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"Civil disobedience is a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act, contrary to law, carried out to communicate opposition to law and policy of government. This book presents a theory of civil disobedience that draws on ideas associated with deliberative democracy"--

Policing by consent is an influential frame of reference for police forces, policy makers, and members of the public in appraising the means and ends of law enforcement in Anglo-American societies. The doctrine is nonetheless vulnerable to powerful philosophical and political objections, which suggests that an alternative paradigm is necessary. This article draws on recent republican political theory in elaborating a doctrine of policing by contestation. This republican conception does not rest the legitimacy of policing on the supposed consent of the policed, but on the availability and adequacy of the means through which the policed can contest arbitrary interference at the hands of the police.

There is currently a global wave of protest movements whose militant tactics cannot be subsumed under the category of nonviolent civil disobedience. There has, concurrently, been a surge of interest among political philosophers in the idea of 'uncivil disobedience', with a range of theorists converging on the view that there is often no compelling rationale for limiting dissent to the nonviolent repertoire associated with civil disobedience. This discussion piece reconsiders deliberative democratic approaches to activism and protest in light of these political and philosophical developments. It argues that the tendency to frame protest through the catch-all category of 'non-deliberative' behaviour elides the distinction between civil and uncivil disobedience, treating as analogous forms of conduct that are quite different in terms of their potential consequences and their ethical complexion. The paper focuses in particular on the difficult case of violence, exploring the normative scope for deliberative theorists to treat it as a potentially legitimate mode of uncivil resistance.

AbstractCivil disobedience is a conscientious, unlawful, and broadly nonviolent form of protest, which most political philosophers and many non-philosophers are inclined to treat as potentially defensible in democratic societies. In recent years, philosophers have become more receptive to long-standing complaints from activists that civil disobedience is an unduly restrictive framework for considering the ethics of dissent. Candice Delmas and Jason Brennan have written important books that illustrate and strengthen this trend, both defending forms of "uncivil" resistance that go beyond the narrow confines of civil disobedience. Their books offer contrasting but complementary philosophical defences of incivility as a tactic of resistance, but it is nonetheless a mistake to conclude that the rich tradition associated with civil disobedience no longer has any relevance for resistance in national, transnational, and global contexts.