Global Citizenship, Global Civil Disobedience, and Political Vices

Abstract

Civil disobedience is typically characterized as morally principled, deliberate, and publicly enacted violation of law by individuals, who do not then seek to evade arrest. It is framed as a “civil” way for citizens to challenge possibly unjust laws or policies: one that is in broad fidelity to their domestic rule of law and good citizenship, even when it involves the refusal to obey some specific law.1 Similarly, a number of commentators have sought to show that some acts which cross state territorial or citizenship boundaries should be understood as trans-state or global civil disobedience. They have focused on deliberate, principled violations of a state’s law by non-citizen activists, asylum seekers, and unauthorized migrants, among others.2

This chapter details a conceptual framework of global citizenship within which such principled lawbreaking beyond the state can be situated. It also highlights a significant underlying distinction between domestic and suprastate civil disobedience which has received relatively little attention in the recent literature.