Public policy in the context of Australian Colonies

Cost–benefit analysis (CBA), sometimes also called benefit–cost analysis, is a systematic approach to estimating the strengths and weaknesses of alternatives. It is used to determine options which provide the best approach to achieving benefits while preserving savings in, for example, transactions, activities, and functional business requirements. A CBA may be used to compare completed or potential courses of action, and to estimate or evaluate the value against the cost of a decision, project, or policy. It is commonly used to evaluate business or policy decisions (particularly public policy), commercial transactions, and project investments. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission must conduct cost–benefit analyses before instituting regulations or deregulations.

CBA has two main applications:

Political representation is the activity of making citizens "present" in public policy-making processes when political actors act in the best interest of citizens according to Hanna Pitkin's Concept of Representation (1967).

This definition of political representation is consistent with a wide variety of views on what representing implies and what the duties of representatives are. For example, representing may imply acting on the expressed wishes of citizens, but it may alternatively imply acting according to what the representatives themselves judge is in the best interests of citizens.

Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals". Analyzing the determinants of health of a population and the threats it faces is the basis for public health. The public can be as small as a handful of people or as large as a village or an entire city; in the case of a pandemic it may encompass several continents. The concept of health takes into account physical, psychological, and social well-being, among other factors.

Public health is an interdisciplinary field. For example, epidemiology, biostatistics, social sciences and management of health services are all relevant. Other important sub-fields include environmental health, community health, behavioral health, health economics, public policy, mental health, health education, health politics, occupational safety, disability, oral health, gender issues in health, and sexual and reproductive health. Public health, together with primary care, secondary care, and tertiary care, is part of a country's overall healthcare system. Public health is implemented through the surveillance of cases and health indicators, and through the promotion of healthy behaviors. Common public health initiatives include promotion of hand-washing and breastfeeding, delivery of vaccinations, promoting ventilation and improved air quality both indoors and outdoors, suicide prevention, smoking cessation, obesity education, increasing healthcare accessibility and distribution of condoms to control the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.

A public service or service of general (economic) interest is any service intended to address the needs of aggregate members of a community, whether provided directly by a public sector agency, via public financing available to private businesses or voluntary organisations, or by private businesses subject to government regulation. Some public services are provided on behalf of a government's residents or in the interest of its citizens. The term is associated with a social consensus (usually expressed through democratic elections) that certain services should be available to all, regardless of income, physical ability or mental acuity. Examples of such services include the fire services, police, air force, paramedics and public service broadcasting.

Even where public services are neither publicly provided nor publicly financed, they are usually subject to regulation beyond that applying to most economic sectors for social and political reasons. Public policy, when made in the public's interest and with its motivations, is a type of public service.

A politician is a person who participates in policy-making processes, usually holding a position in a political party or an elective position in government. Politicians make decisions, and influence the formulation of public policy. The roles or duties that politicians perform vary depending on the level of government, whether local, state, or national. The ideological orientation that politicians adopt often stems from their previous experience, education, beliefs, the political parties they belong to. They try to shape public opinion accordingly.

Politicians sometimes face many challenges and mistakes that may affect their credibility and ability to persuade. These mistakes include political corruption resulting from their use and exploitation of power to achieve self interest. Ideally they prioritize the public interest over their own profit. Challenges include how to keep up with the development of social media and confronting opposition media, in addition to discrimination for or against them on the basis of gender or race.

Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day", and also to the academic discipline which studies how public policy is created and implemented.

In an academic context, public administration has been described as the study of government decision-making; the analysis of policies and the various inputs that have produced them; and the inputs necessary to produce alternative policies. It is also a subfield of political science where studies of policy processes and the structures, functions, and behavior of public institutions and their relationships with broader society take place. The study and application of public administration is founded on the principle that the proper functioning of an organization or institution relies on effective management. In contemporary literature, it is also recognized as applicable to private organizations and nonprofits.

Energy policies are the government's strategies and decisions regarding the production, distribution, and consumption of energy within a specific jurisdiction. Energy is essential for the functioning of modern economies because they require energy for many sectors, such as industry, transport, agriculture, housing. The main components of energy policy include legislation, international treaties, energy subsidies and other public policy techniques.

The energy sector emits more greenhouse gas worldwide than any other sector. Therefore, energy policies are closely related to climate policies. These decisions affect how high the greenhouse gas emissions by that country are.

Some professionals and universities consider social policy a subset of public policy, while other practitioners characterize social policy and public policy to be two separate, competing approaches for the same public interest (similar to MD and DO in healthcare), with social policy deemed more holistic than public policy. Whichever of these persuasions a university adheres to, social policy begins with the study of the welfare state and social services. It consists of guidelines, principles, legislation and associated activities that affect the living conditions conducive to human welfare, such as a person's quality of life. The Department of Social Policy at the London School of Economics defines social policy as "an interdisciplinary and applied subject concerned with the analysis of societies' responses to social need", which seeks to foster in its students a capacity to understand theory and evidence drawn from a wide range of social science disciplines, including economics, sociology, psychology, geography, history, law, philosophy and political science. The Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy at Harvard University describes social policy as "public policy and practice in the areas of health care, human services, criminal justice, inequality, education, and labor". Social policy might also be described as actions that affect the well-being of members of a society through shaping the distribution of and access to goods and resources in that society. Social policy often deals with wicked problems.

The discussion of 'social policy' in the United States and Canada can also apply to governmental policy on social issues such as tackling racism, LGBT issues (such as same-sex marriage) and the legal status of abortion, guns, euthanasia, recreational drugs and prostitution. In other countries, these issues would be classified under health policy and domestic policy.

The Heritage Foundation (or simply Heritage) is an American right-wing think tank based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1973, it took a leading role in the conservative movement in the 1980s during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, whose policies were taken from Heritage Foundation studies, including its Mandate for Leadership.

The Heritage Foundation has had significant influence in U.S. public policy making, and has historically been ranked among the most influential public policy organizations in the United States. In 2010, it founded a sister organization, Heritage Action, an influential activist force in conservative and Republican politics.

The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace and formerly The Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government. While the institution is formally a unit of Stanford University, it maintains an independent board of overseers and relies on its own income and donations. It is widely described as conservative, although its directors have contested the idea that it is partisan.

The institution began in 1919 as a library founded by Stanford alumnus Herbert Hoover prior to his presidency in order to house his archives gathered during World War I. The well-known Hoover Tower was built to house the archives, then known as the Hoover War Collection (now the Hoover Institution Library and Archives), and contained material related to World War I, World War II, and other global events. The collection was renamed and transformed into a research institution ("think tank") during the mid-20th century. Its mission, as described by Herbert Hoover in 1959, is "to recall the voice of experience against the making of war, and by the study of these records and their publication, to recall man's endeavors to make and preserve peace, and to sustain for America the safeguards of the American way of life."

The states and territories are the national subdivisions and second level of government of Australia. The states are partially sovereign, administrative divisions that are self-governing polities, having ceded some sovereign rights to the federal government. They have their own constitutions, legislatures, executive governments, judiciaries and law enforcement agencies that administer and deliver public policies and programs. Territories can be autonomous and administer local policies and programs much like the states in practice, but are still legally subordinate to the federal government.

Australia has six federated states: New South Wales (including Lord Howe Island), Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania (including Macquarie Island), Victoria, and Western Australia. Australia also has ten federal territories, out of which three are internal territories: the Australian Capital Territory, the Jervis Bay Territory, and the Northern Territory on the Australian mainland; and seven are external territories: the Ashmore and Cartier Islands, the Australian Antarctic Territory, Christmas Island, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, the Coral Sea Islands, Heard Island and McDonald Islands, and Norfolk Island that are offshore dependent territories. Every state and internal territory (except the Jervis Bay Territory) is self-governing with its own independent executive government, legislature, and judicial system, while the rest only have local government status overseen by federal departments.

Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violence during peacetime or in the context of war against non-combatants. There are various different definitions of terrorism, with no universal agreement about it. Different definitions of terrorism emphasize its randomness, its aim to instill fear, and its broader impact beyond its immediate victims.

Modern terrorism, evolving from earlier iterations, employs various tactics to pursue political goals, often leveraging fear as a strategic tool to influence decision makers. By targeting densely populated public areas such as transportation hubs, airports, shopping centers, tourist attractions, and nightlife venues, terrorists aim to instill widespread insecurity, prompting policy changes through psychological manipulation and undermining confidence in security measures.

Cultural policy is the government actions, laws and programs that regulate, protect, encourage and financially (or otherwise) support activities related to the arts and creative sectors, such as painting, sculpture, music, dance, literature, and filmmaking, among others and culture, which may involve activities related to language, heritage and diversity. The idea of cultural policy was developed at UNESCO in the 1960s. Generally, this involves governments setting in place processes, legal classifications, regulations, legislation and institutions (e.g., galleries, museums, libraries, opera houses, etc.) which promote and facilitate cultural diversity and creative expressions in a range of art forms and creative activities. Cultural policies vary from one country to another, but generally they aim to improve the accessibility of arts and creative activities to citizens and promote the artistic, musical, ethnic, sociolinguistic, literary and other expressions of all people in a country. In some countries, especially since the 1970s, there is an emphasis on supporting the culture of Indigenous peoples and marginalized communities and ensuring that cultural industries (e.g., filmmaking or TV production) are representative of a country's diverse cultural heritage and ethnic and linguistic demographics.

Cultural policy can be done at a nation-state level, at a sub-national level (e.g., U.S. states or Canadian provinces), at a regional level or at a municipal level (e.g., a city government creating a museum or arts centre). Examples of cultural policy-making at the nation-state level could include anything from funding music education or theatre programs at little to no cost, to hosting corporate-sponsored art exhibitions in a government museum, to establishing legal codes (such as the U.S. Internal Revenue Service's 501(c)(3) tax designation for not-for-profit enterprises) and creating political institutions (such as the various ministries of culture and departments of culture and the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts in the United States), arts granting councils, and cultural institutions such as galleries and museums. Similar significant organisations in the United Kingdom include the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and Arts Council England.

The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a confidential, nonpartisan basis. CRS is sometimes known as Congress's think tank due to its broad mandate of providing research and analysis on all matters relevant to national policymaking.

CRS has roughly 600 employees, who have a wide variety of expertise and disciplines, including lawyers, economists, historians, political scientists, reference librarians, and scientists. In the 2023 fiscal year, it was appropriated a budget of roughly $133.6 million by Congress.

Advocacy groups, also known as lobby groups, interest groups, special interest groups, pressure groups, or public associations, use various forms of advocacy or lobbying to influence public opinion and ultimately public policy. They play an important role in the development of political and social systems.

Motives for action may be based on political, economic, religious, moral, commercial or common good-based positions. Groups use varied methods to try to achieve their aims, including lobbying, media campaigns, awareness raising publicity stunts, polls, research, and policy briefings. Some groups are supported or backed by powerful business or political interests and exert considerable influence on the political process, while others have few or no such resources.

The Pew Charitable Trusts is an independent non-profit, non-governmental organization (NGO), founded in 1948.

Pew's stated mission is to serve the public interest by "improving public policy, informing the public, and invigorating civic life". Pew operates projects and conducts research across five main areas: communities, conservation, finance and economy, governing, and health. In addition, the Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan public polling and think tank that operates as a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Political ethics (also known as political morality or public ethics) is the practice of making moral judgments about political action and political agents. It covers two areas: the ethics of process (or the ethics of office), which covers public officials and their methods, and the ethics of policy (or ethics and public policy), which concerns judgments surrounding policies and laws.

The core values and expectations of political morality have historically derived from the principles of justice. However, John Rawls defends the theory that the political concept of justice is ultimately based on the common good of the individual rather than on the values one is expected to follow.