When you publish an item in Tridion, all items linking to this item are also published, on 2 conditions:
– The linking item is already published
– The checkbox ‘If other published Components link to a Component you are publishing, publish or republish those Components’ is checked (this is the default)
I don’t know if this principle has an official name, but I call it ‘reverse link propagation’, because it follows links backwards and propagates the publishing action to the linking items.