Legal Power and Legal Competence

Torben Spaak is Professor of Jurisprudence in the Department of Law and Vice-Dean for Education in the Faculty of Law, Stockholm University. He is the co-editor and author of multiple books and articles. Gonzalo Villa-Rosas, Christian Albrechts Universität zu Kiel, Kiel, Germany

1. Introduction.- I. The Meaning of 'Legal Power and 'Legal Competence.- 2. Capabilities, Powers and Competences.- 3. Expanding Agency and Borders of Competence.- 4. Structures of Legal Competences.- II. The Normativity of Legal Power and Legal Competence.- 5. Testing the Utility of a Concept of Power-Conferring Norm: A Proposal.- 6. On the function of competence norms in a legal system.- III.   Legal Power and Constitutive Rules.- 7. Recognition.- 8. Institutions and Constitutive Rules.- 9. -Constituting Power.- IV.   Legal Officials and Legal Offices.- 10. Legal Offices and Legal Powers.- 11. A Hartian Account of Legal Officials.- 12. Authority and Reason in Issues of Legal Truth.- V. Theories of Legal Power and Legal Competence.- 13. An analysis of Jeremy Bentham's quasi-realistic model of legal competence.- 14. Merkl's Stufenbaulehre in the History of the Theory of Legal Power.- 15. Empowerment and the Act of Will in Hans Kelsen's General Theory of Norms.