The Self-Created Conflict: Civil Disobedience in the United States and the Netherlands Compared

Abstract

The present-day problems in law and the legal order have been influenced for a part at least by the fact that practicing lawyers and legal scientists were not prepared to react to the deep political and social changes of our time. Many premises on law and order, on law enforcement and punishment, on hierarchical structures of authority, on the State as the central agency in society, on the right to resistance against the lawful governors, on the consent of the governed, have been heavily attacked and criticized. A reassessment of all these premises is going on now. The citizen’s duty to obedience is another such problem.