Civil Disobedience Archives

Democracy

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

We should support them

March 29, 2021 • by Jeffrey C. Isaac

By all accounts the situation in Myanmar is grave, as citizens struggle non-violently to defend democracy, and as the military massacres them. As always, behind this violent military coup is a complicated political situation. Here is an extensive account published in today’s New York Times. Here is a recent Times piece on the ...

Citizens Defending Democracy Are Being Shot on the Streets of Myanmar.

Literature

Poetry to Vote By

Reading Ilya Kaminsky’s Deaf Republic on the eve of the election

November 3, 2020 • by Evangeline Riddiford Graham

How many of us are brave enough for art? At the bakery down the block, polling shows Trump surging ahead. Each purchase of an election-themed cookie—Biden or Trump, with red, white, and blue sprinkles—is tallied by the bakers as a vote in favor for the relevant candidate. “Our forecast is never ...

Activism

Their Violence and Ours

Attacks on property do not always undermine a political cause

July 16, 2020 • by William E. Scheuerman

How should we make sense of the political violence that has sometimes accompanied Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests? What about the state’s violent response to peaceful protest, or the dangerous acts committed by right-wing counter-protestors? Speaking on Canadian radio in the wake of 160 riots that shook U.S. cities during the ...

Democracy

Civil Disobedience in the Age of Trump

Hannah Arendt on why civil disobedience is not just justifiable but politically imperative

October 24, 2018 • by William E. Scheuerman

This symposium contains essays by Mary Dietz, William E. Scheuerman, Christian Volk, Seyla Benhabib, and Jeffrey C. Isaac that engage with the obvious and meaningful resonances between Crises of the Republic and the present. They were originally presented in August at the American Political Science Association’s annual meeting in Boston, in a ...