Editing Karl Renner (section)

==Political beliefs and scholarly contributions==
[[File:Renner monument.JPG|thumb|Monument to Karl Renner next to the Austrian Parliament on [[Ringstraße]], Vienna, Austria]]
For most of his life, Renner alternated between the political commitment of a [[social democracy|social democrat]] and the analytical distance of an academic scholar. Central to Renner's academic work is the problem of the relationship between private law and private property. With his {{lang|de|Rechtsinstitute des Privatrechts und ihre soziale Funktion. Ein Beitrag zur Kritik des bürgerlichen Rechts}} [The Institutions of Private Law and their Social Functions] (1904), he became one of the founders of the discipline of the [[sociology of law]]. In this book, Renner developed a Marxist theory of the institution of private law. Renner argued that the separation of public and private law is a creation of capitalism, whereby the state enforces the interests of capital owners.<ref>William M. Johnston, ''The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History 1848–1938''. Berkeley: University of California Press 1972, pp. 107–108.</ref>

His and [[Otto Bauer]]'s ideas about the legal protection of cultural minorities were taken up by the [[Jewish Bund]], but fiercely denounced by [[Vladimir Lenin]]. [[Joseph Stalin]] devoted a whole chapter to criticising [[National personal autonomy|Cultural National Autonomy]] in ''[[Marxism and the National Question]]''.<ref>Bill Bowring, "Burial and Resurrection: Karl Renner's controversial influence on the nationality question in Russia". In: Ephraim Nimni (ed.), ''National-Cultural Autonomy and its Contemporary Critics'', London: Routledge 2005, pp. 162–176</ref>

The 1977–1978 academic year at the [[College of Europe]] was named in his honour.