Expanding the Boundaries: Public Affairs and its Relationship with Other Key Disciplines: Public Affairs and Political Philosophy
Additional information
Authors
Type
Book chapter
Year
2017
Language
English
Abstract
Throughout the history of ideas, philosophers, constitutionalists, political scientists and economists (among others) gave very different answers to various questions concerning political authority, the values shaping public arenas in modern democracies, or how to best pursue good government and good policies. In this chapter, I analyse some of these answers, trying to go beyond the boundaries of single disciplines, even if departing from a political theorist’s point of view. The aim here is to provide some theoretical explanations concerning the idea of Public Interest (a rather slippery political concept!) and its relationship with private/particular interests, as this relationship lies at the very heart of the game for influence typical of Public Affairs arenas (where all interests somehow claim to be ultimately complying with the ‘Public Interest’). In the first part of the chapter, I briefly describe the semantic ambiguity of the terms interest and public, among the main causes of confusion and misunderstandings in the political language.
In the second part of the chapter, I first explain the difference between concept and conception, demonstrating that in Political Philosophy different authors have supported various conceptions of the concept of Public Interest, and then I examine some of these conceptions, claiming that the legitimacy of private/particular interests in the public arena and the legitimacy of the Public Affairs industry depend on the conception we choose to adopt.
Book
The SAGE Handbook of International Corporate and Public Affairs
Publisher
SAGE
Pages (or article number)
151-164
