Theorizing state civil disobedience in international politics

Abstract

Illegal state actions are sometimes interpreted as civil disobedience. Yet, liberal theorists insist that, to count as such, states must intend to reform the systemic imperfections of the international legal order. Moreover, states must have the capacity to engineer such reforms responsibly. These requirements result in an elitist conception of international civil disobedience because weaker states cannot refashion the key rules of the international legal order. By introducing a broader conception of resistance than found in existing theory, I show how weaker states can still engage in civil disobedience. A conceptual framework of two types of power supports my argument: constituent power and destituent power. If state action were expressed through these two types of power, then more states and more types of illegal action would count as examples of civil disobedience.