The War to End All Wars: Reflections on the First World War and Public Affairs

• Author: Phil Harris
• Published date: 01 February 2015
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/pa.1559
• Date: 01 February 2015

■Editorial

The War to End All Wars: Reflections on

the First World War and Public Affairs

As I write this many of us are reflecting upon the

outbreak and impact of the First World War on

Europe and the World. It was declared during the

Summer of 1914 in Europe, when much decision

making was limited due to leaders being on holiday

and was almost inevitable as some have argued, as

the trains had been booked and troops were mobi-

lised. Clearly political communications were not

good and European Continental Entente fell apart

under the pressures of ambition, greed, nationalism,

a lack of trust and public affairs systems not being in

place to build cooperation and stop mass

destruction.

As Margot Asquith the wife of the British Prime

minister put it “War! War! –everyone at dinner

discussing how long the war would last. The

average opinion was 3 weeks to 3 months”(24

th

July 1914, Page 4 in Brock and Brock, 2014). Of

course others, Kitchener, amongst them said it

would be a year.

It was not a short war but a long one, that lasted

for over four years and sucked in every part of the

world and destroyed a generation of youth and

leaders, which Europe has taken almost a hundred

years to fully recover from. Let us reflect, draw

lessons and do all in our power to ensure it is never

contemplated again and that political decision

making and public affairs is never as in inadequate

again

The themes within this general issue of the JPA

focus on climate change, corruption, environmen-

tal policy, lobbying, political marketing, public

affairs, renewable energy and water policy. A

range of critical areas of study and operation both

for the modern researcher and practitioner in

international public affairs. Countries covered

include Belgium, Eire, Switzerland, UK, US and

of course organisationally interesting in trade and

regulation terms the WTO.

The first academic paper is entitled, “The demo-

cratic contribution of political market re-

searchers”, and is by, Jennifer Lees-Marshment of

the Department of Political Studies, University of

Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand. In her timely

article, she reminds us that market research is

being used more effectively and widely to aid

political decision making and political marketing.

Whether it be the work of Karl Rove or the late

Philip Gould, the effectiveness of dialogue and

communicating voters’interests and moods to

politicians is critical to decision making and

campaigning. The sophistication of the market

research process has grown and leads to improved

dialogue and policy making if the politician or his

advisers are prepared to listen.

The first Research Note is entitled “Spotlight on

solar farms ”and is by Peter Jones

1

,DaphneCom-

fort

1

and David Hillier

21

Business School, University of

Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK

2

Centre for Police

Sciences, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, UK. It

is a very useful summary of the evolution of solar

power farms in the UK and the issues they are

raising especially in the South West and South

East of England. It argues that public affairs

and public relations has a key role to play in

arguing for the acceptance of sustainable energy

sources in the UK media.

The second paper, “Understanding the role of

technology in reducing corruption: a transaction

cost approach is by Ambika Prasad

1

and Sridevi

Shivarajan

2

of

1

A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane

University, LA, USA and

2

Anisfield School of Business,

Ramapo College of New Jersey, Mahwah, NJ, USA.It

argues that good ITsystems and websites when used

effectively can aid good governance and counter

corruption if adopted effectively by government. It

uses data from Europe and India to show what best

practice is and how corruption in government trans-

actions can be reduced. Standard systems and proce-

dures on tenders and contracts are more open to

abuse than those that are more flexible and open to

wider scrutiny.

Another area for further research is that many

government contract or purchase procedures often

Journal of Public Affairs

Volume 15 Number 1 pp 1–3 (2015)

Published online 3 February 2015 in Wiley Online Library

(www.wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/pa.1559

Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.