Expert Activity in Public Administration: Constructing a Definition in Law

In the modern world, the use of expert competencies to justify management decisions is widely spread. A significant amount of expert activity takes place in the field of public administration, where it has its legal framework. However, there is currently no comprehensive law in the Russian Federation that defines the foundations for organizing expert activity in the field of public administration. To substantiate the significance of this issue and demonstrate the existing approaches in the scientific literature, the paper provides a systematic analysis of the understanding of expert activity by scholars from various disciplines and summarizes the views of legal scholars on the problem of the lack of a unified scientific and legal basis for regulating the relationshipsarising from the implementation of expert activity in public administration. Special attention is given to the terminological foundation of this type of expert activity to determine its place and role in the public administration system. The author offers a novel approach to formulating the definition of «expert activity in the field of public administration». The application of one of the categorical methods of systematic analysis has allowed for the development of a scientifically grounded construct. Through the formal-logical method of defining the concept, the author elucidates the necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of the legal category «expert activity in the field of public administration». The outcome obtained may serve as a basis for improving the conceptual framework of legislation on expert activity in the field of public administration.