Editing Civil disobedience (section)

== Theories ==
In seeking an active form of civil disobedience, one may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally,<ref name="Right to Protest">{{Citation|title=Your Right To Protest|author=ACLU of Oregon|date=October 2017}}</ref> though sometimes violence has been known to occur. Often there is an expectation to be attacked or even beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack.

Civil disobedience is usually defined as pertaining to a citizen's relation to the state and its laws, as distinguished from a [[constitutional impasse]], in which two public agencies, especially two equally [[sovereignty|sovereign]] [[branches of government]], conflict. For instance, if the [[head of government]] of a country were to refuse to enforce a decision of that country's highest court, it would not be civil disobedience, since the head of government would act in his or her capacity as public official rather than private citizen.<ref name=Rex>{{citation|title=Civil Disobedience|author=Rex Martin|publisher=Ethics|volume=80|issue=2|date=Jan 1970|pages=123–139}}</ref>

This definition is disputed by Thoreau's political philosophy on the conscience vs. the collective. The person is the final judge of right and wrong. More than this, since only people act, only a person can act unjustly. When the government knocks on the door, it is a person in the form of a postman or tax collector whose hand hits the wood. Before Thoreau's imprisonment, when a confused taxman had wondered aloud about how to handle his refusal to pay, Thoreau had advised, "Resign". If a man chose to be an agent of injustice, then Thoreau insisted on confronting him with the fact that he was making a choice. He admits that government may express the will of the majority but it may also express nothing more than the will of elite politicians. Even a good form of government is "liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it". If a government did express the voice of most people, this would not compel the obedience of those who disagree with what is said. The majority may be powerful but it is not necessarily right.<ref>{{cite web|last1=McElroy|first1=Wendy|title=Henry Thoreau and 'Civil Disobedience'|url=http://thoreau.eserver.org/wendy.html|website=thoreau.eserver.org|publisher=Future of Freedom Foundation|access-date=5 September 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150918080939/http://thoreau.eserver.org/wendy.html|archive-date=18 September 2015}}</ref>

In his 1971 book, ''[[A Theory of Justice]]'', [[John Rawls]] described civil disobedience as "a public, non-violent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about change in the law or policies of the government".<ref>Hayley Bennett, Alexandra Macmillan, Rhys Jones, Alison Blaiklock and John McMillan, "Should health professionals participate in civil disobedience in response to the climate change health emergency?", ''[[The Lancet]]'', volume 395, issue 10220, pages 304-308, 25 January 2020 (and references cited).</ref>

[[Ronald Dworkin]] held that there are three types of civil disobedience:
* "Integrity-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys a law they feel is immoral, as in the case of abolitionists disobeying the [[fugitive slave laws]] by refusing to turn over escaped slaves to authorities.
* "Justice-based" civil disobedience occurs when a citizen disobeys laws to lay claim to some right denied to them, as when Black people illegally protested during the [[civil rights movement]].
* "Policy-based" civil disobedience occurs when a person breaks the law to change a policy they believe is dangerously wrong.<ref>{{citation|title=Dworkin in Transition|author=Ken Kress and Scott W. Anderson|publisher=The American Journal of Comparative Law|volume=37|issue=2|date=Spring 1989|pages=337–351}}</ref>

Some theories of civil disobedience hold that civil disobedience is only justified against governmental entities. Brownlee argues that disobedience in opposition to the decisions of non-governmental agencies such as [[trade union]]s, banks, and [[private universities]] can be justified if it reflects "a larger challenge to the legal system that permits those decisions to be taken". The same principle, she argues, applies to breaches of law in protest against [[international organization]]s and foreign governments.<ref name=Brownlee/>

It is usually recognized that lawbreaking, if it is not done publicly, at least must be publicly announced to constitute civil disobedience. But Stephen Eilmann argues that if it is necessary to disobey rules that conflict with morality, we might ask why disobedience should take the form of public civil disobedience rather than simply covert lawbreaking. If a lawyer wishes to help a client overcome legal obstacles to securing their [[natural right]]s, he might, for instance, find that assisting in [[fabricating evidence]] or committing [[perjury]] is more effective than open disobedience. This assumes that common morality does not have a prohibition on [[deceit]] in such situations.<ref>{{citation|doi=10.2307/1122838|title=Lawyering for Justice in a Flawed Democracy|first2=David|last2=Luban|author=Stephen Ellmann|volume=90|issue=1|journal=Columbia Law Review|date=Jan 1990|pages=116–190|jstor=1122838}}</ref> The [[Fully Informed Jury Association]]'s publication "A Primer for Prospective Jurors" notes, "Think of the dilemma faced by German citizens when [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]]'s [[Gestapo|secret police]] demanded to know if they were hiding a Jew in their house."<ref>{{citation|url=http://fija.org/docs/BR_2010_QandA_primer.pdf|title=A Primer for Prospective Jurors|publisher=Fully Informed Jury Association|access-date=28 June 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130825163303/http://fija.org/docs/BR_2010_QandA_primer.pdf|archive-date=25 August 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref> By this definition, civil disobedience could be traced back to the [[Book of Exodus]], where [[Shiphrah]] and [[Puah]] refused a direct order of Pharaoh but misrepresented how they did it. (Exodus 1: 15–19)<ref>Magonet, Jonathan (1992) Bible Lives (London: SCM), 8</ref>

===Violent vs. nonviolent===
There have been debates as to whether civil disobedience must necessarily be non-violent. ''[[Black's Law Dictionary]]'' includes nonviolence in its definition of civil disobedience. Christian Bay's encyclopedia article states that civil disobedience requires "carefully chosen and legitimate means", but holds that they do not have to be non-violent.<ref>{{citation|author=Bay, Christian|title=Civil Disobedience|publisher=International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences|volume=II|pages=473–486}}</ref> It has been argued that, while both civil disobedience and [[civil rebellion]] are justified by appeal to [[constitutional defect]]s, rebellion is much more destructive; therefore, the defects justifying rebellion must be much more serious than those justifying disobedience, and if one cannot justify civil rebellion, then one cannot justify a civil disobedient's use of force and violence and refusal to submit to arrest. Civil disobedients' refraining from violence is also said to help preserve society's tolerance of civil disobedience.<ref>{{citation|title=Civil Disobedience|author=Stuart M. Brown Jr.|publisher=The Journal of Philosophy|volume=58|issue=22}}</ref>

The philosopher [[Henry John McCloskey|H.&nbsp;J. McCloskey]] argues that "if violent, intimidatory, coercive disobedience is more effective, it is, other things being equal, more justified than less effective, nonviolent disobedience."<ref>{{citation|doi=10.2307/2106847|title=Conscientious Disobedience of the Law: Its Necessity, Justification, and Problems to Which it Gives Rise|author=H.&nbsp;J. McCloskey|volume=40|issue=4|journal=Philosophy and Phenomenological Research|date=Jun 1980|pages=536–557|jstor=2106847}}</ref> In his best-selling ''Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order'',<ref>Davis D. Joyce, ''Howard Zinn: A Radical American Vision'' (Prometheus, 2003), 102–103.  Joyce notes that ''Disobedience and Democracy'' sold 75,000 copies in the late 1960s and was Zinn's best-selling book prior to ''A People's History of the United States''</ref> [[Howard Zinn]] takes a similar position; Zinn states that while the goals of civil disobedience are generally nonviolent,

{{Blockquote|in the inevitable tension accompanying the transition from a violent world to a non-violent one, the choice of means will almost never be pure, and will involve such complexities that the simple distinction between violence and non-violence does not suffice as a guide&nbsp;... the very acts with which we seek to do good cannot escape the imperfections of the world we are trying to change.<ref>Howard Zinn, ''Disobedience and Democracy: Nine Fallacies on Law and Order'' (South End Press edition, 2002), 39–41</ref>}}

Zinn rejects any "easy and righteous dismissal of violence", noting that Thoreau, the popularizer of the term civil disobedience, approved of the armed insurrection of [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]]. He also notes that some major civil disobedience campaigns which have been classified as non-violent, such as the [[Birmingham campaign]], have actually included elements of violence.<ref>Zinn, ''Disobedience'', 47</ref><ref name="press.princeton.edu">{{Cite web|url=http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7719.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150401051906/http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i7719.html|url-status=dead|title=Howard Zinn, "Introduction" for ''The Higher Law: Thoreau on Civil Disobedience and Reform'', Wendell Glick, ed., (Princeton University Press, 2004)|archive-date=1 April 2015}}</ref>

===Revolutionary vs. non-revolutionary===
Non-revolutionary civil disobedience is a simple disobedience of laws on the grounds that they are judged "wrong" by a person's conscience, or as part of an effort to render certain laws ineffective, to cause their repeal, or to exert pressure to get one's political wishes on some other issue. Revolutionary civil disobedience is more of an active attempt to overthrow a government (or to change cultural traditions, social customs or religious beliefs). Revolution does not have to be political, i.e. "cultural revolution", it simply implies sweeping and widespread change to a section of the social fabric.<ref>{{citation|title=Toward an Ethics of Civil Disobedience|author=Harry Prosch|publisher=Ethics|volume=77|issue=3|date=Apr 1967|pages=176–192}}</ref> Gandhi's acts have been described as revolutionary civil disobedience.<ref name=Rex/> It has been claimed that the [[Hungarians]] under [[Ferenc Deák (politician)|Ferenc Deák]] directed revolutionary civil disobedience against the [[Austrian Empire|Austrian government]].<ref name=Bedau>{{citation|doi=10.2307/2023542|volume=58|issue=21|journal=The Journal of Philosophy|date=12 October 1961|pages=653–665|title=On Civil Disobedience|author=Hugo A. Bedau|jstor=2023542}}</ref> Thoreau also wrote of civil disobedience accomplishing "peaceable revolution".<ref name=Thoreau/> Howard Zinn, [[Harvey Wheeler]], and others have identified the right espoused in the [[United States Declaration of Independence|US Declaration of Independence]] to "alter or abolish" an unjust government to be a principle of civil disobedience.<ref name="press.princeton.edu"/><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.constitution.org/hwheeler/constcivdisobed.htm#N_1_|title=Harvey Wheeler: The Constitutionality of Civil Disobedience|access-date=6 May 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150327031342/http://www.constitution.org/hwheeler/constcivdisobed.htm#N_1_|archive-date=27 March 2015|url-status=live}}</ref>

===Collective vs. solitary===
The earliest recorded incidents of collective civil disobedience took place during the [[Roman Empire]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Civil Disobedience {{!}} Encyclopedia.com |url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/social-sciences-and-law/sociology-and-social-reform/social-reform/civil-disobedience |access-date=2022-07-10 |website=www.encyclopedia.com}}</ref> Unarmed [[Jew]]s gathered in the streets to prevent the installation of pagan images in the [[Temple in Jerusalem]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Civil Disobedience |url=https://lawjournal.mcgill.ca/article/civil-disobedience/ |access-date=2022-07-10 |website=McGill Law Journal |language=en-US}}</ref>{{Original research inline|date=January 2012}} In modern times, some activists who commit civil disobedience as a group collectively refuse to sign [[bail (law)|bail]] until certain demands are met, such as favourable bail conditions, or the release of all the activists. This is a form of [[jail solidarity]].<ref>{{citation|title=Path of Resistance|url=http://taghier.org/books/english/path_e.pdf|author=P Herngren|publisher=The Practice of Civil Disobedience|year=1993|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728081255/http://taghier.org/books/english/path_e.pdf|archive-date=28 July 2011}}</ref>{{Page needed|date=January 2012}} There have also been many instances of solitary civil disobedience, such as that committed by Thoreau, but these sometimes go unnoticed. Thoreau, at the time of his arrest, was not yet a well-known author, and his arrest was not covered in any newspapers in the days, weeks and months after it happened. The tax collector who arrested him rose to higher political office, and Thoreau's essay was not published until after the end of the Mexican War.<ref>{{citation|author=Gross, Robert A.|title=Quiet War With The State; Henry David Thoreau and Civil Disobedience.|publisher=The Yale Review|date=October 2005|pages=1–17}}</ref>