Civil Disobedience as Persuasion: Dworkin and Greenham Common

Abstract

Protests against nuclear weapons which involve conflict with the law have been criticized as ‘blackmail’ or obstruction by Ronald Dworkin and hence not as an acceptable form of civil disobedience. This is to misunderstand both their nature and that of civil disobedience. Such protests are an example of a particular kind of persuasive civil disobedience which cannot be disallowed without disallowing civil disobedience itself.