Why civil disobedience is bad

Scholars have defended such uncivil disobedience as political rioting Pasternak , vandalism Lim ; Lai , violent protest Kling and Mitchell , coercive strike tactics Gourevitch , and direct action Smith While a civil disobedient does not necessarily oppose the regime in which she acts, the revolutionary agent is deeply opposed to that regime or a core aspect of that regime. Revolutionary agents may not seek to persuade others of the merits of their position — communication is usually not their primary aim, although they convey the urgency of a regime change.

When revolution is called for, such as under colonial occupation, there is no need to justify constrained acts of protest like civil disobedience. Indeed, more forceful resistance can be justified as we pass into the realm of just war theory Buchanan ; Finlay This is not to say that all violent tactics, including terror, are permissible, since the use of violence must not only pursue a just cause but also accord with proportionality and necessity i.

As will be discussed in the next section, revolutionary activists and thinkers like Frantz Fanon , ch. The task of defending civil disobedience is commonly undertaken with the assumption that in reasonably just, liberal societies people have a general moral duty to follow the law often called political obligation.

It is on the basis of such an assumption that civil disobedience requires justification. This section examines common understandings of the problem of disobedience 3. Whether or not theorists assume that civil disobedience is presumptively impermissible and in need of justification, their analyses also articulate the value and role of civil disobedience in non-ideal, nearly just or less-than-nearly-just liberal democracies 3.

Philosophers have given many arguments in favor of the moral duty to obey the law see entry on political obligation. Despite the many critiques of, and general skepticism toward, arguments for the moral duty to obey the law, most prominently following A. They contend that civil disobedience in particular is presumptively wrong because of its anti-democratic nature.

The agent who violates the outcomes of democratic decision-making processes because she disapproves of them puts herself above the law and threatens the legal and democratic order. Recent scholarship on civil disobedience has taken what may be dubbed an anarchist turn , as theorists tend to no longer approach civil disobedience as presumptively wrong and in tension with political obligation.

Others defend a disjunctive moral duty to obey the law or disobey it civilly Lefkowitz ; and still others argue that the grounds commonly used to support political obligation — the natural duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and associative obligations — yield duties to resist injustice, through civil and uncivil disobedience, under non-ideal circumstances, and that such duties should be considered among our political obligations Delmas a.

Likewise, on a virtue-ethical account, political obligation can be understood as an obligation to respect rather than to obey the law, which can sometimes give rise to a duty to engage in civil disobedience Moraro , ch. Given the assumption that people have a moral duty to obey the law and the concern that civil disobedience has the potential to destabilize society, Rawls famously raised the bar for the justified use of the practice, requiring acts of civil disobedience 1 to target serious and long-standing injustice and at the same time appeal to widely accepted principles of justice, 2 to be undertaken as a last resort, and 3 to be done in coordination with other minority groups with similar grievances Rawls , —9.

These conditions for the justification of civil disobedience, which are critically examined in this part, are closely tied not only to the ostensible need to diffuse its destabilizing potential and discourage proliferation of the practice, but also to the efficacy and role of civil disobedience in society which is explored further in 3.

Longstanding Injustice : Why did Rawls restrict the target of civil disobedience to entrenched, longstanding injustices — in particular, violations of the principle of equal basic liberties?

Racial segregation fell in this category, according to Rawls, but not economic inequality. Rawls thinks that appeals to publicly shared principles of constitutional morality per the publicity-as-appeal requirement are more likely to persuade the majority and succeed to bring about reform. Critics reject this justificatory condition because it arbitrarily excludes both progressive but not widely shared conceptions of justice such as cosmopolitanism and appeals to other principles of morality besides justice say, regarding the ethical treatment of animals; Singer , 86— Scholars also include in the class of justifiable targets private agents such as trade unions, banks, health insurance companies, labs, farm factories, and private universities Walzer , ch.

Cooke Finally, observation of past and present social movements, including the Abolitionist movement, MeToo, and Black Lives Matter, suggests that, rather than appealing to the public principles of political morality, civil disobedients may in fact seek to transform common sense morality.

Last Resort : What grounds the widely accepted requirement that civil disobedience be undertaken as a last resort? How do we know agents have met it? One position is that, in a liberal democracy, citizens should use proper legal channels of political participation to express their grievances Raz ; though Raz grants that individual acts of disobedience can be justified in liberal regimes.

But, since causes defended by a minority are often those most opposed by persons in power, legal channels may be less than wholly effective Rawls , Moreover, it is unclear when a person could claim to have reached a situation of last resort; she could continue to use the same tired legal methods without end. To ward off such challenges, Rawls suggests that, if past actions, including by others, have shown the majority to be immovable or apathetic, then further attempts may reasonably be thought fruitless and the dissenter may be confident her civil disobedience is a last resort , Minority Group Coordination : The coordination requirement is designed to regulate the overall level of dissent Rawls , While there is some merit to this condition, arguably civil disobedience that does not meet it can still be justifiable.

In some cases, there will be no time or opportunity to coordinate with other minorities. In other cases, other minority groups may be unable or unwilling to coordinate. A reason for Rawls to defend this coordination requirement is that often coordination serves a more important concern, namely, the achievement of good consequences. It is often argued that civil disobedience can only be justified if there is a high probability that it will produce positive change, since only such change can justify exposing society to the risks of harm usually associated with civil disobedience — namely, its destabilizing and divisive potential and the risk that it could encourage lawbreaking or escalate into uncivil disobedience.

In response to these challenges, one might question the empirical claims that civil disobedience is divisive and that it has the consequence of leading others to use disobedience to achieve changes in policy.

One might also question whether it necessarily would be a bad thing if civil disobedience had these consequences. Concerning likelihood of success, civil disobedience can seem most justifiable when the situation appears hopeless and when the government refuses to listen to conventional forms of communication.

Additionally, even when general success seems unlikely, civil disobedience might be defended for any reprieve from harm that it brings to victims of a bad law or policy. Tree-hugging, for example, can delay or curtail a clear-cut logging scheme and thereby prolong the protection of an ecosystem.

The justification of civil disobedience further articulates the conditions for its effective role in society. Far from undermining the rule of law or destabilizing society, civil disobedience could strengthen the social and legal order. Both ideas deem the practice of civil disobedience to be a valuable component of the public political culture of a near-just constitutional democratic society. Deliberative democrats Markovits ; Smith , ch. Agents engaged in civil disobedience can enhance democratic legitimacy in a number of ways, including by putting a heretofore-neglected issue on the political agenda and raising awareness about its stakes; contributing to and informing democratic deliberation; highlighting the outsize influence of powerful players and the exclusionary effects of certain processes of public deliberation, and working to make the latter more inclusive.

Civil disobedience does not only aim to invigorate democratic sovereignty, but also can constitute a form of democratic empowerment in itself — an exercise of political agency that is especially meaningful for marginalized groups. Through civil disobedience, individuals discover and realize their power. They work together and forge bonds of solidarity.

They engage in democratic politics. Many activists further enact within their movement the norms and values that guide their struggles, for instance through radical inclusion, direct democratic decision-making, aspiration to consensus, and leaderless organizational structures.

Some theorists insist on the need to align the means of protest with its aims, by deploying only persuasive, non-violent forms of protest that reflect democratic ideals Habermas , —4; M. Cooke , while others contend that civil disobedience can be confrontational and coercive without betraying its democratic aims Smith ; Fung , A third approach to the value of civil disobedience, besides the liberal and democratic lenses, comes from the political realist perspective.

Other realists criticize both liberal and deliberative democratic perspectives for their deductive, top-down approach to moral analysis, their quest for rational consensus, and their assumption that people can be persuaded by rational arguments alone Sabl , ; Mantena For her part, Mantena debunks the common understanding of Gandhi and King as committed in principle and absolutely to non-violence, showing that their endorsement of non-violence reflected concerns of political efficacy.

Recent social scientific research has corroborated the effectiveness of non-violence in campaigns of civil resistance, which seek to topple dictatorships or colonial powers Chenoweth and Stephan ; Schock How should the state respond to civil disobedience?

The question of appropriate legal response applies, first, to the actions of law-enforcers when deciding whether and how to intervene in a civilly disobedient action. It applies, second, to the actions of prosecutors when deciding whether to file charges and proceed to trial. Finally, it applies to the actions of judges and juries when deciding whether to convict and for judges how much to punish.

How much punishment is appropriate for civil disobedients? Is punishment appropriate at all? If there is a right to civil disobedience, then, as we saw, it protects people from punishment. Unlike civil wrongs, which are privately brought, criminal wrongs are public wrongs: the polity, not the victim there may not be any , prosecutes the alleged wrongdoer.

If civilly disobedient breaches of law are public wrongs, comparable to or worse than ordinary offenses, then civil disobedients should be punished similarly or more severely than those who commit ordinary offenses.

Kent Greenawalt lays out reasons to hold that civil disobedients deserve the same punishment as others who breach the same laws. First, the demands of proportionality would seem to recommend a uniform application of legal prohibitions. Since trespass is prohibited, persons who breach trespass laws in protest of either those laws or other laws would seem to be equally liable to persons who breach trespass laws for private purposes.

Second, any principle that officials may use to excuse justified illegal acts will result in some failures to punish unjustified acts, for which the purposes of punishment would be more fully served.

Even when officials make correct judgments about which acts to excuse, citizens may draw mistaken inferences, and restraints of deterrence and norm acceptance may be weakened for unjustified acts that resemble justified ones Greenawalt , What follows is that all such violations, justified and unjustified, should be treated the same. There also are reasons to believe that civil disobedients should be dealt with more severely than are others who have offended. First, as mentioned above, disobedients seem to have put themselves above the law in preferring their own moral judgment about a certain issue to that of the democratic decision-making process and the rule of law.

Second, the communicative aspect of civil disobedience could be said to aggravate disobedient offenses since their communication usually is attended by much greater publicity than most covert violations are.

This forces legal authorities to concern themselves with the possibility that law-abiding citizens will feel distressed, insecure, and perhaps imposed on, if no action is taken. So, notes Greenawalt, while authorities may quietly let minor breaches pass, failure to respond to violations performed, in some respect, in the presence of authority, may undercut claims that the rules and the persons who administered them deserve respect , —2. Third, and related, civil disobedients often invite, and might inspire, other citizens to do what they do.

Such risk of proliferation of civil disobedience and, further, of its escalation into lawlessness and violence, may support the imposition of more severe punishment for agents engaged in civil disobedience. However, both the models of civil disobedience presented above, which stress its role and value in liberal democracies, and the arguments for the right to civil disobedience examined below, strongly push for the opposite view that civil disobedients, if punished at all, should be dealt with more leniently than others who have offended.

The government can exercise its responsibility of leniency by not prosecuting civil disobedience at all, depending on the balance of reasons, including individual rights, state interests, social costs, and constitutional benefits. In general, prosecutors should not charge disobedients with the most serious offenses applicable and judges should give them light sentences. Leniency follows from the recognition of the special constitutional status of civil disobedience.

In this view, officials at all levels have the discretion to not sanction civil disobedients, and they should use it. Prosecutors have and should use their discretion not to press charges against civil disobedients in some cases, or to charge them with the least serious offense possible. Dworkin urges judges to engage in an open dialogue with civil disobedients at least those who articulate legal arguments in defense of their actions and dismiss their charges after hearing them, or to use their discretion in sentencing, for instance by accepting guilty pleas or guilty verdicts but imposing trivial punishments.

To the contrary, judges might well systematically decide against civil disobedients, upholding the special interests of the ruling class of which they are part.

For Rawls, there is only a moral right to engage in justified civil disobedience. Dworkin outlines what such a right of conduct might look like, analogizing civil disobedients with Supreme Court justices, who test the constitutional validity of unjust law through direct disobedience of that law. For the latter, Dworkin argues that utilitarian reasons for punishing should be weighed against the fact that the accused acted out of principled convictions, and that the balance should generally favor leniency.

Joseph Raz puts forward a different account of the right to civil disobedience, insisting that this right extends to cases in which people ought not to exercise the right: it is part of the nature and purpose of rights of conduct that they give persons a protected sphere in which to act rightly or wrongly. To say that there is a right to civil disobedience is to allow the legitimacy of resorting to this form of political action for causes one opposes Raz , By contrast, in a liberal state, the right to political activity is, by hypothesis, adequately protected by law and, hence, the right to political participation cannot ground a right to civil disobedience.

A different view of rights holds that when a person appeals to political participation rights to defend her disobedience, she does not necessarily criticize the law for outlawing her action. Lefkowitz maintains that members of minorities can appreciate that democratic discussions often must be cut short so that decisions may be taken, and those who engage in civil disobedience may view current policy as the best compromise between the need to act and the need to accommodate continued debate.

Nonetheless, they also can point out that, with greater resources or further time for debate, their view might have held sway. Given this possibility, the right to political participation must include a right to continue to contest the result after the votes are counted or the decisions taken.

And this right should include suitably constrained civil disobedience because the best conception of political participation rights is one that reduces as much as possible the impact that luck has on the popularity of a view Lefkowitz ; see also Smith , ch.

An alternative response to Raz questions whether the right to civil disobedience must be derived from rights to political participation. Brownlee , ch. Whether such a right would fall under participation rights depends on the expansiveness of the latter rights. When the right to participate is understood to accommodate only legal protest, then the right conscientiously to object, which commonsensically includes civil disobedience, must be viewed as distinct from political participation rights.

A further challenge to a regime-focused account is that real societies do not align with a dichotomy between liberal and illiberal regimes; rather they fall along a spectrum of liberality and illiberality, being both more or less liberal relative to each other and being more or less liberal in some domains than in others.

Philosophers have typically focused on the question of how courts should treat civil disobedients, while neglecting to apply that question to law enforcement. Yet the police have much discretion in how to deal with civil disobedients.

In particular, they have no obligation to arrest protesters when they commit minor violations of the law such as traffic obstruction: accommodation of and communication with protesters is something they can but all too rarely decide to do. Instead, many governments practice militarized repression of protests. Local police departments in the U. Also, the British government sought to strengthen public order laws and secure new police powers to crack down on Extinction Rebellion XR , the global environmental movement whose street protests, die-ins, and roadblocks for climate justice have brought cities to a standstill.

Accommodation requires communication channels between police and activists and involves strategies such as pre-negotiated arrests. While the U. Neither approach respects anything like a right to civil disobedience. A constitutional government committed to recognizing the right to civil disobedience would also have to reform part of its criminal laws and make available certain defenses.

Brownlee proposes two. They are paying fines and going to jail, and sometimes they win. The victories may seem small but they are monumental for those involved. These farmers might not change the world immediately, but they continue to change their societies, which can and does lead to global change. This was a symbolic action to protest against globalisation and the loss of food sovereignty to multinationals—that is the right to healthy, diverse and culturally appropriate food produced through sustainable methods.

It was an action taken, not only on behalf of traditional French producers, but for those from all over the world. He tapped into deep fears about the safety of the food supply in France, identifying and challenging what many considered a threat to French cultural identity. This sheep farmer activist inspired an international protest movement that included Confederation Paysanne, the Associations for the Maintenance of Peasant Agriculture and La Via Campesina , the international peasants movement.

These organisations continue to demand protection for human rights, including the right to control the supply and safety of one's food. People take back the power to fight evictions as the government and banks do nothing to help an increasingly desolate population.

Around , seizure orders were served on Spanish properties between and In , there were an average of evictions per day. Anti-eviction organisations, such as the Platform of People Affected by Mortgages PAH , were formed in reaction to the Spanish Government's failure to uphold the constitutional right for all Spaniards to enjoy stable and affordable housing. The PAH aimed to prevent the systematic eviction of tens of thousands of debtors across Spain and to turn mortgaged homes into affordable rental properties while reforming the Mortgage Act, which previously granted banks the right to claim full payment of debt, even after evicting a property's residents.

The strength of this movement was based on its very broad social foundation. Weekly meetings empowered the people by sharing knowledge and experience of the eviction process. The PAH could call on dozens of protestors to gather at short notice, blocking entrances to properties where eviction orders were being delivered.

The PAH re-occupied empty housing owned by banks to provide shelter for evicted families. Eight months after the start of the collective occupation, 20 housing blocks were occupied, sheltering people.

These methods of political activism gained widespread legitimacy. Spanish banks had been bailed out with public funds. The PAH, and their followers, saw this not as illegal occupation but legitimate recuperation. The anti-eviction campaign challenged the rhetoric of the state, the banks, and property developers. One man loses his freedom to expose what our governments are up to—watching and listening, collecting our data to manipulate and control us. Edward Snowden , cybersecurity expert, copied and handed over a vast cache of close to ten thousand highly classified documents taken from the National Security Agency NSA when employed as a contractor with Booz Allen Hamilton.

When his concerns of unethical practice were dismissed, Snowden blew the whistle on secret details of surveillance programs conducted by the United States government with the cooperation of telecommunication companies and European Governments. His objective was to alert the world to widespread, unconstitutional surveillance and invasions of privacy, suggesting that if the governments will not represent the public interests, it is up to the public to champion them.

The Snowden leaks inspired five years of technological change within Silicon Valley tech giants, keen to regain their users' trust. Apple was the first to adjust its privacy policy and encryption and security practices. The Snowden leaks didn't put an end to government surveillance. They prompted a cultural discussion about government infringement of civil liberties. Having received death threats and branded a traitor by many, Snowden still lives in exile in Moscow.

Edward Snowden was one person taking action to expose, with great bravery and potential danger to himself, an injustice that affected us all. After decades of living under a brutal dictatorship, the Sudanese people rise up in a campaign of disobedience and resistance. It is a hard fight.

On 11th April , a pro-democratic, non-violent civil uprising involving thousands of Sudanese people overthrew the most brutal of dictators, Omar al-Bashir.

His 30 year rule, supported by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, decimated the economy, split society and placed barbaric controls on women. Starting in the provinces in reaction to rising living costs, the uprising soon moved to the capital, Khartoum.

North and south came together, regardless of class, ethnicity or religious belief in defiance of the regime. Restaurants, banks and businesses were closed down. The streets became desolate. There were eight months of strikes and demonstrations calling for democracy, the dissolution of the National Congress Party NCP , human rights, economic reforms and the repeal of the public order law, designed to exclude and intimidate women from actively participating in public life.

Once Bashir was ousted, the Transitional Military Council TMC took charge and it soon became clear that it was not willing to give up power. On 3rd June, following weeks of peaceful celebration, the Rapid Support Forces opened fire on protestors who were holding a prolonged sit-in outside the military headquarters in Khartoum.

The internet was closed down to suppress sharing of information. Hundreds were killed and raped, in a bid to break the revolution by traumatising its supporters. The people didn't give up. Two weeks after the massacre, the youth reorganised , calling for sustained civil disobedience and non-violent resistance, claiming they would not stop until authority was transferred to a liberal civilian administration.

The Gilet Jaune Yellow Vest protest came about as a reaction to changes in labour laws, in particular a rise in fuel taxes, but grew to demand social and economic justice. Cuts in public transport services across France left much of the population reliant on cars. Rural populations, including those who had been priced out of living in the big cities, struggled to survive. In October , truck driver Eric Drouet called on the people of France to block their local roads on 17 November.

Approximately , people took part. Every French motorist is obliged to carry a high-viz jacket—un gilet jaune—in their vehicle. These ubiquitous garments became the symbol of protest as drivers displayed them on dashboards, hung them from windows and emblazoned them with protest slogans.

The power of the yellow vest lay in the support of the population. Within a month, polls showed over half the country agreed with the protest. Although built on peaceful, civil disobedience such as road blocks and building temporary camps on roundabouts, the yellow vest protests led to some of the worst civil disorder France has seen. Even though the majority of protestors distanced themselves from the violent elements of the movement, the French authorities were accused of disproportionate use of force.

After four weeks of disruption, and in a significant U-turn, President Macron was forced to make concessions including the cancellation of the fuel tax, while launching The Great National Debate inviting citizens to express their concerns and hopes regarding French politics. Civil disobedience does not equate to disregard for the law. What lies at its heart is the separation between the legal and the legitimate. It is used when traditional methods of protest, such as petitioning, lobbying, marching, voting and orderly, compliant demonstration have failed.

As for Extinction Rebellion, our strategy is one of civil disobedience grounded in non-violent disruption. There will be occasions when the state will choose to react with force, but to resort to the same tactics as those we seek to change is to abandon our moral compass.

Extinction Rebellion will continue to protest in the fight to halt mass extinction and minimise the risk of social collapse. Rebels refuse to sit idly by and watch grave injustices unfold. The struggle is one of survival. We are building an inclusive, participatory movement for change—one grown from grassroots campaigning on the streets and in homes, schools and workplaces, throughout the web and across the planet, with over groups in 72 countries.

One has not only a legal, but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. Extinction Rebellion is a decentralised, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency. Our movement is made up of people from all walks of life, contributing in different ways with the time and energy they can spare.

Chances are, we have a local branch very close to you , and we would love to hear from you. Get involved …or consider making a donation. What is XR? Each May Day in Seattle since brings about the threat of destruction and disruption to the city. Windows get smashed, people are sometimes confronted, and arrests are often made. Whenever someone chooses to disobey the laws of the government, either they or someone who gets in their way will be hurt physically, emotionally, or financially. It then becomes up to history to determine who stood in the correct moral position.

Civil disobedience can force the will of the minority on the majority. The basic tenet of a democracy is that the majority holds power on each issue. Negotiations, coalitions, and agreements create a group which makes decisions for the society based on the voting will of the general public. Acts of civil disobedience change this dynamic because those participating, either through violence or non-violence, seek to change this structure. They want the voice of the minority to take precedence over the will of the majority.

There are times when such an action does become necessary. If a government system regularly sides with the minority, however, it creates an effect which is opposite of what democratic structures offer. It changes the perception of disobedience in society.

Since the s, organizations like the American Civil Liberties Union ACLU are viewed as being overly supportive of criminals and activists instead of the majority in society. Families often get ripped apart because one side sees the act of disobedience as a way to protect rights, while the other half sees the action as an effort to take rights away.

Even Jesus acknowledged this disadvantage when discussing how family dynamics would change when belief systems changed in Luke No, I tell you, but division. From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two, and two against three. Civil disobedience often creates an impression of bias. The ACLU provides us with another example of this disadvantage of civil disobedience.

Because they take up far-left, often progressive causes for defense, people outside of the groups it represents see it as a defender of only a few instead of helping everyone maintain the rights given to them by the government. People tend to see actions through their own rose-colored glasses, whether participating in civil disobedience or refraining from it.

The ACLU has defended thousands of cases where Christians had their religious rights threatened too, including the right of an elementary-school student to read the Bible during a free-reading time at school. Acts of civil disobedience are often seen as being politically favorable to one specific group.

When the Occupy Wall Street movement began in September , it created a worldwide movement which fought to stop global economic inequality. Progressivism in the United States is usually associated with being on the left of the political spectrum.

That means the average American would see or learn that Democrats were the primary participants involved. There were Republicans at these protests. Conservatives who were unhappy with the state of economic affairs at the time participated too. Entire perspectives shift from the outside because of one association point, which is seen as politically favorable to one party or group instead of being looked at as the complex issue it tends to be. It can be used to promote unjust causes.

The Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, VA include groups associated with neo-fascists, white nationalists, neo-Nazis, and the hard elements of the alt-right. Many protesters chanted slogans which were anti-Semitic or racist in their wording and town. Some carried Nazi symbols and elements of anti-Muslim groups. The majority would declare that the oppression of others in favor of one race is not a moral position. Their acts of civil disobedience would therefore constitute an unjust cause.

That is the danger of civil disobedience. If people in power support an unjust position, it can shift how society thinks in dangerous ways. Civil disobedience can radicalize individuals. Acts of civil disobedience may start peacefully, but it can lead toward violence through the radicalization process.

Individuals become radicalized when they begin to adopt increasingly extreme ideologies from social, political, or religious viewpoints.