The Civility of Disruptive Disobedience

The paper examines the role the concept of civility plays in determining the limits of justified acts of conscientious law-breaking, with a focus on disruptive disobedience. We argue that civility is an essential part of civil disobedience in two different but mutually connected ways. First, it determines what mode of breaking the law must be satisfied (e.g. it has to be a public, non-violent and non-evasive act) for civil disobedience to be regarded as justified. Secondly, the requirement of civility tells us about the intent of law-breaking as a communicative act by citizens, i.e. as a warning and an appeal to the wider democratic public about the injustice of certain laws or policies. However, neither of these two conceptions of civility seem to apply to disruptive disobedience. Unlike civil disobedience, disruptive disobedience (which we conceptualise as a species of direct action), utilizes law-breaking to disrupt practices that are deemed to be unjust. The question of how one should act in breaking the law – the mode of disobedience - is determined by efficiency, not concerns about civility. Disruption might be, and often is, more efficient if it disregards the constraints of non-evasiveness, politeness, publicity and even non-destruction of property. Similarly, the intent of disruption is not to provoke a public’s awareness and democratic deliberation on the injustice of certain practices, but to disrupt those practices. Therefore, there is an argument to be made that the claims of civility simply do not apply to disruptive disobedience. The second part of the paper challenges that argument by going beyond the narrow scope of civility understood as defining the mode and intent of disobedience and by referring to the wider literature and debate about civility. We begin by distinguishing between ‘maximalist’ and ‘minimalist’ conceptions of civility. The maximalist conception holds that the practice of civility is a practice of signalling respect for one’s political interlocutors. By contrast, the minimalist conception holds that the practice of civility functions as a bulwark against violence and disorder. By outlining the limits of both of these conceptions, we explore the possibility of a middle ground between the maximalist and minimalist accounts: an understanding of civility not just as a mode of respectful communication or prevention of violence, but as being essentially bound up with civic life. On our account, civility is a civic practice or a civic ritual the performance of which serves to mark and honour core civic values. While focusing on the civic component of civility understood in this way, we return to the question of disruptive disobedience. We argue that by utilizing the conception of civility as a civic practice we can offer both justification of disruptive disobedience and a more compelling determination of its proper limits.