Lobbying in the United Kingdom
Formal procedures enable individual members of the public to lobby their Member of Parliament but most lobbying activity centres on corporate, charity and trade association lobbying, where organisations seek to amend government policy through advocacy. Companies and individuals who operate in this sector commonly use the terms "public relations", "public affairs", "political consultancy" or "corporate affairs" to describe their activities (though this was also a reaction to the negative publicity surrounding the word "lobbyists" following the 1994 Cash-for-questions affair). Professional public affairs agencies, representing multiple clients, undertake a significant proportion of lobbying activity in addition to individual organisations conducting lobbying on an in-house basis.
List of master's degrees in North America
The Master of Public Policy is a master level professional degree that provides training in policy analysis and program evaluation at public policy schools. Over time, the curriculum of Master of Public Policy and the Master of Public Administration (M.P.A.) degrees have blended and converged, due to the realization that policy analysis and program evaluation could benefit from an understanding of public administration, and vice versa. However, MPP programs still place more emphasis in policy analysis, research and evaluation, while MPA programs place more emphasis on operationalization of public policies and the design of effective programs and projects to achieve public policy goals. Over the years MPP programs have become more interdisciplinary drawing from economics, sociology, anthropology, politics, and regional planning. Depending on the interest, MPP students can concentrate in many policy areas including, but not limited to, urban policy, global policy, social policy, health policy, non-profit management, transportation, economic development, education, information technology, etc. Students interested in pursuing a degree program focused entirely on global public policy can also consider Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs (M.P.P.G.A) programs.