  With the advent of analytic approaches to philosophy and law in the 20th Century, philosophers and legal theorists began to give more explicit elaboration to what “coercion” means, and how it relates to other concepts. In the period prior to 1969, there were of course some differences among theorists, but there seems to be a mainstream view of coercion that is more or less continuous with the view found in Aquinas and Hobbes/Locke/Kant (and some of the views of Bentham and Mill). This view identifies coercion with the use of force or violence, as well as to threats of the same. For instance, Hans Kelsen explains the nature of law by saying,