Axel Brusewitz (9 June 1881 – 27 September 1950) was a Swedish

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

political science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and Power (social and political), power, and the analysis of political activities, political philosophy, political thought, polit ...

, well known for his belief in

democracy Democracy (from , ''dēmos'' 'people' and ''kratos'' 'rule') is a form of government in which political power is vested in the people or the population of a state. Under a minimalist definition of democracy, rulers are elected through competitiv ...

and his opposition towards the traditional anti-democratic

conservatism Conservatism is a Philosophy of culture, cultural, Social philosophy, social, and political philosophy and ideology that seeks to promote and preserve traditional institutions, Convention (norm), customs, and Value (ethics and social science ...

of Swedish

royal court A royal court, often called simply a court when the royal context is clear, is an extended royal household in a monarchy, including all those who regularly attend on a monarch, or another central figure. Hence, the word ''court'' may also be app ...

and

bureaucracy Bureaucracy ( ) is a system of organization where laws or regulatory authority are implemented by civil servants or non-elected officials (most of the time). Historically, a bureaucracy was a government administration managed by departments ...

. He was a specialist in

constitution A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organization or other type of entity, and commonly determines how that entity is to be governed. When these pri ...

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

. He wrote influential works about, among other things, the

Swedish constitution of 1809 The 1809 Instrument of Government (), adopted on 6 June 1809 by the Riksdag of the Estates and Monarchy of Sweden, King Charles XIII of Sweden, Charles XIII, was the constitution of the Kingdom of Sweden from 1809 to the end of 1974. It came ab ...

. Brusewitz was on the side of liberal premier

Karl Staaff Karl Albert Staaff (21 January 1860 – 4 October 1915) was a Swedish liberal politician and lawyer who served as the Prime Minister of Sweden from 1905 to 1906 and again from 1911 to 1914. He was chairman of the Liberal Coalition Party from ...

in the political fight about

parliamentarism A parliamentary system, or parliamentary democracy, is a form of government where the head of government (chief executive) derives their democratic legitimacy from their ability to command the support ("confidence") of a majority of the legisl ...

1914. As professor in

Uppsala Uppsala ( ; ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the capital of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inhabitants in 2019. Loc ...

, he was a mentor of other political scientists that had important roles in Swedish public life, among them the socialist, later liberal, professor and newspaper editor

Herbert Tingsten Herbert Lars Gustaf Tingsten (17 March 1896 – 26 December 1973) was a Swedish political scientist, writer and newspaper publisher. An influential figure in Swedish political science, he was a professor of political science at Stockholm Univer ...

and the professor and later conservative party leader Gunnar Heckscher. From 1943 to 1947, Brusewitz was a member of the committee that wrote the proposal of a revised constitutional law for the

Freedom of the Press Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic Media (communication), media, especially publication, published materials, shoul ...

References

*A. Brusewitz: Studier öfver 1809 års författningskris *A. Brusewitz: Kungamakt, herremakt, folkmakt {{DEFAULTSORT:Brusewitz, Axel Swedish politicians Swedish political scientists Academic staff of Uppsala University 1881 births 1950 deaths Burials at Uppsala old cemetery 20th-century political scientists