In a previous post, I wrote about a course (which I taught together with Stephan Kornmesser in the summer term of 2024) for master’s students who had no previous contact with X-Phi at all. After learning some methodological and statistical basics and conducting their own small replication of Knobe (2003), they had the opportunity to develop their own questions and conduct their very own studies in small groups. Below, Johannes Bavendiek, Marvin Jonas Laesecke, and Aileen Wiechmann present some results from their study on the perception of civil disobedience.
The Perception of Civil Disobedience
Johannes Bavendiek, Marvin Jonas Laesecke, and Aileen Wiechmann
Civil disobedience is a highly topical issue in light of current political events and protests. For example, groups of protesters like the “Letzte Generation” in Germany currently use this form of protest, fighting current climate change legislation. However, the legitimation of civil disobedience in their case was questioned by wider parts of society. Further, the definition of non-violence as an essential condition for civil disobedience turned out vague and unclear. In which cases is a protest violent in people’s eyes, and which kind of civil disobedience is considered legitimate? Does it make a difference who’s affected by the consequences of civil disobedience or does only the manner of the protest matter? These questions will be explored in this survey.
As a part of political philosophy, different philosophers over time have defined the term “civil disobedience” and discussed its potential influence on society, (in)justice, and democracy. Philosophers like Henry David Thoreau, John Rawls, Hannah Arendt, or Jürgen Habermas are some of them (see, e.g., Thoreau 1849, Rawls 1999, Arendt 2000, Habermas 1983). In the following, we focus on Jürgen Habermas’ definition. His work is one of the most recent ones focusing on civil disobedience as a part of modern democracy, and he refers to Rawls’ definition of the term. Focusing on Habermas seems fitting because the context of a modern democracy makes the definition most applicable to a survey addressed to people in Germany nowadays.
According to Jürgen Habermas (with reference to John Rawls), civil disobedience is a form of protest often aiming for a change in government policy and/or laws, and a protest has to meet four conditions to be classified as civil disobedience (cf. Habermas 1983, 34ff.). The protest has to be
- determined by conscience,
- a deliberate infringement,
- a public act, and
- non-violent.
We chose to approach this with an online questionnaire and created a number of vignettes in which a company intended to clear woodland and resettle a village in favor of coal mining. A protest group used (a) different variants of civil disobedience against (b) either police officers or civilians. All of the above-named conditions were always fulfilled except for the last one. Only the manner of protest as well as the group of affected people were varied.
Regarding the manner of civil disobedience (a), we created three different levels of (non)violence, ranging from nonviolent (peacefully not clearing the forest) to a more violent manner (blocking people on the street) to the most violent manner (throwing rocks at people). Changing the manners of protest allowed us to compare the perception of different levels of (non)violence and to evaluate which manners of protests were perceived as more or less violent and as more or less legitimate. Additionally, the variation of people affected by the protests (b) allowed us to investigate whether who’s affected by the consequences makes a difference in the judgement of (non)violence and (il)legitimacy. This leaves us with the five between-subjects variations displayed in Table 1.
| Affected Group / Manner of Protest | |||
| Peaceful | Blocking | Throwing | |
| Civilians | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Police | 1 | 4 | 5 |
Here is a translation of the vignette for variation 1:
A company plans to clear an old forest for coal mining and relocate a village in the process. The company complies with all legal standards, legally purchases the mining rights, and compensates the village’s inhabitants. However, a group of people filed a lawsuit against this deforestation, as they do not see coal mining as sustainable in terms of climate protection but rather as a threat to the future. The courts do not uphold this complaint. Even after long demonstrations, no change can be brought about at the company. The clearing of the forest comes closer, and the group decides to occupy the forest illegally by chaining themselves to the trees. They do this because it is not in their conscience for the forest to be cleared for coal mining or for the village to be relocated. The group also invites the press to draw public attention to their concerns. The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order but allows the police to remove them peacefully.
In variation 2, the last part is changed to the following:
The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order. When the eviction is announced, they also block the access roads to the forest to avoid the eviction. Civilians are blocked in their everyday lives.
In variation 3, it reads:
The group does not voluntarily comply with the eviction order. When the eviction is announced, they also block the access roads to the forest to avoid the eviction. Civilians are blocked in their everyday lives. When the civilians try to break up the blockade by carrying all kinds of objects and the now chained demonstrators to the side, the demonstrators take stones and throw them at the civilians.
In variations 4 and 5, “civilians” is simply replaced with “policemen.”
A total of 265 participants took part in our survey. Our findings are summarized in Figure 1, below, reporting the results of χ² tests between two variations for the yes-or-no questions “Is this kind of protest justified in a democracy?” (Justification) and “Would you classify this type of protest as violent?” (Violence).
Comparing the manners of protest, we did not find a significant difference between peaceful protest and blocking civilians or policemen (neither regarding Justification nor Violence). However, the evaluation for throwing rocks significantly differs from peaceful protest and blocking people (regarding both Justification and Violence). This means that it didn’t matter to our participants whether the group protested peacefully or if they blocked someone; both of these manners were perceived as significantly less violent and more legitimate than throwing rocks.
Surprisingly, it didn’t make a difference (neither regarding Justification nor Violence) to our participants whether civilians or policemen were affected (“Blocking Civilians” vs. “Blocking Policemen” as well as “Throwing Rocks at Civilians” vs. “Throwing Rocks at Policemen” are not evaluated significantly different). Another surprising result is that about one-third of our participants didn’t consider throwing rocks violent in case civilians were affected. Also, one-third considered the peaceful protest to be illegitimate. About 38% even considered it to be violent.
Data
Data and do files for analysis with Stata are available from https://github.com/alephmembeth/course-x-phi-2024/tree/main/civil%20disobedience.
Literature
Arendt, Hannah (2000): In der Gegenwart. Übungen zum politischen Denken II, Munich: Piper.
Habermas, Jürgen (1983): “Ziviler Ungehorsam – Testfall für den demokratischen Rechtsstaat. Wider den autoritären Legalismus in der Bundesrepublik,” in Peter Glotz (ed.): Ziviler Ungehorsam im Rechtsstaat, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 29–53.
Knobe, Joshua (2003): “Intentional Action and Side Effects in Ordinary Language,” Analysis 63 (3), 190–194.
Rawls, John (1999): A Theory of Justice, revised edition, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Thoreau, Henry David (1849): “Resistance to Civil Government,” in Elizabeth Palmer Peabody (ed.): Æsthetic Papers, Boston and New York: E. Peabody and G. P. Putnam, 189–211.