BREAK THE LAW
ROBERT MISIK IN CONVERSATION WITH SAMIRA AKBARIAN
BREAK THE LAW
Non-violent resistance that breaks rules and laws is a great success story. This is true in democratic constitutional states, where spectacular symbolic rule-breaking succeeds in putting suppressed issues on the agenda. It is even true in dictatorships: studies show that of the „successful“ and „partially successful“ campaigns, the strictly non-violent ones are much more often successful than the violent ones. This is because the „David versus Goliath“ effect often tilts public opinion in favour of the protesters, even in dictatorships. „Civil disobedience“ in democratic constitutional states, on the other hand, can bring issues to the fore that would otherwise be ignored.34-year-old Frankfurt lawyer and constitutional law expert Samira Akbarian has now taken on the topic of „breaking the law“ in democracies and has developed nothing less than „a theory of civil disobedience“, for which she has promptly won several prizes. In her brilliant study, she not only traverses historical examples such as the US civil rights movement, the Occupy movements following the financial crisis or the climate protests, she also examines the topic from various perspectives: legal, discourse-theoretical and moral-philosophical. But what actually characterises civil disobedience? Breaking the law, as Samira Akbarian shows, can serve the realisation of democratic ideals. Akbarian's thesis is that successful forms of civil disobedience should be understood as an «interpretation of the constitution».
Moderation Robert Misik, Author and journalist
Samira Akbarian is a research assistant at the Chair of Public Law and Philosophy of Law at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Her research work on civil disobedience was honoured with the Körber Foundation's German Study Prize, the Merkur Prize for outstanding dissertations and the Werner Pünder Prize.
Samaria Akbarian:
Breaking the law. A theory of civil disobedience.
H. Beck Verlag, September 2024, € 16.00