Karl Olivecrona
Encyclopedia
Karl Olivecrona was a Swedish lawyer and legal philosopher: He studied law at Uppsala from 1915 to 1920 and was a pupil of Axel Hägerström
, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism
. One of the internationally best-known Swedish legal theorists, Olivecrona was a professor of procedural law and legal philosophy at Lund University
. His writings emphasise the psychological significance of legal ideas. His most striking work on legal theory, the first edition of his book Law as Fact (of 1939, almost entirely different in content from the similarly titled 1971 work), stressed the importance of a monopoly of force as the fundamental basis of law. Olivecrona's politics during World War II
showed a related stress on a need for overwhelming coercive power to guarantee order in international relations. He became convinced that Europe required an unchallengeable controlling force to ensure its peace and unity, and that Germany alone could provide this. His pamphlet England eller Tyskland (England or Germany), published in the darkest days of the war, argued that England had lost its claim to exert leadership in Europe and that the future required an acceptance of German hegemony.
Indirectly, Scandinavian legal realism, with its emphasis on "law as fact", helped to create a climate conducive to the sociological study of law. One of Olivecrona's doctoral students, Per Stjernquist
, who as a left-leaning liberal entirely rejected his supervisor's politics, became a pioneer of sociology of law and was largely responsible for establishing it as a university subject in Sweden in the early 1960s.
Axel Hägerström
Axel Anders Theodor Hägerström was a Swedish philosopher and jurist.Born in Vireda, Jönköping County Sweden, he was the son of a Church of Sweden pastor. As student at Uppsala University, he gave up theology for a career in philosophy...
, the spiritual father of Scandinavian legal realism
Legal realism
Legal realism is a school of legal philosophy that is generally associated with the culmination of the early-twentieth century attack on the orthodox claims of late-nineteenth-century classical legal thought in the United States...
. One of the internationally best-known Swedish legal theorists, Olivecrona was a professor of procedural law and legal philosophy at Lund University
Lund University
Lund University , located in the city of Lund in the province of Scania, Sweden, is one of northern Europe's most prestigious universities and one of Scandinavia's largest institutions for education and research, frequently ranked among the world's top 100 universities...
. His writings emphasise the psychological significance of legal ideas. His most striking work on legal theory, the first edition of his book Law as Fact (of 1939, almost entirely different in content from the similarly titled 1971 work), stressed the importance of a monopoly of force as the fundamental basis of law. Olivecrona's politics during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
showed a related stress on a need for overwhelming coercive power to guarantee order in international relations. He became convinced that Europe required an unchallengeable controlling force to ensure its peace and unity, and that Germany alone could provide this. His pamphlet England eller Tyskland (England or Germany), published in the darkest days of the war, argued that England had lost its claim to exert leadership in Europe and that the future required an acceptance of German hegemony.
Indirectly, Scandinavian legal realism, with its emphasis on "law as fact", helped to create a climate conducive to the sociological study of law. One of Olivecrona's doctoral students, Per Stjernquist
Per Stjernquist
Per Sternquist was a Swedish law professor who was almost single-handedly responsible for establishing the teaching of the new field of sociology of law in Sweden from the 1960s.Stjernquist had begun his career as a local judge and court official...
, who as a left-leaning liberal entirely rejected his supervisor's politics, became a pioneer of sociology of law and was largely responsible for establishing it as a university subject in Sweden in the early 1960s.
Works
- Law as Fact (London: Oxford University Press, 1939)
- England eller Tyskland (1940)
- "Is a Sociological Explanation of Law Possible?", Theoria (1948)
- The Problem of the Monetary Unit (1957)
- Law as Fact, 2nd edn. (London: Steven & Sons, 1971) (ISBN 0-420-43250-7)
- "Locke's Theory of Appropriation", Philosophical Quarterly (1974)
- "Appropriation in the State of Nature: Locke on the Origin of Property", Journal of the History of Ideas (1974)