Abstract
Civil disobedience is cast as a special case of protest characterized by conscientious, intentional breaking or disobeying of a government law, regulation or rule, (to achieve) the visibility of protest against the perceived social injustice, while appealing to higher values, possibly but not necessarily reflected in the extant laws, regulations or rules, without resorting to violence and with the preparedness to accept the consequences for one’s life, body and mind. These consequences usually take the form of repression or legal sanctions. To buttress this definition, many examples are provided, but the text also pinpoints the fact that whether a protest action is accepted as civil disobedience or not depends on the protest form and discourses of protesters as well as on the reactions of the authorities and the public. It is argued that civil disobedience has all along been solidaristic and collective, but it has currently expanded to include minimal use of violence in justifiable cases. Finally, the question of how to transfer the concept of civil disobedience to authoritarian and totalitarian regimes is addressed.
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Flam, H. (2023). The Puzzle of Civil Disobedience. In: Daher, L.M. (eds) Democratic Protests and New Forms of Collective Action. Contributions to Political Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-44049-6_2
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