How can twenty-first-century scholars and other experts engage with wider audiences beyond their peers? In Public Influence, Mira Sucharov walks readers through the ins and outs of op-ed writing and social media engagement. Enlivened with discussions of an array of hot-button issues and sharp analysis of the delicate dynamics of social media, this book is essential reading for anyone who wants to harness the opportunities of public engagement in this vital digital age.

Gaining Influence in Public Relations explores how professionals can increase their influence in practice to help their organizations achieve success. This provocative book explores the largely uncharted territories of power, resistance, dissent, and activism in public relations, arguing that practitioners can increase their power and social legitimacy by developing and using a wider range of influence resources, strategies, and tactics. Authors Bruce K. Berger and Bryan H. Reber talked with hundreds of practitioners, analyzed original survey data, and examined a detailed case study to develop a theory of power relations. Ultimately, the book seeks to advance the ethical and effective practice of public relations. Intended for scholars and graduate students in public relations, it also has much to offer practitioners, as well as scholars and students in organizational communication, organizational theory, human resources, and leadership.

Drawing on Dale Carnegie's years of experience as a business trainer this book will show you how to overcome the natural fear of public speaking, to become a successful speaker and even learn to enjoy it.

In recent decades Washington has seen an alarming rise in the number of "revolving door lobbyists"—politicians and officials cashing in on their government experience to become influence peddlers on K Street. These lobbyists, popular wisdom suggests, sell access to the highest bidder. Revolving Door Lobbying tells a different, more nuanced story. As an insider interviewed in the book observes, where the general public has the "impression that lobbyists actually get things done, I would say 90 percent of what lobbyists do is prevent harm to their client from the government." Drawing on extensive new data on lobbyists’ biographies and interviews with dozens of experts, authors Timothy M. LaPira and Herschel F. Thomas establish the facts of the revolving door phenomenon—facts that suggest that, contrary to widespread assumptions about insider access, special interests hire these lobbyists as political insurance against an increasingly dysfunctional, unpredictable government. With their insider experience, revolving door lobbyists offer insight into the political process, irrespective of their connections to current policymakers. What they provide to their clients is useful and marketable political risk-reduction. Exploring this claim, LaPira and Thomas present a systematic analysis of who revolving door lobbyists are, how they differ from other lobbyists, what interests they represent, and how they seek to influence public policy. The first book to marshal comprehensive evidence of revolving door lobbying, LaPira and Thomas revise the notion that lobbyists are inherently and institutionally corrupt. Rather, the authors draw a complex and sobering picture of the revolving door as a consequence of the eroding capacity of government to solve the public’s problems.

Countless public health agencies are trying to solve our most intractable public health problems -- among them, the obesity and opioid epidemics -- by partnering with corporations responsible for creating or exacerbating those problems. We are told industry must be part of the solution. But is it time to challenge the partnership paradigm and the popular narratives that sustain it? In The Perils of Partnership, Jonathan H. Marks argues that public-private partnerships and multi-stakeholder initiatives create "webs of influence" that undermine the integrity of public health agencies; distort public health research and policy; and reinforce the framing of public health problems and their solutions in ways that are least threatening to the commercial interests of corporate "partners". We should expect multinational corporations to develop strategies of influence -- but public bodies can and should develop counter-strategies to insulate themselves from corporate influence in all its forms. Marks reviews the norms that regulate public-public interactions (separation of powers) and private-private interactions (antitrust and competition law), and argues for an analogous set of norms to govern public-private interactions. He also offers a novel framework to help public bodies identify the systemic ethical implications of their current or proposed relationships with industry actors. Marks makes a compelling case that the default public-private interaction should be at arm's length: separation, not collaboration. He calls for a new paradigm that avoids the perils of corporate influence and more effectively protects and promotes public health. The Perils of Partnership is essential reading for public health officials and policymakers -- but anyone interested in public health will recognize the urgency of this book.

In this vital book, thirteen experts in public diplomacy, counterpropaganda and political warfare lay out the components of what the U.S. and its allies need to win the war of ideas around the world. Strategic influence is much more than strategic communication. Communicating with others has somehow become a goal in itself, when the real issue is influence - to modify the perceptions, attitudes, and most of all, the behavior of people, movements and governments around the world. This book is designed for the diplomat, intelligence officer, warfighter and policymaker.

Why policymaking in the United States privileges the rich over the poor Can a country be a democracy if its government only responds to the preferences of the rich? In an ideal democracy, all citizens should have equal influence on government policy—but as this book demonstrates, America's policymakers respond almost exclusively to the preferences of the economically advantaged. Affluence and Influence definitively explores how political inequality in the United States has evolved over the last several decades and how this growing disparity has been shaped by interest groups, parties, and elections. With sharp analysis and an impressive range of data, Martin Gilens looks at thousands of proposed policy changes, and the degree of support for each among poor, middle-class, and affluent Americans. His findings are staggering: when preferences of low- or middle-income Americans diverge from those of the affluent, there is virtually no relationship between policy outcomes and the desires of less advantaged groups. In contrast, affluent Americans' preferences exhibit a substantial relationship with policy outcomes whether their preferences are shared by lower-income groups or not. Gilens shows that representational inequality is spread widely across different policy domains and time periods. Yet Gilens also shows that under specific circumstances the preferences of the middle class and, to a lesser extent, the poor, do seem to matter. In particular, impending elections—especially presidential elections—and an even partisan division in Congress mitigate representational inequality and boost responsiveness to the preferences of the broader public. At a time when economic and political inequality in the United States only continues to rise, Affluence and Influence raises important questions about whether American democracy is truly responding to the needs of all its citizens.

Amidst growing dissatisfaction with the state of government performance and an erosion of trust in our political class, Competing for Influence asks: what sort of public service do we want in Australia? Drawing on his experience in both the public and private sectors – and citing academic research across the fields of public sector management, industrial organisation, and corporate strategy – Barry Ferguson argues the case for the careful selection and application of private sector management concepts to the public service, both for their ability to strengthen the public service and inform public policy. These include competitive advantage, competitive positioning, horizontal strategy and organisational design, and innovation as an all-encompassing organisational adjustment mechanism to a changeable environment. But these are not presented as a silver bullet, and Ferguson addresses other approaches to reform, including the need to rebuild the Public Sector Act, the need to reconsider the interface between political and administrative arms of government (and determine what is in the ‘public interest’), and the need for greater independence for the public service within a clarified role. This approach, and its implications for public sector reform, is contrasted with the straitjacket of path dependency that presently constricts the field.

Revisiting Museums of Influence presents 50 portraits of a range of European museums that have made striking innovations in public quality over the past 40 years. In so doing, the book demonstrates that excellence can be found in museums no matter their subject matter, scale, or source of funding. Written by leading professionals in the field of museology, who have acted as judges for the European Museum of the Year Award, the portraits describe museums that had, or should have had, an influence on other museums around the world. The portraits aim to capture the moment when this potential was identified, and the introduction will locate the institutions in the wider history of museums in Europe over the period, as well as drawing out common themes of change and innovation that unite the portraits. Providing many very diverse portraits, Revisiting Museums of Influence captures the immense capacity of the museum to respond to changing societal needs. As a result, the book will be essential reading for students of museology and museum professionals around the world in shaping the museums they wish to create. Scholars and students of art history, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, cultural and visual studies, architecture, memory studies and history will also find much to interest them.

People's perceptions of the attitudes and experiences of mass collectives are an increasingly important force in contemporary political life. In Impersonal Influence, Mutz goes beyond simply providing examples of how impersonal influence matters in the political process to provide a micro-level understanding of why information about distant and impersonal others often influence people's political attitudes and behaviors. Impersonal Influence is worthy of attention both from the standpoint of its impact on contemporary politics, and because of its potential to expand the boundaries of our understanding of social influence processes, and media's relation to them. The book's conclusions do not exonerate media from the effects of inaccurate portrayals of collective experience or opinion, but they suggest that the ways in which people are influenced by these perceptions are in themselves, not so much deleterious to democracy as absolutely necessary to promoting accountability in a large scale society.