Concept of Political Obligation

You have never signed anything promising to obey the Motor Vehicles Act, yet you stop at a red light even when no one is watching. A lawyer who defends a client accused of tax evasion still files her own return every year. Somewhere between never consenting and always complying sits a question every citizen answers without noticing: why obey the State at all? That question is political obligation.

In two minutes

Political obligation is the moral duty of a citizen to obey the laws and support the institutions of the State under which they live — and the whole of this module is an argument about where that duty actually comes from and how far it extends.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Political Science – II: Foundations of Political Obligation on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.