Thinking in Public about Public Affairs: A Response to, and Expansion of, Zuo, Qian, and Zhao

Organization–government relationships in sub-Saharan Africa: the emerging public affairs industry in Kenya

“…While the practice of public affairs is well grounded in industry, its study lacks focus, spanning disciplines like public relations (Falasca and Helgesson, 2021), political science (Neely and Coggbum, 2017), public administration (Ines et al ., 2016), and policy studies (Workman, 2019), to name a few. Across these diverse fields, public affairs is equated with such behaviors as external government affairs aimed at the public, government-facing relations by the private sector, bi-directional lobbying spanning the public–private sector divide and corporate activism (McGrath et al ., 2010; Sadi and Meneghetti, 2019).…”

The 2019 Public Policy Yearbook: Tracking a Decade of Trends in Public Policy Research

“…Samuel Workman () expands upon Zuo, Qian, and Zhao’s argument, pointing out that public affairs as a field depends—often critically—on politics. Workman argues that a full empirical characterization of public affairs should include policy‐oriented political science departments and research institutes as these are essential contributors to understanding both social problems and the collective choice institutions by which these problems are “managed.” Qian, Zhao, and Zuo () reply that similar arguments could be made for other fields (e.g., economics or psychology), and that boundaries around “public affairs” will necessarily be somewhat arbitrary.…”

Thinking in Public about Public Affairs: Rejoinder

“…Workman’s comment essay complements our analysis by addressing the latter. He aims to send “a plea to the academy to think more broadly about what it means to teach and research in the field of public affairs” (Workman, , p. TBD). Moreover, we share Workman’s concern over missed components that could have been considered as part of “public affairs” for data analysis, though we have some different thoughts on what should be included beyond the ranked public affairs Ph.D. programs we have analyzed.…”

“…Here at the University of Iowa, the political science department offers a number of administration‐ or policy‐related courses, and the multidisciplinary faculty and staff affiliated with the university’s Public Policy Center conduct applied research that solves various public problems. Workman (, p. TBD) argues that part of research and teaching in political science provide “fundamental knowledge” for those who take public manager jobs. While this argument is very reasonable, the same argument can be made for the importance of economics departments to those who take policy analyst jobs.…”