Institutions of Administrative Law: The Evolution of Approaches and Their Contemporary Understanding

This study examines one of the universal and key categories of administrative law: the institution of administrative law. The aims of the study are to identify scholarly approaches to the study of institutions of administrative law, to determine their distinctive features and criteria for classification, to identify problems arising in the study of such institutions, and to propose ways of addressing those problems. The Author employs methods of systems analysis and classification, comparative and historical legal analysis, as well as formal legal and problem-oriented methods. On the basis of a review of the evolution of scholarly approaches and the contemporary understanding of the institution of administrative law, the article substantiates the concept of institutions of administrative law and the existing variants of their classification. It identifies the features of an institution of administrative law that make it possible to distinguish it from institutions of other branches of law, as well as current problems relating to their scholarly substantiation. The article concludes that, in legal scholarship, a legal institution may be positioned as a component of a branch of law, as a method of legal regulation, and as a means of assessing the state of legal regulation of a particular group of social relations at a specific historical stage. Within the scholarly understanding of the institution of administrative law, the article identifies approaches associated with the development of comparative-law methods in understanding and substantiating administrative-law scholarship and administrative law as a branch of law; approaches concerned with substantiating the internal organizational structure of administrative law as both a branch of law and a field of scholarship; approaches through which the evolution of the scope and depth of administrative-law regulation is substantiated; and approaches aimed at establishing inter-branch linkages. The specific nature of institutions of administrative law is reflected in their plurality and diversity, as well as in their inseparable connection with institutions of governance. The problems involved in the scholarly substantiation of institutions of administrative law include ensuring the connection between system-wide legal institutions and branch-specific institutions; the conflation of categories and institutions, as well as of sub-institutions and sub-branches, within the structure of administrative law as a branch of law and within the subject matter of administrative-law scholarship; the creation of new institutions without sufficient grounds; differing levels of doctrinal substantiation and legal recognition of institutions; and the mutual influence of processes transforming institutions of administrative law.

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