Civil disobedience is a form of protest consisting in an act contrary to law, whose aim is to bring about a change in laws or policies deemed unjust. In the traditional Western philosophical debate, civil disobedience was mainly discussed and justified within the boundaries of a democratic regime. John Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience is explicitly based on this liberal assumption. He conceptualises civil disobedience as a public, nonviolent, conscientious and political breach of the law, only appropriate to nearly just societies, hence to democratic regimes. This article intends to question Rawls’ premise by considering civil disobedience from a different perspective: when it is undertaken outside of a nearly just framework, precisely in not fully democratic contexts, such as the so-called “anocracies”, regimes that mix democratic and autocratic traits. The emblematic case of Sudan’s most recent actions of civil disobedience is examined to argue that, contrary to the liberal conceptualisation, civil disobedience does have a role and appropriateness in frameworks of this kind, where the aim is not only to oppose unjust laws or policies, but also to achieve a broader structural change through rigorously nonviolent forms of political action.

公民抗命是一种抗议形式，是一种违反法律的行为，其目的是要改变被认为是不公正的法律或政策。在传统的西方哲学辩论中，公民抗命的讨论主要是在民主政权的范围内进行的。约翰·罗尔斯（John Rawls）的公民抗命理论明确基于这种自由假设。他将公民抗命概念化为一种公开，非暴力，出于良心和政治上的违反法律的行为，仅适用于几乎公正的社会，因此适用于民主制度。本文旨在通过不同角度考虑公民抗命来质疑罗尔斯的前提：当它是在几乎公正的框架之外进行时，恰恰是在不完全民主的情况下，例如所谓的“无政府状态”，兼具民主和专制特征的政权。审查了苏丹最近的公民抗命行动的标志性案例，认为与自由主义概念化相反，公民抗命在这种框架中确实具有作用和适当性，其目的不仅是反对不公正的法律或政策，而且还通过严格的非暴力形式的政治行动来实现更广泛的结构变革。