eBook

Uncivil Disobedience

Jennet Kirkpatrick

2008

Overview

Uncivil Disobedienceexamines the roles violence and terrorism have played in the exercise of democratic ideals in America. Jennet Kirkpatrick explores how crowds, rallying behind the principle of popular sovereignty and desiring to make law conform to justice, can disdain law and engage in violence. She exposes the hazards of democracy that arise when citizens seek to control government directly, and demonstrates the importance of laws and institutions as limitations on the will of the people. Kirkpatrick looks at some of the most explosive instances of uncivil disobedience in American history: the contemporary militia movement, Southern lynch mobs, frontier vigilantism, and militant abolitionism. She argues that the groups behind these violent episodes are often motivated by admirable democratic ideas of popular power and autonomy. Kirkpatrick shows how, in this respect, they are not so unlike the much-admired adherents of nonviolent civil disobedience, yet she reveals how those who engage in violent disobedience use these admirable democratic principles as a justification for terrorism and killing. She uses a \"bottom-up\" analysis of events to explain how this transformation takes place, paying close attention to what members of these groups do and how they think about the relationship between citizens and the law. Uncivil Disobediencecalls for a new vision of liberal democracy where the rule of the people and the rule of law are recognized as fundamental ideals, and where neither is triumphant or transcendent.

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Subject: Abolitionism / Activism / Anti-statism / Antislavery movements / Antislavery movements -- United States / Attempt / Birmingham campaign / Bribery / Citizen's arrest / Civil disobedience / Combatant / Complicity / Consent of the governed / Conspiracy theory / Constitutionalism / Criminal law / Culpability / Democracy / Dirty hands / Disbarment / Due Process Clause / Dystopia / Frantz Fanon / Free the Slaves / Freedom Riders / Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 / Fugitive Slave Clause / HISTORY / HISTORY / United States / General / Illegal immigration / Imperialism / Impunity / Jean-Paul Sartre / Law and order (politics) / Law enforcement / Legal formalism / Legitimacy (political) / Lynching / Lynching -- United States / Lysander Spooner / Michael Barkun / Militia movements / Militia movements -- United States / Moral absolutism / Morality / Necessity / Nonviolence / Obedience (human behavior) / Oppression / Political Ideologies / Political philosophy / POLITICAL SCIENCE / POLITICAL SCIENCE / General / Political violence / Political violence -- United States / Politics / Popular sovereignty / Populism / Presser v. Illinois / Presumption of innocence / Public sphere / Racial segregation / Racism / Ralph Ginzburg / Reactionary / Right to keep and bear arms / Right-wing populism / Rule of law / Sanford Levinson / Second Amendment to the United States Constitution / Slavery / Social bandit / Sovereignty / State of nature / Strong Democracy / Terrorism / That Justice Be Done / The Social Contract / The Unconstitutionality of Slavery / United States / Vigilance committee / Vigilance committees / Vigilance committees -- United States / Vigilante / White Southerners
• ISBN: 9780691138770, 069113877X, 1400828864, 9781400828869, 9780691137094, 0691137099