Author(s): Aleksandra Mirović / Language(s): English
Issue: 1-2/2010
Based on comparative analysis of dominant contemporary conceptions of civil disobedience,
it is concluded that all of them, to a lesser or greater extent, stay within the Rawlsian theoretical
matrix, with a quite rigid schematics of conditions requisite for implementation and justification
of this type of political practice. It is about a mainly system- related approach, in which a strictly
determined institutional framework, represented in a developed and already consolidated
democracy, is presented as a limiting and only possible contextual framework for the use of civil
disobedience. The author emphasizes that the institutional framework is certainly a desirable,
although not a necessary condition. For experience shows that this type of practice is possible
not only in the circumstances of a developed and stable system of democratic institutions, but
also in those of the minimal, electoral democracy, and under quasi-democratic conditions, the
best example for which is the case of Serbia, that is analysed here. In addition, there are also cases
of contemporary protest movements that carry out their actions of nonviolent resistance under
conditions of a developed democracy, but direct them against its existing liberal form and/or
do not base them on the Rawlsian justice principle, thus surpassing the dominant conceptual
framework. The author, in fact, wants to indicate that this concept forms a theoretical model too
abstract, exclusive and narrow that, as an expression of a purely scholastic standpoint, does not
correspond either to historical or contemporary empirical practice, and as such even makes the
very notion of civil disobedience completely senseless. As a result, the significance of different
interpretation of the context necessary for this type of civil action is underlined, the one where
accent would not be only on the required institutional, but also certain political culture framework,
too. It suggests a correction of the systemic-institutional approach, first and foremost in the sense
of lowering its too high demands, and then its supplementation with a complementary normative
approach that would emphasize the importance of participatory political culture with a system of
liberal-democratic values and advanced civic virtues (so-called civic culture approach). By that
a necessarry flexibility of the concept of civil disobedience would be achieved, one that
would approximate it more to the social and political reality, but also enable its far larger
theoretical-analytical and practical-political applicability.
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