Domestic policy is an area of public policy which concerns, laws, government programs, and administrative decisions which are directly related to all issues and activity within a nation's borders. It differs from foreign policy, which refers to the ways a government advances its interests in world politics. Domestic policy covers a wide range of areas, including business, education, energy, health care, law enforcement, money and taxes, natural resources, social welfare, and personal rights and freedoms.
Domestic policy decisions usually reflect a nation's history and experience, its social and economic conditions, the needs and priorities of its people, and the nature of its government. Domestic policy is a frequent source of disagreement among people of different backgrounds and philosophies. People who hold conservative beliefs, for instance, will likely stress order, security, and traditional values in domestic policy. People who hold more liberal beliefs, on the other hand, will likely emphasize equality and government efforts to help the needy.
Read more about Domestic Policy: Issues, Shaping and Implementing
Famous quotes containing the words domestic policy, domestic and/or policy:
“Free from public debt, at peace with all the world, and with no complicated interests to consult in our intercourse with foreign powers, the present may be hailed as the epoch in our history the most favorable for the settlement of those principles in our domestic policy which shall be best calculated to give stability to our Republic and secure the blessings of freedom to our citizens.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family—a domestic church.”
—John Paul II [Karol Wojtyla] (b. 1920)
“U.S. international and security policy ... has as its primary goal the preservation of what we might call “the Fifth Freedom,” understood crudely but with a fair degree of accuracy as the freedom to rob, to exploit and to dominate, to undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privilege is protected and advanced.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)