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The Problem of Political Obligation: A Critique of Liberal Theory

2nd edition

Author: Carole Pateman

University of California Press, Berkeley CA, 1985, pp. 222

Originally published: 1979

Critiques individualist liberal theories of civil disobedience, including the notion that civil disobedients should willingly accept punishment (pp. 57-60 and 161-2). Rather ‘political disobedience ... may be the only way in which freedom and equality can be preserved’, and minorities have the right to refuse or withdraw consent.