Civil disobedience encompasses the active refusal to obey certain laws, demands and commands of a government or of an occupying power without resorting to physical violence. Civil disobedience has been used in struggles in India in the fight against British colonialism, South Africa in the fight against apartheid and civil rights movement in the USA and Europe.

The American author Henry David Thoreau pioneered the modern theory behind this practice in his 1849 essay (available at Wikisource), originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and later retitled "Civil Disobedience". The driving idea behind the essay was that of self-reliance, and how one is in morally good standing as long as they "get off another man's back"; so you don't have to physically fight the government, but you must not support it or have it support you (if you are against it). This essay has had a wide influence on many later practitioners of civil disobedience. In the essay, Thoreau explained his reasons for having refused to pay his taxes as an act of protest against slavery and against the Mexican War.

Civil disobedience has served as a major tactic of nationalist movements in former colonies in Africa and Asia prior to their gaining independence. Most notably Mohandas Gandhi developed civil disobedience as an anti-colonialist tool. Civil disobedience was a tactic used by Polish opposition to the former communist government (See Solidarity).

Martin Luther King Jr., a leader of the US civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s also adopted civil disobedience techniques, and antiwar activists both during and after the Vietnam War have done likewise. Since the 1970s, pro-life or anti-abortion groups have practiced civil disobedience against the U.S. government over the issue of legalized abortion. More recently, in the 2000s, people have used civil disobedience to protest the war on Iraq.

Many who practise civil disobedience do so out of religious faith, and clergy often participate in or lead actions of civil disobedience. A notable example is Philip Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest who was arrested dozens of times in acts of civil disobedience in antiwar protests.

In seeking an active form of resistance, those who practise civil disobedience may choose to deliberately break certain laws, such as by forming a peaceful blockade or occupying a facility illegally. Protesters do so with the expectation that they will be arrested, or even attacked or beaten by the authorities. Protesters often undergo training in advance on how to react to arrest or to attack, so that they will do so in a manner that quietly or limply resists without threatening the authorities. For example, Mohandas Gandhi outlined the following rules:

1. A satyagrahi, i.e., a civil resister, will harbour no anger.
2. He will suffer the anger of the opponent.
3. In so doing he will put up with assaults from the opponent, never retaliate; but he will not submit, out of fear of punishment or the like, to any order given in anger.
4. When any person in authority seeks to arrest a civil resister, he will voluntarily submit to the arrest, and he will not resist the attachment or removal of his own property, if any, when it is sought to be confiscated by authorities.
5. If a civil resister has any property in his possession as a trustee, he will refuse to surrender it, even though in defending it he might lose his life. He will, however, never retaliate.
6. Non-retaliation includes swearing and cursing.
7. Therefore a civil resister will never insult his opponent, and therefore also not take part in many of the newly coined cries which are contrary to the spirit of ahimsa.
8. A civil resister will not salute the Union Jack, nor will he insult it or officials, English or Indian.
9. In the course of the struggle if anyone insults an official or commits an assault upon him, a civil resister will protect such official or officials from the insult or attack even at the risk of his life.

(Note that Mohandas Gandhi wanted to make a distinction between his idea of Satyagraha and the passive resistance of the west.) eo:Civila malobeo