From Protest to Power: Political Aggression and the Ethics of Civil Disobedience in Modern Democracies [FEATURE]

By: Felix Aneba Awonosua

Aggression continues to remain a crucial yet integral aspect of human interactions and social sphere, with the capacity to alter both social and political dimensions. The consequences of political resistance within a state or country can arise from either constructive or destructive means. Political aggression has to do with a heterogeneous repertoire of actions oriented toward causing physical or psychological damage to individuals or properties for affecting or resisting a particular change. It is used by individuals across various political domains by resorting to acts such as attacks on property, kidnapping, internet shutdowns, hostage taking and the seizure of properties, public immolation, planting explosive devices among others. But then, at what point within government is an action aggressive? Can political aggression leads to positive outcomes, or is it a necessary evil?

The menace of violence in politics could sometimes bring very unpleasant outcomes. For instance, military and authoritarianism mostly results in oppression, confrontational approach, annihilation of dissent, and the violation of individual freedoms. In Ghana in the late 1981-1992 President Jerry Rawlings at the time rose to power through military coup d’ etat and vendetta which at the time undermined stable institutions in Ghana. In modern democracies, a classical trend re-features in various electoral processes.  The December 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections in Ghana saw the deaths of at least six people. Several youth-led protests descended into violence, while clashes between groups loyal to the main National Democratic Congress (NDC) and New Patriotic Party (NPP) caused further unrest ( Institute for War & Peace reporting, 2025). The violence played out despite widespread commitments from political groups and government agencies following criticism of their actions during the previous round of voting in 2020.

Most often than not, politicians in modern democracies sometimes rely on aggressive means in their attempt to capture political power. This may come through attacks ads, internet shutdowns, cooperative rhetoric, and competitive political propagandism. Although these are all forms of aggression, some aim to alter voters’ minds to make a clear distinction between the policies and manifesto among political candidates. This if not properly managed  breeds excessive political partisanship.

It is important to note, however, that not all forms of political resistance take the shape of violent or destructive aggression. Alongside the confrontational methods of coups, repression, and violent protest exists another form of resistance rooted in ethics — civil disobedience. Unlike political aggression, which often inflicts physical or psychological harm, civil disobedience is a deliberate, non-violent violation of laws considered unjust, carried out in the hope of awakening the moral conscience of society. Leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah, through his Positive Action campaigns, Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian independence movement, employed civil disobedience as an alternative model to violent confrontation (S. Radhakrishnan 1992). Similarly, Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham jail emphasized that civil disobedience appeals to higher principles of justice, aiming to transform oppressive systems without recourse to violence. I crave your indulgence to reiterate that, civil disobedience can be seen as a tempering of aggression — channeling dissatisfaction and confrontation into constructive, ethically grounded resistance.

In contemporary democracies, the narratives are not so different but this takes different postures as some leaders tend to use cooperative rhetoric at the expense of human welfare in political leadership. However, whatever the situation, aggression in a confrontational approach or whatsoever should not have a say in governance if it is truly about representation of people’s interest in a democratic regime. Cooperativeness ought to be the best tool in politics rather than aggressive or confrontational approaches, whatsoever be it violent protest only deepens the menace of divide and rule gymnastics.

The issue of aggression is not limited to political leaders but then it also has to do with an entire society through movements and activism. On 6th September 2024, thousands of demonstrators filled the streets of Ghana’s Capital Greater Accra, with an outcry calling on the state to enforce laws to end illegal mining in the country popularly known as Galamsey. Citizens at the crossroads insisted that they would continue to protest and resist any attempts by the government to stop them until the state addressed the issue. While most of the protesters were arrested including 62-year-old Naa Densua, allies equally demanded that the government release protesters who had been apprehended by the police (African News, 2024).

Again, in the UK, July 18 (Reuters, 2024) – Five climate activists from the Just Stop Oil protest group were each jailed over a conspiracy to block London’s M25 motorway, marking the longest sentences ever imposed for a non-violent protest in Britain. Although a non-violent protest, Judge Christopher Hehir said, “You have appointed yourselves as the sole arbiters about what should be done about climate change.” On this  protest, Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said the economic cost of the protests was at least 770,000 pounds ($1 million) and caused delays for thousands of people and Hehir the judge said that “this was a conspiracy to cause extreme and disproportionate disruption”, adding: “Each of you has some time ago crossed the line from concerned campaigner to fanatic.  Hallam 58, the Co-founder was sentenced to five years in prison. The four other defendants, aged between 22 and 58, were sentenced to four years each.

These are attempts to remind leaders for various acts of injustice, through protest, and the duty of states to ensure justice and the protection of their very own against insanity within the socio-political system. However, not all forms of political confrontation manifest through violence or destructive aggression. Some resistance movements adopt civil disobedience thus a non-violent but confrontational method of challenging unjust laws or oppressive regimes.

Civil disobedience in Modern Democracies – From Resistance to Reforms

In every meaningful society, laws exist to regulate and, more importantly, reflect the true conscience of the state they govern. Albeit, these laws are grounded in a social contract—where citizens give some of their rights to the state in exchange for protection, justice, and order. However, when such a contract is perceived violated or when governments fail to uphold part of that contract by acting arbitrarily, citizens may be compelled to resist through civil disobedience. In line with Locke’s liberal theory, civil disobedience becomes justifiable when the state acts in a manner that endangers life, liberty, and freedoms. Likewise, Henry David Thoreau (1849) suggests that the moral conscience of the individual in a given society ought to guide collective resistance.

In Africa today, democracy has long evolved amid incipient unstable regimes, colonialism, and military aggression. However, citizens continue to challenge instances of governmental failure through non-violent means, protests, and demonstrations to register their displeasure—while disruptive, they often rise from a concern of fairness, equity, and accountability. To what extent can we demand the ethical justifications of such various resistance specifically within African democracies? I beg to differ that western theories of political resistance may tend to differ from African descent and experiences- but this can be explored on another day. The focus here is, does resistance in a way undermine or uphold democratic participation at all? And how do global trends interpret such tensions?

Civil disobedience is a political tactic of deliberately disobeying a law to bring about some change (Oxford 2025 Dictionary of Philosophy). The disobedience should ideally be public, non-violent, and committed by activists willing to face the penalties of the law. Oxford Languages explained ethics as the moral principles that govern a person’s behavior or the conducting of an activity. Citizens can equally disobey a law or an executive order they deem is inimical or draconian to their humanity through protests or demonstrations. Laws become an embodiment or reflection of the general moral conscience of the state or society to whom they are made to govern. Now, the question as to why citizens would resort to protest in the first place could be justifiable and founded on certain ethical principles. In a Lockean account of the state of nature, it is understood that citizens may protest to push the state to uphold laws that reflect the social contract they signed with the government, thus giving part of their rights to the state, and the state obliged to protect them against harm, aggression, and external dangers. It is reasoning from this limelight that “Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people” (Locke, 1980, p. 123).  John Locke in his works further provides a liberal foundation for justifying resistance against unjust governments. The precedents that could compel citizens to gang up and set themselves to form the moral conscience of the state. (Thoreau 1849, p. 2). Within governance, it is truly enough said that a corporation has no conscience, but a corporation of conscientious men is a corporation with a conscience. That is to say, a contract agreed upon by a state and its citizens, although intrinsic, binds the community to ensure the continual protection of the human species. Citizens in their own right are to ensure this contract is protected and obeyed. For instance, when a state decides not to pay its workers their required wages and salaries to commensurate with their equal efforts and duties discharged, then citizens may resort to taking certain actions in the manner of protests, riots, demonstrations, and strike actions. In this situation by withdrawing their services the workers’ decisions could be harmful to the state. What then become the underlying ethical dimensions of such actions? The state can be in dire need of their service, and yet they are nowhere to be found. As patriotic citizens who signed up a contract with the state and are bound by the sole obligation to protect and serve their nation begs the question of right or wrong. It is questions of this nature that give life to the topic to be explored. Sometimes, procedural certain obligations structured by others might emanate from mutual understandings and necessarily a matter of signed contracts, yet they remain intrinsic. In his work Resistance to Civil Government in the early 1849, Henry David Thoreau argues for the justification of civil disobedience—he stops the poll tax of his time as a way of expressing displeasure against the state’s support of slavery and war against Mexicans (Alton 1992; Bedau 1991, p. 2). However, Rawls later became the first to write about the nature and justification of such dissent. By defining civil disobedience as a public, nonviolent, conscientious yet political act contrary to law usually done with the aim of bringing about a change in the law or policies of the government” (Rawls, 1999, p. 320). Rawls’s definition is based on the grounds of societies where  breaching the law becomes the last option after one has exhausted all the legal means meant to convince policymakers or, better still, the required institutions to consider the claim of the disobeyer. To Rawls, the person who engages in civil disobedience must equally be willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions. (Rawls 1999, p. 322) It is important to note that the line of differentiation of one choosing civil disobedience over other options as the last resort and yet obliged to accept the follow-up consequences actually marks the point of moral justification.

The concept later gained ground in modern democracy from major civil actors like Martin Luther King Jr. in his letter from Birmingham Jail, which presents a deep reflection in defense of civil disobedience where he said “one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws” (King 1991, p. 63). Although this is situated in line with Western civil rights, it conveys universal application.

Similarly, in Nkrumah’s advocacy for organized non-violent resistance, he makes a case in defense of civil disobedience. He writes, “We must learn to suffer, to endure, and to persist in our demand for freedom until it is granted” (Nkrumah 1964, p. 81). In Brownlee’s account of civil disobedience, instead of offering a strict definition, he rather outlines a paradigm case approach where the main features that constitute civil disobedience are identified. (Brownlee, 2004; Croce & Berva, 2024, p. 6). In her view, for an action to be referred to as civil disobedience must include a deliberate breach of the law with the personal commitment to communicate one’s condemnation of such law. Brownlee’s perspective highlights two fundamental elements, which are 1. Conscientiousness 2. Communication (Brownlee, 2004). Croce & Berva in their paper on civil disobedience in times of pandemic, they use both features from Brownlee’s account to evaluate cases of breaching the law. By identifying what an act of disobedience requires to be considered morally justified, they made a case that moral justification for civil disobedience lies in punishment and proportionality. Having said that, Civil disobedience continuously remain a tool in shaping political and even social change across different contexts as it charges injustice. The topic at hand underscores a need to further explore modern applications as well as the ethical boundaries that continues to shape such dissent. Personally, Political resistance in any form is not just political but equally conveys a philosophical perspective. When civil rights clashes with state authority, there lies a demand for justice, equality, and human dignity. Engaging both ethical and political dimensions in any given form of protest and political push back would allow for a comprehensive framework for evaluating civil disobedience in modern democracies.

Against the backdrop, aggression in society could have dire repercussions leading to violence, repression, suppression and social unrest. Whereas Political aggression could mount civil conflicts, political hatred, Xenophobia, and radical extremism.

In sum, resistance remains an essential component of society’s progression, yet it must be understood as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, civil disobedience can serve as a powerful tool for driving positive social change and could serve as an antidote that can temper aggression, particularly when confronting unjust laws and oppressive systems. On the other hand, political resistance if misapplied or left unchecked,  leads to aggression which turns to stirring division, violence, and even extremism. Thus, civil disobedience should be regarded not merely as an act of defiance, but as a moral and political responsibility—one that must be exercised with prudence, ethical clarity, and a commitment to justice for the common good of all.

REFERENCES

Alton, S. R. (1992). In the Wake of Thoreau: Four Modern Legal Philosophers and the Theory of Non-violent Civil Disobedience. Loyola University Chicago Law Journal, 24(1), 39–76.

Bedau, H. A. (1991). Introduction. In H. A. Bedau (Ed.), Civil Disobedience in Focus (pp. 1–12). Routledge.

Brownlee, K. (2004). Features of a Paradigm Case of Civil Disobedience. Res Publica, 10, 337–351.

Croce, D. Y., & Berva, N. O. (2021). Civil Disobedience in Times of Pandemic: Clarifying Rights and Duties. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 17, 155–174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-021-09592-7

King Jr., M. L. (1991). Letter from Birmingham Jail. In J. M. Washington (Ed.), A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches of Martin Luther King Jr. (pp. 58–72). HarperOne.

Locke, J. (1980). Second Treatise of Government (C. B. Macpherson, Ed.; pp. 52–123). Hackett Publishing.

Nkrumah, K. (1964). Consciencism: Philosophy and Ideology for Decolonization (pp. 70–95). Monthly Review Press.

Rawls, J. (1999 [1971]). A Theory of Justice. Harvard University Press.

Raz, J. (1979). The Authority of Law. Oxford University Press.

Thoreau, H. D. (1991). Civil Disobedience. In H. A. Bedau (Ed.), Civil Disobedience in Focus (pp. 28–48). Routledge.

Agbove, T. (2025, January). Blood Ballot: Election Violence in Ghana. Institute for Peace and War Reporting. https://iwpr.net/global-voices/blood-ballot-election-violence-ghana

Oxford University Press. (n.d.). Philosophy: Meaning & Definition. https://www.oxfordreference.com/viewbydoi/10.1093/acref/9780199541430.001.0001

GhanaWeb. (2024). “Let my children out, they only have a mother” – 62-year-old woman as she joins protest. https://mobile.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Let-my-children-out-they-only-have-a-mother-62-year-old-woman-as-she-joins-protest-1953848

Africanews. (2024, September 23). Ghana Police Arrest Dozens of Protesters Denouncing the Government’s Handling of the Economy.

https://www.africanews.com/2024/09/23/ghana-police-arrest-dozens-of-protesters-denouncing-the-governments-handling-of-the-economy

Felix Aneba Awonosua is a Fellow of the Institute for Liberty and Economic Education (ILEE) and an alumnus of the 2025 ILEE Freedom Writers Fellowship. He can be reached at felixaneba88@gmail.com.