Public administration is, as Woodrow Wilson writes in 1887, government in action. Government comes into existence, according to Aristotle�s famous phrase, for the sake of life � for our protection �, yet it exists for the good life. The good life is the reason we have governments. Can we have a science about good government actions � about good public administration? Public administration as a discipline of contemporary scholarly inquiry emerges precisely from the need to design better government actions and from the need to know what makes government actions better, and why. This is the beginning of Kameralwissenschaften in 17th century continental Europe epitomized by the publication of Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff�s Der Teutsche F�rstenstaat in1656. This tradition climaxes in 19th century German Staatswissenschaften, which is, however, also a decidedly Estonian tradition: some of the most important representatives of the late 19th century German Staatswissenschaften (Wagner, Lexis, Stieda, Laspeyres, B�cher) worked at one point in their career in Estonia. Halduskultuur firmly positions itself within this tradition which, by default, means openness to other traditions, schools and also cultures and languages.