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.

• 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.

• 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]

• 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