# Languages of Public Action Peter Spink, a Brazilian-British social psychologist, developed what he calls the _Public Action Languages_ approach—a way of looking at how people make sense of and engage with public issues through everyday language and practices. His work highlights that public action is not confined to formal government processes, but emerges from the ways different actors—inside and outside the state—talk about, negotiate, and respond to collective problems. I've revisited three resources that illustrate his thinking well: his 2016 book _[Beyond Public Policy: A Public Action Languages Approach](https://www.amazon.com/Beyond-Public-Policy-Languages-Approach/dp/178811874X)_, a [didactic paper](https://periodicos.fgv.br/cgpc/article/view/64366/62974) in which he lays out the approach very clearly, and a [short speech](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293811328_Para_Alem_da_Politica_Publica_politica_publica_e_as_multiplas_linguagens_da_acao_publica) he gave in 2015 at the National Meeting of Public Administration Students. In one of these (I think in the book), he mentions that Amartya Sen had already used the term “public action” [back in 1989](https://academic.oup.com/book/2070) to emphasize the role of social actors beyond the state in addressing public challenges (long before the mission-oriented language popularized by Mariana Mazzucato gained traction). ## Entries XX