The relationship management function of public affairs officers in Chile: Identifying opportunities and challenges in an emergent market

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2080
• Author: Phillip C. Arceneaux,Claudia Labarca,Guy J. Golan
• Date: 01 August 2020
• Published date: 01 August 2020

ACADEMIC PAPER

The relationship management function of public affairs officers

in Chile: Identifying opportunities and challenges in an

emergent market

Claudia Labarca

1

| Phillip C. Arceneaux

2

| Guy J. Golan

3

1

Communications, Pontificia Universidad

Católica de Chile

2

College of Journalism and Communications,

University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida

3

Center for Media & Public Opinion, TX

Correspondence

Claudia Labarca, Communications, Pontificia

Universidad Católica de Chile.

Email: claudialabarca@uc.cl

Research on the public affairs profession in both South and Latin America is one of

the leading limitations today in international public relations research. This study

helps to lessen such a gap by offering more realistic insight into the ideologies and

pressures that govern public affairs practice in Chile. In-depth interviews were con-

ducted with 15 experts who are current senior-level public affairs practitioners in the

Chilean capital of Santiago. Results offer three key insights: First, the core function

of public affairs in Chile surrounds behaviors of lobbying and governmental relations.

Second, leveraging cohesion between organizational private interest and the public

interest is a key to leveraging pressure on elected officials and governmental agen-

cies. Lastly, there is significant concern regarding public trust in the lack of transpar-

ency in the Chilean public affairs field, facilitated by insufficient governmental

regulation. Such research offers practical and grounded insights for public affairs and

public relations scholarship.

1|INTRODUCTION

The field of public affairs has gained considerable attention from pub-

lic relations scholars over past decades. As a long-standing practice,

public affairs ranges across governments, corporations, interest

groups, and issue advocacy (Heath, 2013). Although the term “public

affairs”is widely used in both professional and academic circles, there

is little consensus over what the term actually means (Davidson,

2015). A review of relevant research points to two three key themes:

First, public affairs is a multidisciplinary area of scholarship that bor-

rows perspectives and theories from various fields (Fleisher, 2012).

Second, based on its relationship management function, public affairs

is viewed as a public relations subset (Heath, 2013). Finally, the ulti-

mate outcome of public affairs relationships is a direct focus on public

policy outcomes (Davidson & Rowe, 2016) through a variety of func-

tions including governmental relations, lobbying (Sadi & Meneghetti,

2019), and corporate activism (McGrath, Moss, & Harris, 2010).

The current study aims to advance knowledge on public affairs

scholarship by exploring key definitions and functions of the profes-

sion as understood by its practitioners. Although public affairs

research is multidisciplinary, our study examines the topic from a core

public relations perspective. The focus on the relationship manage-

ment function is highlighted in White's description of public affairs as

“a specialist area of practice within public relations. It is concerned

with those relationships which are involved in the development of

public policy, legislation and regulation which may affect organiza-

tions, their interests and operations”(1991, p. 55). Recognizing the

centrality of the relationship management function to public relations,

public affairs is situated succinctly around achieving public policy out-

comes that rest at the nexus between corporate and governmental

organizations and a variety of stakeholders (Arceneaux, Borden, &

Golan, 2019; Grunig, 1983; Theaker, 2016; Toth, 1986).

Unlike many studies that focus on the United States and Europe,

this study provides a unique perspective as this research is conducted

in South America, a region largely absents in public relations research.

A key limitation of scholarship in this area is its tendency to

reappropriate empirical findings from one country across cultural

boundaries and geopolitical borders, namely, from Western countries

to other regions of the world. In the context of public relations and

public affairs, this is especially true due to the roots of the modern

profession in the United States and its prevalence in Europe. Any gen-

eralizations that ignore historical and cultural factors, however, are

Received: 30 May 2019 Revised: 8 October 2019 Accepted: 7 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/pa.2080

J Public Affairs. 2020;20:e2080. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/pa © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 1of12

https://doi.org/10.1002/pa.2080