The Public Administration Discipline in Slovenia: Between Legal and Administrative Sciences

Abstract

Abstract Th e article analyzes the historical development of public administration as a discipline in research and study programs situated between legal and administrative sciences in Slovenia as part of the Central European political and legal environment. Public administration in Slovenia was initially, and still is, primarily law-driven, but an integrative and furthermore interdisciplinary approach to public-administration studies is considered to be an inevitable trend due to its complex character. However, as indicated by the presented results of research on Slovene administrative study programs and teachers’ habilitation areas, combined with the classification of researchers’ scientific achievements, carried out in order to establish the state of the art of administrative science, research and study programs are developing rather in the framework of administrative-legal science. Hence, as grounded by historical, comparative and empirical analyses of the present study programs, habilitation and research areas in Slovenia, critical assessment of their design and classification leads us to draw several conclusions. Primarily, law is not sufficient, although, simultaneously, in the CEE area it is an indispensable basis for the study of a law-determined public administration. Both mentioned imperatives should systematically be taken into account in future (supra-) national field classifications as well as in the planning and accreditation of study programs and research in the field.