The Subject of the Science of Administrative Law: Modern Assessment

The paper considers approaches to understanding the subject of the science of administrative law. Based on the analysis of scientific literature, two groups of approaches to the subject of the science of administrative law are identified: narrow and wide. The first group of approaches includes administrative and legal norms and (or) administrative and legal relations in the subject of science, the group of extended approaches is associated with the assignment of administrative and legal norms, public relations regulated by them, administrative and legal categories, the practice of applying administrative and legal norms and other elements to the subject of science. The author’s understanding of the content of the subject of the science of administrative law is proposed. The author concludes that the identification of the subject of the science of administrative law with public relations in most cases is associated with a confusion of understanding of administrative law as a science and administrative law as a branch of law, which is defined as a problem of modern understanding of the subject of the science in question. Other problems in defining the subject of the science of administrative law are highlighted, which include: the property of commenting on administrative legislation; understanding the processes of scientific cognition themselves as the subject of the science of administrative law; the problem of the correlation of the subject of the science of administrative law with the subjects of other legal and non-legal sciences; mixing concepts such as the subject of science, the field of science, the system of science, the content science, the object of the science of administrative law. The conclusion is made about the constant processes of expansion and (or) narrowing of the limits of the subject of the science of administrative law, which indicates the mobility and vivacity of the science of administrative law, its connection with real administrative and legal relations, the norms of administrative law and law enforcement practice.

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