The limits on civil disobedience: a review

Abstract

This article examines -taking as reference an episode of a highway blockade during seven days with its nights, made effective by the people of two small localities, Cutralco‚ and Plaza Huincul‚ in Argentina, when the privatization of YPF- the debate on civil desobedience, which is usally understood as an act of desobedience of the constitutional order with the use of violence. The author developes the specificities of the civil disobedience components, being it: disruptive, pacific, autonomous and recursive; this last component because it must behave itself with the same rules it demands from the system. This makes it a rather exceptional practice, yet it doesn’t mean that it should be idealized. The author proposes that, instead of encapsulating civil disobedience within the fraim of liberalism, seeking the least possible cost for the State and making it harmless in order to make it legitimate, one should redefine it in the frame of the procedimental ideals which we presuppose in any social practice.