PUBLIC AFFAIRS: CHARACTERISTICS AND EXAMPLES - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2025

The public affairs are problems, concerns, needs and responsibilities of the general population, including those having to do with current political or social issues. The opposite is private affairs, which are limited to each person, family, business or organization.

Among the most common examples of public affairs that we can find in any rule of law are citizen security, transportation planning, environmental economics policies, the government budget, or military policies.

Characteristics of public affairs

Public affairs are often associated with government agencies, the media, the public interest, and lobbyists. They are often related to the difficulties or interests of a society or culture.

Public affairs actions should work towards improving the problems or situations that people face, both nationally and internationally.

These issues have to do with the needs and priorities of a society; citizen participation is an active part of them. The problems they are trying to solve are in the public interest since humans live as part of a society.

They must administer or manage public programs; the translation of policies into the reality that citizens live day by day.

Some of the public servants can be considered as public administrators. This includes the heads of a city, region, or country, federal departments, human resource administrators, mental health directors, cabinet secretaries, census administrators, etc.

Examples of most common public affairs

1- Citizen security

Security is one of the main public affairs of a society. For example, if insecurity in a place increases, the quality of life of its inhabitants decreases.

Security is related to human rights and the democratic coexistence of people.

2- Transportation planning

Transportation planning is the process that defines future policies, goals, investment, and design to prepare for future needs to move people and goods to particular destinations.

Transportation policies apply a comprehensive approach to analyzing the wide range of alternatives and impacts on the transportation system to influence beneficial outcomes.

3- Environmental economics policies

The environment includes not only the biosphere of land, air, and water, but also human interactions with these things, with nature, and with what humans have created as their surroundings.

This branch of economics is related to environmental problems and economic impact.

4- Public health policies

They can be defined as the decisions, plans and actions that are taken to achieve specific health goals within a society.

A health policy must achieve different things; You must define a vision for the future, state the priorities and expectations of the various groups. It must also inform and build consensus in people.

5- Human rights

Human rights are of national and international interest. Their violation is of great importance since all organizations and people around the world must be committed to guaranteeing, defending and protecting them.

6- Sustainable development

Sustainable development is the organizational principle to achieve human development goals while maintaining the ability of natural systems to provide natural resources and ecosystem services on which society and the economy depend.

It is a public interest since all humans live on planet earth and depend on natural resources to survive.

7- Education policies

Education policies refer to the collection of laws and rules that govern the operation of education systems.

Some areas pertaining to this issue are the size of schools, the size of classrooms, the privatization of schools, educational methods, curriculum content, etc.

8- Environmental technology

Environmental technology is the application of one or more environmental science, environmental monitoring, or electronic equipment to monitor, model, and conserve the environment and natural resources.

Environmental technology seeks to combat the negative impacts of human involvement in the environment.

9- Military policies

These policies relate to international security and the military. It includes the measures and initiatives that governments take or do not take in relation to strategic decisions and goals.

10- Government budget

The government budget presents the earnings and expenditures proposed by a government for a financial year.

It is important as it allows resources to be well located and government activities to be planned.

Additionally, they affect economic activities and allow public responsibility.

11- The CLAD

The Latin American Administration Center for Development is a regional channel of schools of public administration established by governments in Latin America.

This institute is a founding member and played a central role in the organization of the Inter-American Channel of Public Administrations.

This regional channel of schools is unique since each organization is made up of institutions from North and Latin America, and the Caribbean working on the analysis of public administration and public interest policies.

12- Social services

They are a range of public services provided by the government, private and charitable organizations. These public services seek to create more effective organizations, build stronger communities, and promote equality and opportunity.

13- The extinction of flora and fauna

The extinction of biodiversity is of public concern as it affects the planet's biodiversity shared by all humans.

14- Urban development

Urban development is the political and technical process related to the development and use of land, planning permits, protection, use of the environment and public welfare; and the design of the urban environment, including the air, water, and infrastructure that passes through urban areas.

Urban development guides the development of sub-urban and rural areas of society. Although it is predominantly concerned with community planning, it is also responsible for the development of water use and resources, agricultural lands and areas with environmental significance.

15- Economic development

Economic development is the process by which a nation improves the economic, political, and social well-being of its people. It generally has a direct relationship with environmental problems and with the environment.

16- Taxes

The payment of taxes is necessary to be able to invest this income in the improvement and maintenance of the common services of a society.

17- ICAN

This agreement adopted by the United Nations agrees to ban nuclear weapons; it is known as the Treaty of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

This treaty prohibits nations from developing, testing, producing, transferring, manufacturing, using, or threatening to use nuclear weapons.

18- Policies on the use of tobacco

Cigarettes and nicotine are harmful to health and are therefore a major concern for the public health sector. For this reason, worldwide restrictions have been taken on the use of them.

19- National security

It is the concept that a government, together with its parliament, should protect the state and its citizens against national crises through a variety of power projections such as diplomacy, political power, economic power, military power, etc.

20- Gun control

Policies that regulate gun control are necessary as guns pose a risk when in the hands of the people of a society.

References

1. National security. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
2. Military policy. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
3. Public administration. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
4. About the treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons (2017). Recovered from icanw.org.
5. Environmental technology. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
6. Government budget. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
7. Economic development. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
8. Transportation planning. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
9. Education policy. Recovered from boundless.com.
10. Health policy. Recovered from wikipedia.org.
11. Public affairs, a citizen interest (2015). Recovered from prezi.com.