Commentators from all sides bemoan the loss of civility, seeing it as the glue that keeps divided political societies whole. We have become distrustful and contemptuous of those we don’t see eye to eye with.1 No environment is apparently immune from our “incivility epidemic” (the metaphor of virology is apt, since, researchers found, “catching rudeness is like caching a cold,” namely, contagious2): social media, college classrooms, bedrooms, family gatherings, workplaces, and politics itself are compromised. Online trolls are not the only ones feeding the incivility beast. Political representatives and authority figures exacerbate the problem. In the United States, Rep. Ted Yoho’s vulgar and misogynist comments to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on Capitol Hill, Brett Kavanaugh’s angry testimony during his Supreme Court nomination hearing, and, most of all, President Donald Trump’s own divisive and inflammatory rhetoric model a kind of unbridled incivility that coarsens politics and degrades public discourse.

From Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, to the anonymous intelligence official whose revelations about President Trump’s illegal campaign activities in Ukraine helped lead to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, whistleblowers have captivated public attention in the US and elsewhere. Christopher Wylie “blew the whistle” on UK-based Cambridge Analytica, revealing in March 2018 that his former employer had mined Facebook data to manipulate voters. Recent EU-wide attempts to regulate offshore finance have been motivated by the so-called Panama Papers (2015) and Paradise Papers (2017).1 Candice Delmas may be exaggerating somewhat when claiming that “[i]f the twentieth century was the age of civil disobedience, the twenty-first century is shaping up to be the age of whistleblowing.”2 Yet Delmas is right to highlight whistleblowing’s (henceforth, WB) massive global political impact, and the ways in which it increasingly performs functions long standardly associated with civil disobedience (henceforth, CD).

Civil disobedience is transgressive ethical action performed in a political context. It is transgressive because it involves breaking the law; on occasion, it also involves transgression of prevailing norms and entrenched values. My concern in the following is primarily with civil disobedience in the context of modern democracies, be they liberal democratic, neo-republican, or radical democratic ones. The normativity specific to the modern democratic context, structuring and shaping it in its many variants, is defined by a complex interplay of ethical ideas of freedom, equality, and human interconnectedness. By “ethical” I mean the idea and conduct of a good human life in association with other entities, human and non-human. I hold that an ethically good life calls for a reflective attitude by individual humans toward their particular ideas of the good, in which reflection is guided by a concern for ethical truth.1 Its concern for a better society as a precondition for a better life makes civil disobedience a mode of ethical action.

In this chapter I address three questions regarding civil disobedience by states. First, is state civil disobedience (henceforth, SCD) even possible, or do scholars, officials, activists, and members of the general public commit a category error when they apply the concept of civil disobedience to the actions of states? I argue for the former, while acknowledging that SCD differs in certain fundamental respects from more familiar examples of civil disobedience. Second, assuming SCD is possible, what conditions must it satisfy to be morally justifiable? Here I contend that considerations often thought to be relevant to the justifiability of civil disobedience in a domestic context, such as fidelity to the ideal of the rule of law, may frequently fail to be relevant to the justifiability of SCD. Third, are there any plausible examples of states engaging in (morally justifiable) civil disobedience? Though a number of theorists purport to have identified such cases, I argue that their conclusions rest on either a mistaken conception of civil disobedience or a failure to recognize that the illegal conduct in question does not satisfy all of the conditions necessary for an act to count as an instance of (morally justifiable) SCD. I conclude with two observations regarding theoretical reflection on SCD, and some speculation on why we are unlikely to observe any instances of it in the near future.

Democratic theory has undergone a much discussed “deliberative turn” in recent years, according to which “the essence of democracy itself is now widely taken to be deliberation, as opposed to voting, interest aggregation, constitutional rights, or even self-government.”1 Deliberative democrats place mutual respect, epistemic reason-giving, and inclusive dialogue at the center of public life.2 The philosophical study of civil disobedience has simultaneously undergone a notable “communicative turn,” such that theorists increasingly define this form of protest as “a way of engaging in dialogue.”3 The legitimacy of civil disobedience is related to its role as an unconventional but essentially respectful means of conveying oppositional arguments to publics and authorities.

For the last fifteen years or so, an emerging “realist” school of political theory, questioning not only the conclusions of mainstream moral and political philosophy but also, more fundamentally, the questions it asks, has called for a new approach.1 Rather than deducing moral principles from posited moral ideals, realists aspire to draw normative recommendations from reflections on actual political events and institutions, and from judgments regarding which institutions and practices do better at addressing recurrent problems. Stressing the ubiquity of moral disagreement and the permanence of political conflict – politics is a contest among adversaries, not a reasonable conversation among friends – realists see politics not as a quest for rational consensus but as a set of technologies for ensuring order and providing public goods in spite of the lack of such consensus. Rather than political morality being an instance of “applied ethics” in which the same moral principles we use in private life can be urged upon political life, politics, realists insist, embodies its own characteristic values.

The transformative effects of digitalization have not left civil disobedience untouched. On the contrary, civil disobedience today is increasingly interlinked with digital technologies, though individual examples exhibit different degrees of dependency on technology and are constituted by varying types of interactions between humans and machines. Digital actions have become integrated into daily life; it may soon seem unnecessary or even counterintuitive to label them digital at all. For some members of society, the digital becomes an increasingly empty signifier, as human activity in general becomes dependent on technology in unconscious and invisible ways. Despite the ubiquity of computing and human-machine entanglement, political and public discourses linger uneasily between embracing and resisting digitalization. The digital still functions as a placeholder that signifies a less familiar, valid, or even less real type of action.

Nevertheless, the Internet has changed “almost every aspect of politics, and its presence in politics is ubiquitous.”1 Digital forms of activism and protest have been at the forefront of these changes and have played a vital role in the digital rights movement as a whole.

Civil disobedience is a practice of political contestation, of challenging established norms, practices, institutions, and self-understandings that involves deliberately breaking the law while typically stopping short of full-scale revolt in terms of both its ends and its repertoire of actions. It is usually situated between legal protest, on the one hand, and more radical – for example, revolutionary – forms of resistance, on the other. Where exactly the lines are drawn, and, as a result, how radical civil disobedience in fact turns out to be, depends on how the meaning, justification, and role of civil disobedience are understood. As this volume documents, different theoretical paradigms propose rival accounts, ranging from the rather restrictive proposals of mainstream liberal accounts to more expansive positions developed by theorists of radical democracy.1

Why another volume devoted to civil disobedience? Libraries are filled with thick tomes devoted to the topic. Henry David Thoreau, Mahatma Gandhi, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., canonical figures in the history of civil disobedience, not only inspired countless familiar and not-so-familiar movements but also ignited extensive political and scholarly debate.1 From the late 1960s to the early 1980s, civil disobedience became a fashionable subject for discussion among lawyers, philosophers, political scientists, and many others. Prominent intellectuals, including Hannah Arendt, Ronald Dworkin, Jürgen Habermas, John Rawls, and Bertrand Russell, produced significant theoretical statements about it. What possibly remains to be said about something that fascinated so many of the most innovative and influential political thinkers in the last century?

A liberal theory of civil disobedience aims to address the following question: if social institutions are for the most part just, what should a citizen with a sense of justice do when confronted with an unjust law? Liberal theory responds to this question by arguing that moderately unjust legislation remains legitimate – and the duty of citizens to comply with the law remains effective – only as long as the legislation could be accepted by rational persons reflecting under fair conditions on the justice of their institutions. A liberal theory must therefore offer an account of the conditions under which the duty to comply with laws enacted by the legislature of a nearly just democratic ceases to be binding and the forms of lawbreaking or resistance that may be employed once legislation passes this point. More particularly, a liberal theory of disobedience must address two issues.

Most literature on civil disobedience focuses on defining what it is, philosophical or political justifications for its use, or jurisprudential issues surrounding its use. Much less attention is given to its consequences. After briefly considering methodological challenges in assessing consequences, outcomes, or effects of civil disobedience, I address individual, political, and cultural consequences. Individual consequences of civil disobedience are effects on those who engage in civil disobedience, such as sanctioning by the government or experiencing liberating and empowering emotions. Political consequences are effects of civil disobedience on the political environment, such as initiating public deliberation or debate, mobilizing support for a cause, or tangible change in social practices, law, policy, or government.

Youth circus opportunities are part of a global expansion in circus arts practices. Although defined with different nuances in different locations, Youth circus is generally accepted to include any youth participating in learning circus skills for non-professional reasons, including recreation, physical education, and social contexts. Anecdotes describing the transformative and beneficial effects of learning circus abound. Research indicates that the introduction of circus arts to a broad youth population has been shown to increase motor competence, motor confidence, physical literacy, self-determination, and encourage risk assessment. This chapter describes how research describing the benefits from participating in youth circus can be understood within the framework of risky play. When engaging in risky play, youth test their own physical and emotional limits in order to develop strategies that will benefit them when encountering future risks. The opportunity to participate in risky play enables youth to learn to trust themselves and develop awareness of their strengths and weaknesses. Learning circus offers a context for diverse, incremental, and individualized risk-taking, in environments where instructors and equipment provide risk-management. Looking at research results through the lens of risky play contributes to a description of youth circus as an enriching activity.

The opening of Astley’s Amphitheatre on the outskirts of London in 1770 marked the beginning of the modern circus by providing the essential model that would be refined and expanded as it grew into a global form of entertainment during the nineteenth century. Although many components – equestrian feats, acrobatics, performing animals, rope walking – long antedated Astley’s early displays, it was their combination into a singular show staged within a ring of spectators that gave form to what came to be known as the circus. In this chapter Matthew Wittmann examines the origins of the circus in late eighteenth-century London, contextualising its emergence and tracing its dynamic diffusion across Europe and the Americas during the half century that followed.

This chapter elucidates how – under the umbrella term circus studies – different disciplines define and explore the aesthetic, innovative, transgressive, and intermedial potentials of the circus arts. Disciplines involved in studying circus include cultural and literary studies, artistic research, neurosciences, sports and physical activity science, engineering, science communication, disability studies, humour studies, and many more. Offering a colourful and suggestive, but by no means exhaustive, introduction to the multiple approaches to a unique artistic practice and cultural phenomenon, the chapter focuses on two perspectives in circus research: work that, to understand circus practice, employs a science lens and work that, to understand the circus as a cultural and aesthetic phenomenon, utilises a humanities prism. The chapter presents a mosaic of perspectives and ideas in recent scholarly engagement with the circus and points to some of the crossroads where different disciplines meet.

The transatlantic circulation of circus acts during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries created opportunities for circus’s somatically spectacular acts to appear on pantomime and variety theatre stages. This chapter assesses a neglected aspect of circus scholarship: understanding how and why circus acts appeared in other popular entertainment forms. Circus, pantomime, and variety cultivated unity through their reliance on novelty. By tracing the performance engagements of a major circus-style act, Lockhart’s Elephants, in iconic variety venues in London, Paris, and New York City, I demonstrate the deep interrelatedness of modern circus and music hall/vaudeville. Performers frequently established and sustained their reputations in these economically powerful cosmopolitan centres, where heightened competition in the leisure marketplace increased circulation of circus performers. Nineteenth-century industrialisation and changing theatre regulations had transformed genres, allowing audiences more opportunity for leisure activities and theatres more opportunity to blur spoken drama and spectacle. The somatic spectacularity of circus acts provided essential counterpoints to pantomime and variety’s dominant performance modes. This dynamic relationship complicates our understanding of circus, pantomime, and variety as distinct genres, pressing scholars to reconsider the relative stability with which we deploy the terms and write their histories.

Circus has been an inherent part of the Czech cultural milieu since the nineteenth century when emerging circus arts were closely associated with folk puppetry. From humble beginnings as street acts, Czech circuses developed into large-scale business operations that were nationalised in the 1950s during the Communist regime and then transformed into freely functioning communities and enterprises after the Velvet Revolution of 1989. A distinct Czech variant of contemporary circus has emerged recently, born of and significantly influenced by the world of theatre. In the Czech Republic one may observe, side by side, traditional circus, which has largely continued to adhere to its original artistic code, and contemporary circus, which is currently attempting to create an innovative code well-suited to the twenty-first century. This chapter focuses on the origin and transformation of traditional and contemporary circus forms, their characteristics, and their status (both artistic and economic) in the current Czech sociopolitical milieu. There are overlaps with Polish, Slovak, and Hungarian circus environments because, as with the present-day Czech Republic, all of these countries have undergone significant cultural and political transformations since the fall of Communism in 1989. It is precisely this shared history which provides the authors with a unique perspective upon Central European circus.