Power-sharing and political public relations

Public Relations Review 39 (2013) 293–302

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Public Relations Review

Power-sharing and political public relations:

Government-press relationships in Northern Ireland’s

developing democratic institutions

Charis Rice∗, Ian Somerville

University of Ulster, 37 Shore Road, Newtownabbey, County Antrim, Northern Ireland BT37 0QB, United Kingdom

a r t i c l e i n f o

Article history:

Received 2 July 2012

Received in revised form 20 May 2013

Accepted 14 July 2013

Keywords:

Political public relations

Government-press relationships

Power-sharing

Northern Ireland

a b s t r a c t

Northern Ireland’s democratic governance is consociational (i.e. power-sharing is manda￾tory) and therefore substantially different from the majoritarian electoral system which

characterizes most Western democratic societies. Consociationalism has been advocated

as a form of democracy which can reconcile post-conflict societies fragmented along eth￾nic, religious or linguistic lines. Political public relations within mandatory coalitions have

received little attention from scholars to date. Drawing on data from elite interviews with

Government Information Officers (GIOs), Ministerial Special Advisers (SpAds) and journal￾ists in Northern Ireland,this paper analyses their perspectives on political public relations in

NorthernIreland’s evolvingdemocratic institutions. Ourfindings suggest NorthernIreland’s

public sphere is characterized not just by the usual contest between government commu￾nicators and journalists over political stories, but also by competition across government

departments and within departments between GIOs and SpAds. Our research investigates

the role of public relations in Northern Ireland’s developing democratic institutions and

more generally identifies important issues surrounding government communication in

post-conflict power-sharing democracies.

© 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

In all societies the development of public relations has been influenced by both the political system and media struc￾tures embedded in that society (Sriramesh & Vercic, 2009). This study takes this foundational assumption and extends it to

presume that the influence of key structural and institutional factors will also play a major role in determining the kind of

government public relations that will develop in a society. Northern Ireland’s democratic governance is consociational (i.e.

power-sharing is mandatory) and therefore substantially different from the majoritarian electoral systems which character￾ize most Western democratic societies. Consociationalism is advocated by some political science scholars (Lijphart, 2008)

as a form of democracy which can reconcile societies fragmented along ethnic, religious or linguistic lines, particularly

those which have experienced conflict. Political public relations within mandatory coalitions have received little attention

from scholars, despite the fact that consociationalism is increasingly advocated as a solution to the fragmented conflict

ridden societies of sub-Saharan Africa, and has already emerged as a political system in divided societies such as Bosnia and

Herzegovina, Switzerland, India, Macedonia, Lebanon, Belgium and Northern Ireland (Lemarchand, 2007). Drawing on data

from elite interviews with Government Information Officers (GIOs), Special Advisers (SpAds) and journalists in Northern

∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 28 90366869.

E-mail addresses: [email protected], [email protected] (C. Rice), [email protected] (I. Somerville).

0363-8111/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2013.07.014