What is the difference between civil disobedience and direct action

While conscientious evasion is incompatible with the intention to communicate, conscientious objection may have a public or communicative component, as Thoreau clearly did with his conscientious tax refusal, in a way that blurs the distinction with civil disobedience.

Moreover, when such actions are taken by many people — as they often are — their collective impact can approximate the kind of communicative protest exemplified in civil disobedience Delmas a, ch. Writings on immigration and on civil disobedience have merged into an area of research devoted to principled disobedience in response to anti-immigration policies.

One view, which focuses on what individual actors should do about immigration, examines various unlawful tactics of resistance, including evasion, deception, use of force against state officials, and smuggling Hidalgo , chs. Another view conceives of illegal migration as a form of resistance to global poverty Blunt , ch.

It is further useful to distinguish transnational civil disobedience from global civil disobedience. For instance, when the sans-papiers in France openly protest against their socio-political and legal exclusion through occupations, demonstrations, and hunger strikes, they may be viewed as engaged in acts of global civil disobedience. See also Applbaum , ch. Digitalization — access to personal computers and the Internet — has transformed not only our lives and interactions, but also our disobedient practices.

From piracy to DDoS attacks and from open-access coding to Digital Care Packages which provide tools to circumvent censorship and surveillance , digital disobedience has emerged as a rich terrain for theoretical inquiry. Scholars disagree about the application of the defining features of civil disobedience to the digital, e.

These debates aside, it is useful to distinguish different kinds of digital tools, sites, strategies, and aims. First, activists use digital technology as tools to organize, document, communicate, raise funds, and make decisions.

For instance, Black Lives Matter activists use social media to promote their cause, raise consciousness about systemic racism, and publicize instances of police brutality.

They use crowdfunding platforms for fundraising to cover bail and other legal expenses for those arrested. They encourage people to use police scanner apps to watch police activity and legal assistance apps to record encounters with law enforcement officials. Second, the digital is itself a crucial site and object of activism. Hacktivists envision a different Internet — one that is democratic and democratically controlled, free, respectful of privacy, and creative.

They protest against the digital architecture of surveillance and control that has been imposed on netizens without their consent.

Third, some properly digital strategies of principled disobedience have emerged, such as DDoS actions, web defacement, and hacking. The Open Access Movement, which advocates for open-source software and an open-source repository of academic and scientific research, combines all three dimensions of digital disobedience: it uses networked computers to organize and communicate; it seeks to bring about a free Internet characterized by the free flow of software, science, and culture and has developed a coherent political platform in its defense; and it deploys properly digital strategies, such as illegal downloads and peer-to-peer file sharing which is illegal when the content torrented is copyrighted material.

The Open Access Movement epitomizes a public, geeks-and-grassroots mass movement that not only promotes online democratic governance, but also enacts it within the movement Swartz [Other Internet Resources]; Delmas b, 79— Uncivil disobedience is not a distinct category of political action, but a cluster concept or umbrella term that can be used to designate acts of principled disobedience that may or may not be communicative, and which violate one or more of the marks of civility by being covert, violent, evasive, or offensive Delmas a, ; Lai Examples include animal rescue, Sanctuary assistance, sabotage, ecotage e.

These various act-types do not share any essential property, besides violating one or more of the commonly accepted criteria of civility. Each form of uncivil disobedience must be examined conceptualized and assessed on its own. Identifying some principled disobedient acts as uncivil makes room to focus on their justification.

Scholars have defended such uncivil disobedience as political rioting Pasternak , vandalism Lim ; Lai , violent protest Kling and Mitchell , coercive strike tactics Gourevitch , and direct action Smith While a civil disobedient does not necessarily oppose the regime in which she acts, the revolutionary agent is deeply opposed to that regime or a core aspect of that regime.

Revolutionary agents may not seek to persuade others of the merits of their position — communication is usually not their primary aim, although they convey the urgency of a regime change. When revolution is called for, such as under colonial occupation, there is no need to justify constrained acts of protest like civil disobedience. Indeed, more forceful resistance can be justified as we pass into the realm of just war theory Buchanan ; Finlay This is not to say that all violent tactics, including terror, are permissible, since the use of violence must not only pursue a just cause but also accord with proportionality and necessity i.

As will be discussed in the next section, revolutionary activists and thinkers like Frantz Fanon , ch. The task of defending civil disobedience is commonly undertaken with the assumption that in reasonably just, liberal societies people have a general moral duty to follow the law often called political obligation. It is on the basis of such an assumption that civil disobedience requires justification. This section examines common understandings of the problem of disobedience 3. Whether or not theorists assume that civil disobedience is presumptively impermissible and in need of justification, their analyses also articulate the value and role of civil disobedience in non-ideal, nearly just or less-than-nearly-just liberal democracies 3.

Philosophers have given many arguments in favor of the moral duty to obey the law see entry on political obligation. Despite the many critiques of, and general skepticism toward, arguments for the moral duty to obey the law, most prominently following A.

They contend that civil disobedience in particular is presumptively wrong because of its anti-democratic nature. The agent who violates the outcomes of democratic decision-making processes because she disapproves of them puts herself above the law and threatens the legal and democratic order.

Recent scholarship on civil disobedience has taken what may be dubbed an anarchist turn , as theorists tend to no longer approach civil disobedience as presumptively wrong and in tension with political obligation. Others defend a disjunctive moral duty to obey the law or disobey it civilly Lefkowitz ; and still others argue that the grounds commonly used to support political obligation — the natural duty of justice, the principle of fairness, the Samaritan duty, and associative obligations — yield duties to resist injustice, through civil and uncivil disobedience, under non-ideal circumstances, and that such duties should be considered among our political obligations Delmas a.

Likewise, on a virtue-ethical account, political obligation can be understood as an obligation to respect rather than to obey the law, which can sometimes give rise to a duty to engage in civil disobedience Moraro , ch. Given the assumption that people have a moral duty to obey the law and the concern that civil disobedience has the potential to destabilize society, Rawls famously raised the bar for the justified use of the practice, requiring acts of civil disobedience 1 to target serious and long-standing injustice and at the same time appeal to widely accepted principles of justice, 2 to be undertaken as a last resort, and 3 to be done in coordination with other minority groups with similar grievances Rawls , —9.

These conditions for the justification of civil disobedience, which are critically examined in this part, are closely tied not only to the ostensible need to diffuse its destabilizing potential and discourage proliferation of the practice, but also to the efficacy and role of civil disobedience in society which is explored further in 3. Longstanding Injustice : Why did Rawls restrict the target of civil disobedience to entrenched, longstanding injustices — in particular, violations of the principle of equal basic liberties?

Racial segregation fell in this category, according to Rawls, but not economic inequality. Rawls thinks that appeals to publicly shared principles of constitutional morality per the publicity-as-appeal requirement are more likely to persuade the majority and succeed to bring about reform.

Critics reject this justificatory condition because it arbitrarily excludes both progressive but not widely shared conceptions of justice such as cosmopolitanism and appeals to other principles of morality besides justice say, regarding the ethical treatment of animals; Singer , 86— Scholars also include in the class of justifiable targets private agents such as trade unions, banks, health insurance companies, labs, farm factories, and private universities Walzer , ch.

Cooke Finally, observation of past and present social movements, including the Abolitionist movement, MeToo, and Black Lives Matter, suggests that, rather than appealing to the public principles of political morality, civil disobedients may in fact seek to transform common sense morality. Last Resort : What grounds the widely accepted requirement that civil disobedience be undertaken as a last resort?

How do we know agents have met it? One position is that, in a liberal democracy, citizens should use proper legal channels of political participation to express their grievances Raz ; though Raz grants that individual acts of disobedience can be justified in liberal regimes. But, since causes defended by a minority are often those most opposed by persons in power, legal channels may be less than wholly effective Rawls , Moreover, it is unclear when a person could claim to have reached a situation of last resort; she could continue to use the same tired legal methods without end.

To ward off such challenges, Rawls suggests that, if past actions, including by others, have shown the majority to be immovable or apathetic, then further attempts may reasonably be thought fruitless and the dissenter may be confident her civil disobedience is a last resort , Minority Group Coordination : The coordination requirement is designed to regulate the overall level of dissent Rawls , While there is some merit to this condition, arguably civil disobedience that does not meet it can still be justifiable.

In some cases, there will be no time or opportunity to coordinate with other minorities. In other cases, other minority groups may be unable or unwilling to coordinate. A reason for Rawls to defend this coordination requirement is that often coordination serves a more important concern, namely, the achievement of good consequences.

It is often argued that civil disobedience can only be justified if there is a high probability that it will produce positive change, since only such change can justify exposing society to the risks of harm usually associated with civil disobedience — namely, its destabilizing and divisive potential and the risk that it could encourage lawbreaking or escalate into uncivil disobedience.

In response to these challenges, one might question the empirical claims that civil disobedience is divisive and that it has the consequence of leading others to use disobedience to achieve changes in policy. One might also question whether it necessarily would be a bad thing if civil disobedience had these consequences. Concerning likelihood of success, civil disobedience can seem most justifiable when the situation appears hopeless and when the government refuses to listen to conventional forms of communication.

Additionally, even when general success seems unlikely, civil disobedience might be defended for any reprieve from harm that it brings to victims of a bad law or policy. Tree-hugging, for example, can delay or curtail a clear-cut logging scheme and thereby prolong the protection of an ecosystem.

The justification of civil disobedience further articulates the conditions for its effective role in society. Far from undermining the rule of law or destabilizing society, civil disobedience could strengthen the social and legal order. Both ideas deem the practice of civil disobedience to be a valuable component of the public political culture of a near-just constitutional democratic society.

Deliberative democrats Markovits ; Smith , ch. Agents engaged in civil disobedience can enhance democratic legitimacy in a number of ways, including by putting a heretofore-neglected issue on the political agenda and raising awareness about its stakes; contributing to and informing democratic deliberation; highlighting the outsize influence of powerful players and the exclusionary effects of certain processes of public deliberation, and working to make the latter more inclusive.

Civil disobedience does not only aim to invigorate democratic sovereignty, but also can constitute a form of democratic empowerment in itself — an exercise of political agency that is especially meaningful for marginalized groups. Through civil disobedience, individuals discover and realize their power. They work together and forge bonds of solidarity. They engage in democratic politics. Many activists further enact within their movement the norms and values that guide their struggles, for instance through radical inclusion, direct democratic decision-making, aspiration to consensus, and leaderless organizational structures.

Some theorists insist on the need to align the means of protest with its aims, by deploying only persuasive, non-violent forms of protest that reflect democratic ideals Habermas , —4; M.

Cooke , while others contend that civil disobedience can be confrontational and coercive without betraying its democratic aims Smith ; Fung , A third approach to the value of civil disobedience, besides the liberal and democratic lenses, comes from the political realist perspective.

Other realists criticize both liberal and deliberative democratic perspectives for their deductive, top-down approach to moral analysis, their quest for rational consensus, and their assumption that people can be persuaded by rational arguments alone Sabl , ; Mantena For her part, Mantena debunks the common understanding of Gandhi and King as committed in principle and absolutely to non-violence, showing that their endorsement of non-violence reflected concerns of political efficacy.

Recent social scientific research has corroborated the effectiveness of non-violence in campaigns of civil resistance, which seek to topple dictatorships or colonial powers Chenoweth and Stephan ; Schock How should the state respond to civil disobedience? The question of appropriate legal response applies, first, to the actions of law-enforcers when deciding whether and how to intervene in a civilly disobedient action.

It applies, second, to the actions of prosecutors when deciding whether to file charges and proceed to trial. Finally, it applies to the actions of judges and juries when deciding whether to convict and for judges how much to punish. How much punishment is appropriate for civil disobedients?

Is punishment appropriate at all? If there is a right to civil disobedience, then, as we saw, it protects people from punishment. Unlike civil wrongs, which are privately brought, criminal wrongs are public wrongs: the polity, not the victim there may not be any , prosecutes the alleged wrongdoer.

If civilly disobedient breaches of law are public wrongs, comparable to or worse than ordinary offenses, then civil disobedients should be punished similarly or more severely than those who commit ordinary offenses. Kent Greenawalt lays out reasons to hold that civil disobedients deserve the same punishment as others who breach the same laws. First, the demands of proportionality would seem to recommend a uniform application of legal prohibitions. Since trespass is prohibited, persons who breach trespass laws in protest of either those laws or other laws would seem to be equally liable to persons who breach trespass laws for private purposes.

Second, any principle that officials may use to excuse justified illegal acts will result in some failures to punish unjustified acts, for which the purposes of punishment would be more fully served. Even when officials make correct judgments about which acts to excuse, citizens may draw mistaken inferences, and restraints of deterrence and norm acceptance may be weakened for unjustified acts that resemble justified ones Greenawalt , What follows is that all such violations, justified and unjustified, should be treated the same.

There also are reasons to believe that civil disobedients should be dealt with more severely than are others who have offended. First, as mentioned above, disobedients seem to have put themselves above the law in preferring their own moral judgment about a certain issue to that of the democratic decision-making process and the rule of law.

Second, the communicative aspect of civil disobedience could be said to aggravate disobedient offenses since their communication usually is attended by much greater publicity than most covert violations are. This forces legal authorities to concern themselves with the possibility that law-abiding citizens will feel distressed, insecure, and perhaps imposed on, if no action is taken.

So, notes Greenawalt, while authorities may quietly let minor breaches pass, failure to respond to violations performed, in some respect, in the presence of authority, may undercut claims that the rules and the persons who administered them deserve respect , —2. Third, and related, civil disobedients often invite, and might inspire, other citizens to do what they do. Such risk of proliferation of civil disobedience and, further, of its escalation into lawlessness and violence, may support the imposition of more severe punishment for agents engaged in civil disobedience.

However, both the models of civil disobedience presented above, which stress its role and value in liberal democracies, and the arguments for the right to civil disobedience examined below, strongly push for the opposite view that civil disobedients, if punished at all, should be dealt with more leniently than others who have offended.

The government can exercise its responsibility of leniency by not prosecuting civil disobedience at all, depending on the balance of reasons, including individual rights, state interests, social costs, and constitutional benefits.

In general, prosecutors should not charge disobedients with the most serious offenses applicable and judges should give them light sentences. Leniency follows from the recognition of the special constitutional status of civil disobedience. In this view, officials at all levels have the discretion to not sanction civil disobedients, and they should use it. Prosecutors have and should use their discretion not to press charges against civil disobedients in some cases, or to charge them with the least serious offense possible.

Dworkin urges judges to engage in an open dialogue with civil disobedients at least those who articulate legal arguments in defense of their actions and dismiss their charges after hearing them, or to use their discretion in sentencing, for instance by accepting guilty pleas or guilty verdicts but imposing trivial punishments.

To the contrary, judges might well systematically decide against civil disobedients, upholding the special interests of the ruling class of which they are part. Climate activist John Sinha places the tactics of the movement in historical context and XR member Simon Assaf reports from inside the protests. With its colourful and creative protests and the political background of its founders, Extinction Rebellion XR would appear to have a lot in common with previous movements such as Occupy, the Climate Camp and other direct action protest movements.

Certainly the organisers have learned a lot from what went before, but to leave it at that would be to overlook major differences in organisation, objectives, strategy and tactics.

Firstly, climate change is not the only issue which concerns the movement. Capitalism is presiding over the sixth mass extinction in the history of the Earth. XR is the first movement to address this, hence the name. Previous movements have prioritised direct action, targeting the source of emissions head on, such as the many Climate Camps that camped outside power stations and airport runways.

Others were directly oppositional in nature, such as protests at the UN climate talks in Copenhagen and Paris. So, what is the big difference between civil disobedience and direct action? Civil disobedience movements accept — at least nominally — that the state is a legitimate actor. There are not many anarchists or autonomists who could sign up to such a declaration, since they do not accept the legitimacy of the state to begin with. And since such an approach would never have been acceptable to a significant section of previous movements, they have eschewed it in the past.

In this respect XR has more in common with historic social movements such as the Chartists in 19th century England who produced their own set of demands with a petition , the Civil Rights movement in the US and the early anti-nuclear movement in Britain in the form of the Committees of , which grew out of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the early s. In particular, it was the key tactic of mass arrests and the brutal response of the police in places like Alabama that enabled the Civil Rights movement in the US to foment a political crisis.

Roger Hallam, one of the founders of XR, has closely studied the tactics of this movement. In taking this approach XR activists are breaking a number of shibboleths long held by Occupy and climate networks. Secondly, they have a more transparent, if distributed, leadership structure.

Activists knew the Rapid Response Team was responsible for making on the spot tactical decisions during the blockades. Finally, they are raising demands on the state.

They interlock and reinforce each other. Their second demand is for zero carbon by It is something that cannot be realised under capitalism. Not even the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn would put this in a manifesto.

This may be true, but such arguments do not always persuade judges or juries. Most protests, rallies, and marches are not forms of direct action.

As the term implies, direct action involves attempting to achieve a goal through direct, rather than indirect or symbolic action. Examples direct action include strikes, blockades, and boycotts. Blocking traffic is usually not a form of direct action, unless what you are protesting is the traffic itself, for example, if abortion protesters block traffic going to an abortion clinic. Direct action is distinguishable from civil disobedience, though both may lead to arrest.

Like civil disobedience, direct action may help raise public awareness, but that is not the primary goal of the action. Direct action may or may not be very public. Unlike civil disobedience, direct action seeks to circumvent state actors. The lunch counter protests during the Civil Rights Movement are a good example. While these actions did have a symbolic component, they were a form of direct action, because the law they were breaking the same law that they wanted to change unlike most protesters who block traffic.

The Montgomery bus boycott is another good example of direct action, even though no one risked arrest by boycotting the buses. Direct action may be non-violent, like camping in a tree to prevent the logging of a forest , or it may be violent, like Antifa protester attacking fascist protesters.

An example from my own experience may help illustrate the difference between public demonstration, civil disobedience, and direct action:. In May of , I and 40 other people were arrested when we crossed the property line of the BP refinery in Whiting, Indiana and refused to leave after being ordered to do so by the police.

Our actions were the culmination of a rally and march called Break Free Midwest , which drew about protesters. Break Free Midwest was itself part of a larger campaign, called Break Free, organized by It was the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the climate change movement. All three tactics—public demonstrations, civil disobedience, and direct action—were used in the Break Free campaign. Some of the other actions included:.

The three actions listed above were forms of direct action, because the protesters put themselves directly in the path of the fossil fuel industry and temporarily stopped a part of it. In contrast, the action I participated in was a form of civil disobedience, not direct action.

Although we were on the refinery property, our action was primarily symbolic. All of these actions were supported by other demonstrators who participated in rallies and marches, but did not engage in civil disobedience or direct action.