Peace
Civil disobedience
Breaking a rule deliberately, in public and without violence, in order to change laws or policy. Where the idea comes from, how Rawls and Habermas define it and how German law classifies it
Key points at a glance
- Civil disobedience is a deliberate, public and non-violent breach of a rule through which people want to bring about a change in laws or policy.
- Henry David Thoreau is seen as its forefather; in 1846 he spent a night in jail because he refused to pay taxes in protest.
- For John Rawls and Jürgen Habermas it is a symbolic appeal to the majority that does not call the legal order as a whole into question.
- Even those who consider it legitimate usually do not call it legal: anyone who breaks a rule must expect the legal consequences.
- It is clearly separate from the right of resistance in the Basic Law, which only applies against an attempt to abolish the constitutional order.
In numbers
1849
Thoreau's essay
Resistance to Civil Government
1983
Habermas's definition
a test case for the democratic constitutional state
1995
Federal Constitutional Court
decision on sit-in protests
Lawful demonstration
- Basis
- freedom of assembly, Art. 8 of the Basic Law
- Breach of rules
- no, peaceful and unarmed
- Occasion
- any political concern
- Consequences
- none, as long as the rules are kept
Civil disobedience
- Basis
- no right of its own, often described as legitimate but not legal
- Breach of rules
- yes, deliberate, open and non-violent
- Occasion
- a particular law or political decision
- Consequences
- penalties are deliberately accepted
Right of resistance
- Basis
- Art. 20 (4) of the Basic Law
- Breach of rules
- resistance is expressly permitted here
- Occasion
- an attempt to abolish the order of the Basic Law
- Consequences
- only if no other remedy is available
John Rawls, 1971
- Features
- public, non-violent, conscientious, contrary to law
- When
- as a last resort, when efforts through institutional channels have failed
- Addressed to
- a symbolic appeal to the majority's sense of justice
- Consequences
- aims at a change in laws or policy
Jürgen Habermas, 1983
- Features
- morally grounded, public, usually announced in advance
- When
- as a breach of individual norms, without questioning the legal order as a whole
- Addressed to
- politics and the courts, which should not hide behind the law is the law
- Consequences
- those who act answer for the legal consequences
- The term
- traced back to Thoreau, title chosen by his publisher
- Features according to Rawls
- public, non-violent, conscientious, unlawful
- In criminal law
- section 240 of the Criminal Code (StGB), coercion
- Distinction
- right of resistance under Article 20 (4) of the Basic Law
What is civil disobedience?
The philosopher John Rawls describes civil disobedience as a public, non-violent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law, usually aimed at bringing about a change in the law or in the policies of the government. This is how the journal Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte rendered his definition in 2024.
Each of these features carries weight. The rule is broken openly and not in secret, without violence, following a decision of conscience, and with the aim of political change.
Breaking the rule is a means here, not an end. It is meant to bring about a change, not to gain a personal advantage.
Where does the term come from?
The term is traced back to Thoreau, who never used it himself. His essay of 1849 was called Resistance to Civil Government; only his publisher renamed it Civil Disobedience.
The occasion was a personal refusal. Out of criticism of slavery and of the war against Mexico that the USA was waging at the time, Thoreau did not pay his taxes.
The idea became known above all through Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Gandhi turned civil disobedience into a concept of resistance for many people, in South Africa and against British colonial rule in India. From the 1950s, King became the voice of the African American civil rights movement in the USA.
Which historical examples are there?
One of the best-known examples is the Salt March. In the spring of 1930, Gandhi and 80 volunteers set out on a march of around 200 miles to the sea. There they made salt from seawater and so deliberately broke the British salt laws, through which the colonial government collected a tax on salt. According to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute at Stanford University, more than 60,000 Indians eventually let themselves be imprisoned for making salt.
In the USA, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery on 1 December 1955. A bus boycott followed that lasted 13 months and ended with a Supreme Court ruling that segregation on public buses is unconstitutional. In April 1963, after his arrest in Birmingham, Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote his letter from jail, in which he explained why he did not submit to laws that served segregation.
The Austrian Parliament's research dossier names further examples, such as the anti-colonial movement of Igbo women in Nigeria. What they all have in common is that people openly broke a rule without using violence and accepted the consequences. This page describes historical cases and does not judge present-day groups.
Which features does Jürgen Habermas name?
In 1983 Jürgen Habermas put forward a definition of his own in an essay titled Ziviler Ungehorsam, Testfall für den demokratischen Rechtsstaat (Civil Disobedience, a Test Case for the Democratic Constitutional State). According to it, civil disobedience is a morally grounded protest that may not be based only on private beliefs or self-interest.
It is a public act, usually announced in advance, and the police can anticipate how it will unfold. It includes the deliberate violation of individual legal norms without calling into question obedience to the legal order as a whole.
According to Habermas, anyone who acts in this way must be prepared to accept the legal consequences. The breach of the rule is purely symbolic in character, and this is where the limitation to non-violent means of protest comes from.
How is it judged in a democratic constitutional state?
Opinions differ. Writing for the Federal Agency for Civic Education in 2023, Armin Pfahl-Traughber distinguishes three positions: one that rejects civil disobedience in a democratic constitutional state, one that accepts it there too and regards it as a legitimate but not legal form of protest, and a third that wants to use it to overcome the existing constitutional state.
According to Andrea Pabst, the view is found mainly in academic texts that civil disobedience can only take place in a democratic constitutional state, because only there can the legitimacy of laws be called into question. Rawls and Habermas, for example, see it this way. According to Rawls, civil disobedience is chosen as a last resort when efforts through institutional channels have failed.
Habermas stresses that politics and the courts must face such actions and must not hide behind a the law is the law mentality. The research dossier of the Austrian Parliament adds that civil disobedience can be a kind of control mechanism and so contribute to the formation of opinion in a democratic society.
What does German law say about it?
Under both definitions, deliberately breaking a rule is part of civil disobedience. In the case of sit-in protests, the courts dealt with section 240 of the German Criminal Code (StGB), coercion. Under it, whoever unlawfully, with force or by threat of serious harm, coerces a person to commit, suffer or omit an act is punished (translated).
On 10 January 1995 the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that a broadening interpretation of the concept of force in the case of sit-in protests violates Article 103 (2) of the Basic Law. If the conduct consists only of physical presence and the compulsion on others is only psychological, then according to the ruling, treating it as force goes beyond the limit of the wording.
This does not mean that every blockade goes unpunished. In 2011 a chamber of the Court found that the so-called second-row case law developed by the Federal Court of Justice does not violate the prohibition of analogy and does not contradict the decision of 1995. This page sets out the case law and does not replace legal advice in an individual case.
How does it differ from the right of resistance?
The Basic Law contains a right of resistance in Article 20 (4). All Germans shall have the right to resist any person seeking to abolish this constitutional order, if no other remedy is available (translated); the order meant is the one described in Article 20.
In the view of the constitutional law scholar Josef Isensee, as quoted in the Bundestag text archive in 2013, this right does not cover civil disobedience. The right of resistance, he says, does not respond to individual breaches of the law for which a remedy exists anyway. The case for resistance is a coup d'état, Isensee writes.
Civil disobedience, by contrast, targets individual laws or decisions and does not call the legal order as a whole into question. You can find more on non-violent engagement on the pages about the peace movement and peace ethics. W3ltfrieden describes such terms without judging present-day groups or actions.
Jürgen Habermas, 1983, translated
Civil disobedience is a morally grounded protest.
Sources
- bpb, APuZ: civil disobedience, approaching a contested term (Andrea Pabst), in German
- bpb, APuZ: civil disobedience (Samira Akbarian), in German
- BVerfGE 92, 1 (DFR, University of Bern), in German
- Federal Constitutional Court: decision 1 BvR 388/05 of 7 March 2011, in German
- Section 240 StGB (gesetze-im-internet.de), in German
- Basic Law, Article 20, in German
- German Bundestag, text archive 2013: Article 20, in German
- Basic Law, Article 8, in German
- bpb: the protest form of civil disobedience (Armin Pfahl-Traughber), in German
- Austrian Parliament: what makes civil disobedience?, in German
- TU Berlin: civil disobedience, interview, in German
- Stanford University, King Institute: Gandhi
- Stanford University, King Institute: Montgomery Bus Boycott
- Stanford University, King Institute: Letter from Birmingham Jail
- Project Gutenberg: Thoreau, On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
Milestones of the term
- 1849Thoreau's essay Resistance to Civil Government appears, later known under the title Civil Disobedience.
- 1869 to 1948Mohandas K. Gandhi turns civil disobedience into a concept of resistance in South Africa and against British colonial rule in India.
- From the 1950sMartin Luther King, Jr. becomes the voice of the African American civil rights movement in the USA.
- 1983Jürgen Habermas describes civil disobedience as a test case for the democratic constitutional state.
- 1995The Federal Constitutional Court limits the concept of force in section 240 of the Criminal Code in the case of sit-in protests.
- 2011The Federal Constitutional Court finds that the second-row case law of the Federal Court of Justice does not violate the prohibition of analogy.
Frequently asked questions about civil disobedience
Is civil disobedience allowed?
German law does not grant a right of its own to civil disobedience. Anyone who deliberately breaks a rule remains responsible for that breach, even if they justify it on moral grounds.
In political debate, a distinction is therefore often drawn between legal and legitimate. One position, which Armin Pfahl-Traughber describes for the Federal Agency for Civic Education in 2023, accepts civil disobedience in a democratic constitutional state as well, but regards it not as a legal but as a legitimate form of protest. Whether a specific action is punishable is decided by the courts case by case.
What does the duty of disobedience mean?
The phrase comes from the German title of Thoreau's essay: Über die Pflicht zum Ungehorsam gegen den Staat (On the Duty of Disobedience to the State). In it Thoreau argues why a person should follow their conscience when the state does wrong.
The Federal Agency for Civic Education quotes his moral reasoning like this: the only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. His sentence is also well known: under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
What is ziviler Ungehorsam in English?
In English it is civil disobedience. This is the title the publisher gave Thoreau's essay, which was originally called Resistance to Civil Government.
The English edition can be read free of charge today as On the Duty of Civil Disobedience at Project Gutenberg.
How does it differ from a demonstration?
A demonstration is protected by freedom of assembly. Under Article 8 of the Basic Law, all Germans have the right to assemble peacefully and unarmed without prior notification or permission; for outdoor assemblies this right may be restricted by or pursuant to a law (translated).
Civil disobedience goes one step further: it deliberately breaks a rule, for example through a blockade. TU Berlin describes it as a deliberate breach of rules that proceeds strictly without violence but accepts personal disadvantages such as penalties.
What did Hannah Arendt say about civil disobedience?
Hannah Arendt dealt with civil disobedience in an essay of her own. According to the research dossier of the Austrian Parliament, she pointed out that a personal decision of conscience cannot be the only possible justification.
Because people are able to judge and act politically themselves, such actions can, according to the dossier, simply be understood as a contribution to social, political and legal processes of negotiation. In the German-speaking world, Jürgen Habermas builds on this idea.
Is civil disobedience always non-violent?
According to the well-known definitions, yes. Rawls calls it non-violent, and Habermas limits it to non-violent means because the breach of the rule is meant to be purely symbolic.
Anyone who uses violence falls outside civil disobedience according to these definitions. The word civil stands for exactly this: for a protest that does not harm other people.
More on peace
- Peace movementFor more than a hundred years people in Germany have taken to the streets for peace. Their history says a great deal about how protest and the country have changed
- Peace ethicsWhen may violence be used, and what makes peace just? An overview of positions from Augustine to the churches of today
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