Edyvane, D orcid.org/0000-0003-2169-4171 (2020) Incivility as Dissent. Political Studies, 68 (1). pp. 93-109. ISSN 0032-3217
Abstract
State attempts to legislate for civility, such as the UK’s Injunctions to Prevent Nuisance and Annoyance, are usually challenged on libertarian grounds. This article develops a novel democratic challenge to such legislation, arguing that un-civil behaviours sometimes constitute masked expressions of dissent. It first elaborates a conceptual analysis, linking the forms of annoying behaviour targeted by legislation with the practice of incivility. It then articulates a structural association between incivility and dissent and develops on that basis a substantive normative case for the democratic value of incivility. In this way, the article highlights the role of bad behaviour in sustaining liberal democratic institutions and the ways in which the tradition of political thought about civil disobedience can obscure the possibilities of democratic dissent. It thereby informs public debates about the ‘crisis of civility’ in modern society and offers a new perspective on scholarly debates about the ethics of resistance.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2019. This is an author produced version of a paper published in Political Studies. Reprinted by permission of SAGE Publications. |
Keywords: | incivility; dissent; resistance; civil disobedience; civility |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Leverhulme Trust RF-2014-111\7 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 07 Feb 2019 11:37 |
Last Modified: | 30 Jan 2020 16:50 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0032321719831983 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:142230 |