The launch of the ‘War on Terror’ by the US shortly after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, was highly controversial but continues to have profound global implications. This ‘war’, led by the US, and enthusiastically supported by the UK and Australia, comprised two broad dimensions. The first was the invasion of Afghanistan (which allegedly harboured the 9/11 terrorists) and then Iraq (which allegedly possessed ‘weapons of mass destruction’ which could be passed on to global terrorism networks). The second was the introduction of domestic ‘counter-terrorism’ measures which severely restricted human rights. The Australian government, like its counterparts in the US and UK, turned to the tools of Public Relations (PR) to gain popular support for its role in the ‘war’. In this context, I examine two key moments in 2002 and 2003: government communication leading up to the invasion in March 2003 of Iraq and ‘Let’s Look out for Australia’ – a counter-terrorism public awareness campaign launched in December 2002. I ask, how are we to understand the role of PR in the Australian political and governmental relations regarding the impending invasion of Iraq and the introduction of counter-terrorism measures? With current wars in Ukraine and West Asia and rising authoritarianism in Western democracies, it is timely to look at what can be learned from this case.
I present some preliminary findings from PhD research which add to the existing literature in two ways. First, I show this case in a new light, using the post-Foucauldian governmentality theory of Mitchell Dean and Nikolas Rose to focus on ethical, material, and technical practices, situating the PR in this case as a historically mutable ‘technology of government’. Second, I use original data from 45 in-depth interviews with key PR practitioners, intelligence officers, and government officials who were involved in this case, analysing the problematisations evident in the discourses of these actors. Here, I demonstrate how tensions arose between the logic of PR and traditional codes of practice within public sector agencies and how these logics and practices can be understood in the context of historically shifting forms of government.
This analysis shows how in the Australian case, PR provided a central organising logic which moved across many governmental domains. In this way, PR mobilised what Stuart Hall referred to as ‘authoritarian populism’, legitimating both the impending invasion of Iraq and the counter-terrorism policies by constructing certain representations of the popular will. I argue that this analysis reveals something new about the Australian case. It shows how power is embodied in particular sites and how PR is implicated in this process; how the present has changed and forms of authority have shifted; and how we need to pay attention to the way in which these PR practices were contingent on the specific historical conditions of Australia at that time. The alternative critical approach developed in this analysis may inform our understanding of other cases of government public relations in times of war particularly with respect to popular sovereignty and shifting forms of authority.
