Outline of public affairs

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to public affairs:

Public affairs – catch-all term that includes public policy as well as public administration, both of which are closely related to and draw upon the fields of political science and economics.

Essence of public affairs

• Public – in public relations and communication science, the contexts of "public" are:
  • Publics – groups of individuals
  • The public (a.k.a."the general public") – the totality of such groups.
• Affairs – professional, personal, or public business matters.

Branches of public affairs

• Public policy – principled guide to action taken by the administrative or executive branches of the state with regard to a class of issues in a manner consistent with law and institutional customs. Public policy is commonly embodied "in constitutions, legislative acts, and judicial decisions."^[1]
• Public administration – implementation of government policy and an academic discipline that studies this implementation and that prepares civil servants for this work.^[2]

General public affairs concepts

• State (polity), Sovereign state, government
  • Democracy
  • Monarchy
  • Republic
• Security
  • Crime, Criminal justice
  • Civil defense, Emergency preparedness, Community emergency response teams
  • Military
• Regulation, Deregulation
  • Industrial policy, Investment policy, Tax, tariff and trade
  • Public health, Pollution, Emissions trading
• Budget
  • Socialism
  • Taxation
  • Technocracy
• Management
• Public policy degrees