Original scientific paper

Civil Disobedience: Past and Present

Ivana Spasić

Abstract

Civil disobedience belongs among the concepts whose meaning and scope, in spite of widespread usage, remains contested. The main subject of this paper are different possibilities to define this concept, within political theory and practical-political reflection, as well as the tensions arising from the encounter between theoretical definitions and empirical reality. After a brief overview of the history of civil disobedience as technique of political struggle since the beginning of the modem era, and especially in the 20th century, the basic premises of the currently dominant conception of civil disobedience (J. Rawls, J. Habermas) are presented. The strict definition provided by this conception, it is argued, while advantageous, also risks narrowing down the concept too much and therefore diverging too widely from the self-understanding of political practice itself. The next section of the paper is devoted to critiques of the dominant conception articulated primarily within various contemporary social movements. In the final section, the example of Serbia in the period of Milošević’s rule, more precisely, the role of civil disobedience in resisting this regime, is analysed through the lens of the preceding theoretical discussion.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

202582

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/202582

Publication date:

22.12.2004.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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