Uncivil Disobedience
Dave Monroe
against.the.dave at gmail.com
Thu Sep 25 14:45:19 CDT 2008
Uncivil Disobedience:
Studies in Violence and Democratic Politics
Jennet Kirkpatrick
Paper | 2008 | $22.95 / £13.50
Cloth | 2008 | $40.00 / £23.95
152 pp. | 6 x 9
Uncivil Disobedience examines the roles violence and terrorism have
played in the exercise of democratic ideals in America. Jennet
Kirkpatrick explores how crowds, rallying behind the principle of
popular sovereignty and desiring to make law conform to justice, can
disdain law and engage in violence. She exposes the hazards of
democracy that arise when citizens seek to control government
directly, and demonstrates the importance of laws and institutions as
limitations on the will of the people.
Kirkpatrick looks at some of the most explosive instances of uncivil
disobedience in American history: the contemporary militia movement,
Southern lynch mobs, frontier vigilantism, and militant abolitionism.
She argues that the groups behind these violent episodes are often
motivated by admirable democratic ideas of popular power and autonomy.
Kirkpatrick shows how, in this respect, they are not so unlike the
much-admired adherents of nonviolent civil disobedience, yet she
reveals how those who engage in violent disobedience use these
admirable democratic principles as a justification for terrorism and
killing. She uses a "bottom-up" analysis of events to explain how this
transformation takes place, paying close attention to what members of
these groups do and how they think about the relationship between
citizens and the law.
Uncivil Disobedience calls for a new vision of liberal democracy where
the rule of the people and the rule of law are recognized as
fundamental ideals, and where neither is triumphant or transcendent.
Jennet Kirkpatrick is lecturer in political science at the University
of Michigan.
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8774.html
Introduction: Warts and All
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8774.html
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/i8774.pdf
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list