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The media hoop-la about Edward Snowden has obscured a less flashy yet more vital -and philosophically relevant -part of the story, namely the moral and political seriousness with which he acted to make the hitherto covert scope and scale of NSA surveillance public knowledge. Here I argue that we should interpret Snowden's actions as meeting most of the demanding tests outlined in sophisticated political thinking about civil disobedience. Like Thoreau, Gandhi, King and countless other (forgotten) grass-roots activists, Snowden has in fact articulated a powerful defense of why he was morally obligated to engage in politically motivated law-breaking. He has also undertaken impressive efforts to explain how his actions are distinguishable from ordinary criminality, and why they need not culminate in reckless lawlessness. In fact, his example can perhaps help us advance liberal and democratic ideas about civil disobedience. First, it highlights sound reasons why, pace the orthodox view, the acceptance of punishment by those engaging in civil disobedience should not be seen as a precondition of its legitimacy. Second, Snowden reminds us that ours is an era in which intensified globalization processes directly shape every feature of political existence. Defenders of civil disobedience need to update their reflections accordingly.

Realist political philosophy has enjoyed a remarkable revival in recent years, with prominent intellectual figures (for example, Raymond Geuss, Bernard Williams) promoting an identifiably 'realist' alternative to neo-Kantianism. Yet contemporary Realists either ignore or caricature mid-century (or classical) international realists (for example, E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, Reinhold Niebuhr), whose theoretical contributions have also recently generated a substantial revival of interest among international political theorists. However, they have done so at a high cost: recent philosophical-minded realists unwittingly reproduce conceptual ambiguities plaguing mid-century international realist contributions to political ethics. Unlike its mid-century predecessor, realist political philosophy also fails to analyze political 'realities' in any but the most abstract fashion. Realist political philosophy still primarily constitutes an anti-Kantian gesture, but by no means a cogent theoretical alternative.Not surprisingly in light of their focus on the centrality of conflict to social life, Geuss and Williams exert substantial energy identifying and attacking opponents.The realist revival in political philosophy 799

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