The Right to Rebel: Social Movements and Civil Disobedience

Abstract

A fundamental dimension of contemporary social movements is the use of civil disobedience, as means of both exerting mass pressure on the political system and as a process through which the participants of a social movement perceive and construct an alternative and autonomous democratic power. This article attempts to develop a political and ethical reflection about the transformative dimension and collective potential of civil disobedience drawing on the notions of the right to rebel and the performative.