Realism and Dissent

This paper considers two frames which political theorists have recently offered to understand dissent. Neither Bernard Williams' description of those who reject their state's authority as anarchists, bandits, enemies and the utterly unreasonable nor Tommie Shelby's distinction between civic and natural duties can capture all of those who, to some degree, are hostile to the relations of fellow citizenship which structure and control political opposition. That pair of stark divisions fails to adequately get to grips with either the case of peaceful revolutionaries, who pose a serious threat to those relations, or of marginalized criminals, who have been partially excluded from them. In the former case, we must consider the risks of demanding citizenship be remade and in the latter, the standing we may have lost to condemn. Both complicate our picture of citizenship and dissent, as they suggest other examples also will.