Civil disobedience as transnational disruption

Abstract: Civil disobedience has been theorised as an informal guardian of the constitution in democratic societies, but such accounts struggle to accommodate protest that has an international or global dimension. This article addresses this issue through offering a theory of civil disobedience as transnational disruption. Civil disobedience is ‘transnational’ insofar as it is an appeal to a national, international or global public that highlights failures to observe moral, political or legal values that are an appropriate source of normative authority in global contexts. Civil disobedience is ‘disruptive’ insofar as it obstructs the routine activities of relevant parties in order to draw attention to the demands of protesters. The core argument is that civil disobedience can uphold normative standards that have been incorporated into a dense network of treaties, conventions and global regulatory frameworks. It can thus make a modest but valuable contribution to the processes through which publics deliberate about the meaning and interpretation of these contested norms.