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Chapter 9: Why do we obey?

This chapter focuses on obedience and disobedience in global politics. It considers why people tend to obey the rules, what it means to resist and how those in charge seek to reassert their authority when it is challenged. The chapter examines two revolutionary moments in 1989 as illustrative examples: the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, which were violently dispersed by the Chinese state, and the demonstrators who tore down the Berlin Wall separating East and West Germany. The chapter looks at debates about authority and legitimacy in global politics before moving on to examine broader questions about how power operates in what we used to call social life.

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Chapter Abstract

Why do we obey? Is it because we have to, or do we just do what is expected because that is easiest? What happens if we disagree with the way things are organised? How do those in authority make us obey if we don’t want to? Usually, they persuade us that we should. But if persuasion doesn’t work, ‘they’, the agents of the government, are entitled to use force, in the form of the armed forces or the police, to guarantee obedience. To understand more about authority and obedience, we look at instances where a political order was challenged, people were disobedient, and authority, at least temporarily, collapsed.

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Additional web content and audio-visual materials

Foucault on Bachelard [in French]: A gem of a clip in which Foucault reflects upon the problem of obediently following prescribed reading lists or sticking to canonical texts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAwWwQZ_3FQ  

Debate: Noam Chomsky & Michel Foucault - On human nature [Subtitled]
The historical debate between Michel Foucault and Noam Chomsky on philosophy and politics that was recorded in 1971 for Dutch television. (1hr 10 mins)
https://youtu.be/3wfNl2L0Gf8?t=3m35s

Zizek: What are habits.
In this clip, “Zizek discusses rules and argues that every rule has implicit unspoken metarules that we have to obey even more!”
https://youtu.be/pfO9gL28pAs

Zizek v. Zizek - On Ideological Conformity
Clip from The Pervert's Guide to Ideology. Slavoj Zizek comments on what ideology is, the needs it satisfies and the difficulty of breaking free from it by putting on ‘anti-ideology’ glasses.
https://youtu.be/KzFg8gwRZ-o

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Global Politics Film Club

The Tank Man (2006), dir. Anthony Thomas
A documentary film about the man who stood in front of the tank, and the surrounding events during the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 and since.
Available at: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/tankman/

The Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012), dir. Sophie Fiennes

Slavoj Zizek examines the questions asked by films; he argues that ideology is the collective fantasy that shapes what we do, and how we obey.

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Seminar room activities

Activity: [For the students] Ask the students to think about why they obey you, the seminar tutor, and what would happen if they didn’t. Suggest various scenarios, or ask them to come up with some. Then ask them to think about instances in their everyday life where they have felt uncomfortable about something they were supposed to do: did they do anything about it? What? Finally, ask them to think about what happened when they were supposed to be in control, and encountered disobedience or resistance. Ask them to reflect on their own social position (race, gender, class, sexuality) and how that impacts on the possibilities of (dis)obedience. Ask them to think back to Chapter 5 of the book.

Activity: [For the convenors] Ask yourself how you feel about being asked to teach this chapter, and given suggestions here about how to do it. Do you feel inclined to obey? Or do you plan to subvert what you see as the intentions of the chapter? Think about pedagogy in general in relation to the questions raised in the chapter. Is a critical pedagogy possible or a contradiction in terms?

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Assessment Questions

  1. What do you consider the author was trying to do in the chapter and why? Did they succeed in doing that?
  2. Does the chapter address the question in the chapter title, or some other question?  How important is the question addressed, and how might the chapter have addressed it more directly? 
  3. What questions does the chapter author raise? What other questions did the chapter raise for you?  How important are these questions?
  4. How does the chapter connect with other chapters in the book?