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This book compiles a series of essays that appeared in the journal Horitsu Jihou from Vol. 92, No. 8 (August 2020) to Vol. 94, No. 5 (May 2022), under the collective title, “Basic Theories of Administrative Law.” All the authors are leading researchers in the field of administrative law in Japan.
 
Public administration develops various activities in response to changing social conditions and policy demands. Thus, administrative law aims to systematize and regulate administrative activities and organizations by employing the conceptual framework of law from specific perspectives to improve transparency, guarantee individual freedom and rights, and enable public administration appropriate for democracy. Given the expansive scope of administrative law, encompassing many activities and organizations, the discipline necessitates a set of fundamental theories that must examine a vast array of administrative practices and institutions, anchor the discipline in constitutional principles, and facilitate its coherence and consistency. Meanwhile, as a corpus of basic theories of administrative law has emerged and been shaped by an accumulation of scholarship and practice, it has become necessary to clarify the nature of these theories, their foundations, and the reasons for characterizing them as fundamental. The contributors of this book independently identified issues related to such basic theories of administrative law, presented their findings at seminars, and wrote their essays based on the discussions among the participants regarding their reports. In other words, each author established a theme based solely on their academic interests. However, the choice of theme was shaped by common understanding of what theoretical challenges existed, how they should be addressed, and in what sense they could be considered fundamental theories.
 
Based on this common purpose, each essay provides an in-depth analysis of the issues facing public administration and administrative law practice in contemporary Japan, highlighting the underlying challenges. Readers would realize the diversity of administrative law as a discipline by reading essays with a wide range of interests. Simultaneously, although each author chose topics based solely on their own concerns, cautious readers would find common themes and perspectives among the essays as the authors shared the point of view of law for analyzing administrative practices in society. The book is already blessed with such readers. For example, a review by Akira Koba, our professor emeritus, “How Administrative Law Should Respond to Changes in Democracy” in the journal Jichi Kenkyū Vol. 99, No. 7 (2023), pp. 143–153, addresses the true charm of reading and interpreting to find common thoughts subsumed in a collection of diverse essays.
 
As an editor, I have endeavored to afford each author the greatest possible autonomy in framing the issues and developing the arguments. I am grateful that this collection of essays demonstrates the diversity and richness of administrative law as a discipline and helps to elucidate the issues underlying the current society and administrative law practice.
 

(Written by OTA Masahiko, Professor, Graduate Schools for Law and Politics / 2023)