses on the U.S. and recent attempts in the legal system to give

access to government against recent terrorist group activity using the

Internet. The focus of his analysis is on the Wikimedia Foundation case

and the increasing erosion by government of internet and civil liberty

freedoms. It brings to mind in a period of disruption and highly

publicised and self‐promoting violence what does the Land of the Free

and Freedom mean in a cyber and social media dominated world. Think

this will dominate much public affairs work and thinking for the next

decade as clearly there are no answers but governments and policy

makers will be looking for them.

The next contributionis an academic article entitled “Modelling the

relationshipbetween counter‐knowledge and open‐mindednessfor pol-

icy development”by Pedro‐José Martínez‐Ortiz‐1, Sandra Moffett‐2,

Fernando A. López Hernández‐1, and Juan‐Gabriel, Cegarra‐Navarro‐1

of 1‐Facultad de Ciencias de la Empresa, Universidad Politécnica de

Cartagena, Cartagena,Spain and 2‐School of Computing and Intelligent

Systems, Ulster University,Londonderry, UK.

The authors argue that counter‐knowledge refers to flaws in

citizens0mental models arising from utilisation of rumours,

inappropriate knowledge structures, outdated routines or procedures

and when counter‐knowledge is applied to civil servants, it may result

in problems of efficiency, equity, and motivation. This paper examines

the relationship between counter‐knowledge and open‐mindedness to

model a framework for improving city marketing and policy

development. Relationships are examined through an empirical

investigation of 203 Spanish City governments. The results show a

potential positive indirect effect of counter‐knowledge on open‐

mindedness through city marketing programmes.

The fourth article is an academic article from André M, Everett and

Jane, Yuting, ZHUANG of the Department of Management, University

of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. It is entitled “Surviving Local

Government Policy Intervention: The Case of Embedded Markets

within a Historical Cultural Cluster”it is a useful paper in that it allows

one to draw historic comparators which can help frame analysis and

policy making. It outlines that China0s name derives from “china”

(porcelain), and “China”(pronounced as “Changnan”) is the former

name of Jingdezhen, the capital city of porcelain—through whose

exports of “blue‐and‐white”china the country gained international

renown. The 2200‐year‐old porcelain cluster in Jingdezhen has

survived through multiple empires with distinct policies towards the

development of the city0s dominant industry. This case study examines

interactions between local government and the business community to

discover the effectiveness of policies and the perception of those

policies by entrepreneurs through qualitative research employing

Grounded Theory methodology.

The next article is by David G, Mueller, and Ronald Frandsen of

the Regional Justice Information Service Commission (REJIS), Saint

Louis, Missouri, United States, and is entitled “Trends in Firearm

Background Check Applications and Denials.”It is very useful as we

reflect on gun ownership policy internationally and can see over the

last few months mass shootings in Chicago on an almost weekly basis

which are often leading to more deaths than one sees in conflict areas

such as Kabul or Bagdad. The authors argue that there is little research

on firearm background check applications and regulation despite the

potential for such research to significantly benefit policy and practice.

It confirms that the U.S. firearm background check system is complex

DOI: 10.1002/pa.1673

J Public Affairs. 2017;17:e1673.

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1673

Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa 1of4