Abstract
This interdisciplinary conceptual essay offers critical reflection on the adoption of activism as a domain of public relations practice. This article examines the possibility of a relationship between the concept of economic rent-seeking from public choice theory and the practice, institutions and outcomes of activist public relations. The conclusion is an outline of three counter-narratives that theorise activist public relations as a practice that seeks to extract rents in the form of benefits from the political arena as a result of persuasive activity. The hope is that these theoretical counter-narratives may suggest future research questions which could be addressed to develop and test this line of inquiry and also broaden the study of activist public relations.
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