Law, Society, and Power

Law, Society, and Power is one of the four focal areas of research at the Faculty of Law.

Law is a influential societal discourse which should be studied in its relevant contexts, as these determine how law is made, changed, and enforced. Law is intimately connected with power and force.

The focal area Law, Society, and Power challenges the conventional legal discourses and the ways traditional apologetic jurisprudence understands law. Law and legal phenomena are investigated critically in their social, historical, political, cultural, and economic contexts, employing a wide variety of methods and approaches. This focal area includes theoretical, empirical, interdisciplinary, and comparative approaches, as well as the internal critique of law.

The current strong themes under scrutiny are:

  • criminal justice
  • law-making
  • migration
  • law and gender
  • different forms of victimhood and violence
  • the development of the Finnish legal culture

Publications of the Faculty of Law