Police Science as a Source of Modern Administrative Sciences

It was the science of police (Ger. Polizeiwissenschaft) that first endeavoured to offer a comprehensive understanding of the organisation and operation of public administration. It stemmed from the cameralist doctrine which combined, in addition to administrative management, a broad and not-at-all systemic set of knowledge of economics, finance, statistics, demography, economic policy of the state, and even philosophy. While cameralism mainly put emphasis on economics and approached administrative issues only as a means of efficient fiscal and economic administration of the state, police science, which was under the influence of the law of nature, addressed the development of a system of methods and measures employed to shape the structure of public administration in the modern state.