Education for Civil Disobedience in the Context of Democratic Decline

Abstract In this article, I discuss the educational relevance of civil disobedience as a form of political dissent in contemporary democracies demonstrating signs of significant democratic decline. The article challenges the plausibility of the impactful Rawlsian understanding of civil disobedience in societies in a state of democratic backsliding. As an alternative, the article builds on Candice Delmas's definition of civil disobedience as a form of political action that is justified by citizens' political duty to resist injustice. I argue that to enable citizens to effectively discharge this duty, public schools should teach civil disobedience as part of democratic education. This argument is founded on the presumption that civil disobedience is a particularly effective means, first, for inducing the type of systemic change needed to support democracy in the long run and, second, for resisting serious forms of injustice in nonideal societal circumstances. The article further describes what teaching for civil disobedience should entail and defends this form of education against potential objections.