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Cover -- Half Title -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- WAYS IN TO THE TEXT -- Who Was Henry David Thoreau? -- What Does Civil Disobedience Say? -- Why Does Civil Disobedience Matter? -- SECTION 1: INFLUENCES -- Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context -- Module 2: Academic Context -- Module 3: The Problem -- Module 4: The Author's Contribution -- SECTION 2: IDEAS -- Module 5: Main Ideas -- Module 6: Secondary Ideas -- Module 7: Achievement -- Module 8: Place in the Author's Work -- SECTION 3: IMPACT -- Module 9: The First Responses -- Module 10: The Evolving Debate -- Module 11: Impact and Influence Today -- Module 12: Where Next? -- Glossary of Terms -- People Mentioned in the Text -- Works Cited

Thoreau advocates for nonviolent protest in his classic manifesto Motivated by his disgust with the US government, Henry David Thoreau's seminal philosophical essay enjoins individuals to stand against the ruling forces that seek to erase their free will. It is the duty of a good citizen, he argues, not only to disobey a bad law, but also to protest an unjust government. His message of nonviolence and appeal to value one's own conscience over political legislation have resonated throughout American and world history. Peppered with the author's poetry and social commentary, Civil Disobedience h

It has been widely feared - especially in Europe - that among the casualties in the "war against terror" it is now necessary to include a number of civil and political rights that used to form the nucleus of the liberal "Rechtstaat". In such times, it its useful to remember that on both sides of the Atlantic there has existed a powerful alternative political tradition - indeed a tradition that extends far beyond the West. This is the tradition of non-violence, one of the offshoots of which is the civil disobedience expounded and analyzed in this book. This exhaustive and carefully analytical study of civil disobedience, translated from Spanish, is a welcome reminder of the tradition that emphasised precisely the need to focus on the quality of the instruments of politics as much as its objectives. This volume seeks to disentangle the limits and possibilities of the tradition of civil disobedience: in what circumstances is it right, or perhaps necessary, to say "no"? The jurisprudential and philosophical literature discussed here is truly enormous and provides a complex and reliable overview of the main problems. This volume is thus a highly welcome contribution not only to discussions about civil and political rights, but also to the construction of the Europe of tomorrow as a political community worth making a commitment to

What is civil disobedience? Although Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King helped to bring the idea to prominence, even today it remains unclear how we should best understand civil disobedience. Why have so many different activists and intellectuals embraced it, and to what ends? Is civil disobedience still politically relevant in today's hyper-connected world? Does it make sense, for example, to describe Edward Snowden's actions, or those of recent global movements like Occupy, as falling under this rubric? If so, how must it adapt to respond to the challenges of digitalization and globalization and the rise of populist authoritarianism in the West? In this elegantly written introductory text, William E. Scheuerman systematically analyzes the most important interpretations of civil disobedience. Drawing out the striking differences separating religious, liberal, radical democratic, and anarchist views, he nonetheless shows that core commonalities remain. Against those who water down the idea of civil disobedience or view it as obsolescent, Scheuerman successfully salvages its central elements. The concept of civil disobedience, he argues, remains a pivotal tool for anyone hoping to bring about political and social change.

Civil disobedience is a public, non-violent and conscientious infringement of law carried out to express opposition to law and policy. The normative literature provides thorough treatments of several key issues related to the post-arrest treatment of civilly disobedient citizens, such as the propriety of imposing various types of legal sanction. An important issue that has received rather less consideration, though, is the matter of how police forces should react to civil disobedience prior to and during its commission. This article aims to encourage reflection on this issue by sketching a normative framework to orientate moral evaluation of the ways in which liberal democratic societies police civilly disobedient protest. The central argument is that the police should, wherever possible, adopt a strategy of 'negotiated accommodation' towards civil disobedience. The core requirement of this strategy is that police officers should attempt to engage in dialogue with protest groups before or during their civil disobedience actions. This dialogue must be underpinned by a conscientious and sincere commitment on the part of officers to balance the traditional goals of public order policing with the good of accommodating civil disobedience. The article contrasts the idea of negotiated accommodation with alternative strategies for policing civil disobedience, illustrates its practical implications through considering various examples, and defends it against important objections.

This article points out a struggle of today's societies with the traditional concepts of civil disobedience and stresses the need for reevaluation of the concept of civil disobedience for policy making and public discourse. Starting with a minimal definition of civil disobedience, the article introduces Hannah Arendt's approach for a legitimisation of civil disobedience and discusses her ideas for digital actions, which are increasingly framed as digital forms of civil disobedience. Addressing WikiLeaks as an example of digital civil disobedience, the author problematises the internal secrecy of WikiLeaks and the focus on Julian Assange as a single decision-maker. Both aspects challenge Arendt's understanding of legitimate civil disobedience. Even though traditional criteria of civil disobedience need to be revisited in the digital age, organisations or disobedience actors might themselves in their actions be well-advised to comply with the principles they fight for.