Conference Abstracts

Zachary Swirski McMaster University | Hegel's Rabble and Nomadic Becomings

One of the dominant threads in contemporary leftist Hegelian thought is to use Hegel’s concept of ‘the rabble’ (Poebel) as a silver bullet to show that Hegel’s State contains a fundamental contradiction of the social contract as such, and because of this, the answer to the problem of the rabble must lay outside of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (1991). This position is excellently conveyed in Frank Ruda’s Hegel’s Rabble: an Investigation into Hegel’s Philosophy of Right (2011) and his piece “That Which Makes Itself: Hegel, Rabble and Consequences” (2017). What is the rabble? Hegel says that the rabble is born from “that feeling of right, integrity, and honour which comes from supporting oneself by one’s own activity and work are lost” (226). The rabble is essentially Hegel’s way of conceptualizing the poverty and disenfranchisement he thinks is necessarily produced by his capitalist state. For the rabble, the state does not successfully mediate their subjectivity, thus fracturing the substance of the social contract. Ruda and Zeizek are who I refer to as the negative thinkers, in that they seek to re-historicize the rabble by giving them a negative ontological status as they function as a negation of the State. It is in this way that they argue that the rabble is essentially Hegel’s proletariat, that Hegel has intentionally left a stray thread to be re-woven by Marx. Alternative to this reading, I argue for a positive account of the rabble. This line of thought finds its origin in Deleuze and Guattari’s A Thousand Plateaus (1987), and is brought to harvest by George Hirstov (2018), Nathan Widder (2015), and Louis Carré (2018). By thinking of the rabble as a contradiction, rather than a paradox, Ruda has robbed the rabble of its positive ontological status. This argument is founded upon the very anti-Hegelian view that State’s are assemblages rather than totalities. Assemblages differ from totalities in that the parts are not defined by the whole. The social contract is not an agreement between the State and its participants, but mutually negotiated contracts between different forces. Differences in the assemblage are not moments in a dialectic subsumed under one notion, but real differences that need reconciliation only insofar as their real differences allow. It is in this way then that the rabble regain a positive ontological status in D&G’s figure of the nomad.

Fabien Lechevalier Université Paris-Saclay | Crafting the Future: A New Social Contract for the Digital Age 

The definition of the Social Contract by Rousseau, followed by Rawls' Theory of Justice, brings us back to the foundations of social liberal democracy. This democracy is based on two principles of justice: the principle of liberty and the principle of fraternity. Individuals freely consent to these principles within the framework of the « veil of ignorance », which guarantees impartiality. This doctrine notably supported the development of social protection systems in the 20th century. The insurance system was thus built on a logic of « risk pooling ».

However, with the emergence of big data, a tension arises between this impartial risk pooling and the enhanced transparency of data. Big data indeed promotes a selection of risks that is incompatible with the theory of the social contract. Two case studies will draw our attention: data altruism implemented at the European level and video surveillance in urban public spaces. The first example, introduced by the Data Governance Act (2022), is presented as a way of sharing data based on initiative and « altruism » for the purpose of serving the public good. The second example presents itself as a citizen security system consisting of one or more cameras. From the global to the local, the digital systems and public policies implemented by the digital Welfare State and the digital Minimal State compel us to rethink the bonds that unite us within the framework of the Social Contract.

What is their place in this context? Should they prioritize collective interests at the expense of individual protection? Questioning the role of the State is all the more important as, in the Social Contract, Rousseau saw the transition from the state of nature to the state of society as occurring in the name of the general interest, of which the State is today the guarantor. These projects, with their « altruistic and noble » appearance, materialize in the deployment of technologies that process data to automate decisions, predict, identify, monitor, detect, target, and potentially punish the most vulnerable before all others. The line between benefits for the public good and the threats of surveillance or risk selection is therefore fragile. This presentation aims to lay the groundwork for Social Contract 3.0, taking into account contemporary technological transformations.

Olivia Custer AUP |Consent to the Social Contract in the Wake of #metoo

For ten years, Dominique Pelicot repeatedly drugged his wife to render her unconscious and then, with other men he recruited online, raped her. Fifty of these men are now on trial. Only one has apologized, recognizing that what he did was wrong. The defense of the others rests on variations of the claim that they did not, could not, realize that what they were doing was wrong; they thought what they were participating in was a consensual game; they thought it was ok since the husband had agreed. This extraordinary trial obviously demonstrates the ongoing necessity of essential discussions about gender relations, latent violence, and how collective commitment to consent as the criterion for avoiding sexual violence can help change society. I would like here to suggest that this case might also be read as a chilling confirmation of a feminist hypothesis about the social contract in its classical formulations. Indeed, the story these men tell can be read as unusually clear surfacing of a narrative that Carole Pateman long ago identified as an implicit precondition of the social contract, namely a disavowed fraternal agreement about the distribution of access to women. The parallels between the conception the men of Mazan seem to have of gender relationships and the "sexual contract" are striking. We might take this as a reminder that one of questions about any new social contract today must be whether, and how, it would extricate itself from patriarchal paradigms. More specifically, it draws our attention to the narrative that social contract theories invoke about the constitution of legitimate power and invites us to vigilance about the back stories. 

In this paper, I would like to revisit the presumed scene of the contract: the collective consent that constitutes sovereign power. Drawing on feminist scholarship since The Sexual Contract and on some of the contemporary transnational conversations about consent in the wake of the #metoo movements, might we experiment with thinking about what a free, informed, specific, verifiable, and enthusiastic consent to the Social Contract would look like? I hope to show that such thought experiments can, at the very least, help us make a distinction between those propositions for new social contracts that seek to reinvigorate emancipatory forces and those that, on the contrary, would serve to consolidate the no-longer-stealth revolution of neoliberal domination.

Alnusf Marzouq Kuwait University | The Global Aspect in the Racial Critique of Social Contract Theory

The paper engages with an often overlooked aspect in Charles Mills’s critique of social contract theory. That aspect is the global one. My thesis is that the scope of Mills’s general argument starting in his book The racial Contract (1997) and in many of his later works is a global scope. This thesis is significant for at least two reasons. First, it is a more accurate exegesis and interpretation of Mills’s critique of social contract theory. This is in comparison to the general uptake of Mills’s overall political philosophy, which is an uptake that treats it as a critique of social contract conditions exclusively in the US; or in the US and other settler colonial states, such as South Africa and Australia; or in the west or white-dominated states. Such a reading influences the understanding of key concepts that first appear in Mills’s book and that became independently influential, such as the concepts of white supremacy and of epistemic or white ignorance. My aim is to rebalance that narrow reading of Mills by emphasizing the global aspect. The second reason my thesis is significant is that it shows that the conceptual and normative ambition, significance, and potential of Mills’s critique is broader than generally supposed. I give five illustrations. First, Mills’s global scope proposes a new starting point for theorizing global justice and its underlying social contract, which is around the year 1492. Second, this alternative starting point has conceptual and normative implications. It suggests a new unit of analysis in global justice and its underlying social contract, which is race. Third, once race is taken into consideration, then processes such as racial formation become pertinent historically, conceptually and normatively for social contract theory. All three of those points are fairly alien to mainstream approaches to the social contract. Fourth, Mills’s understanding of the relation between global history and philosophy goes beyond the social contract and can be part of a larger critique of western philosophy more generally. It involves a critique of temporality, or what Mills calls “white time.” Fifth and last, the global aspect in Mills offers a feasible point of connection to other traditions of critically theorizing the social contract, such as Latin American decolonial thought. The global aspect of the critique of social contract, then, opens novel and varied areas of work and connections for social contract theory.

Vanda Amaro Dias, Cristiano Gianolla University of Coimbra | The Articulation of Mythologies Through the Social Contract in Empires, Nation-States and Europe: Challenges to Democratisation in Modern Liberal Polities

The social contract is idealised as a myth that constitutes modern liberal societies. However, it has raised concerns from democratic perspectives. It constitutes both the individual and the socio-political identity that lead to the foundation of a liberal polity. Nonetheless, modern liberal polities have been characterised by structural inequalities since their inception in colonial empires. Understanding the role of myth-making is thus necessary to disentangle the relationship of social contract theory with both liberalism and democracy. Myth-making induces not only rational understanding of the political reality but also the emotional and motivational drive that make it work. As a political myth the social contract is dynamic, transforms itself to address social change and stimulates the creation, diffusion and transformation of other socio-political myths integrating diverse mythologies. Different political mythologies emerged in the transition from colonial empires to post-colonial nation states and are continuously reconstituted in view of the emergence of supranational inter-state organisations as the European Union (EU). The entanglement of social contract and political myth can be studied from different disciplinary perspectives. In order to understand how political myths operate imaginal transformations that sustain liberal mythologies, it becomes important to analyse how they operate at rational and emotional levels. It is suggested that a vantage point emerges from a critical postcolonial perspective informed by empirical evidence. This leads to a focus on the impact of social contract mythologies on the formation of imperial, colonial and postcolonial subjectivities, especially those thriving for a critical democratic drive. It is hypothesised that empirical evidence crosscutting the political mythologies of the social contract at empire, state, and EU level emerge from a triple focus. Firstly, the EU expansion and the social contract mythology of the EU constrains the democratic aspirations of liberalising societies. Secondly, the myth of the EU green transition and resistance to its neoliberal rooting, demonstrate how supranational aspirations conjoin with colonial legacies affecting the development of democratic ecosocial contracts. Thirdly, migration (migrants, refugees and retornados) reveals the work of myth at the state level marked by imperial-colonial legacies.

Andrew Stewart Chapman University | Counterstories and the Social Contract 

In The Sexual Contract, The Racial Contract, and their combined work in Contract and Domination, Carole Pateman and Charles Mills persuasively argue that the social contract tradition has reinforced oppression. Pateman argues that in order to combat its influence, one ought to think of accounts of the social contract—presented by, e.g., Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Kant, and Rawls—as stories (The Sexual Contract, 219-221). This opposes a tendency, still alive in “mainstream” political philosophy, to treat arguments and theories as the core of philosophical texts. That said, Pateman does not view herself as presenting an alternative “origin story” to replace the stories that she critiques (Contract and Domination, 216). While Mills clearly engages in a contest of images and histories (The Racial Contract, 121-122), he does not frame his work in terms of “counter-stories” or “counter-narratives” either.

Although stories are central to the work of Pateman and Mills, it is far from the case that they are “only” telling stories. Their arguments are grounded in facts about oppression and the actual role that fictional stories have played in reinforcing racist and sexist ideology. However, given that Pateman and Mills view the original tellings of the social-contract stories that they critique as, in Pateman’s words, “momentous intervention[s] into the political world,” (The Sexual Contract, 219), it is a natural question to ask whether political philosophers should view their own work in the same sort of light. If storytelling is so powerful, should political philosophers subordinate it to rational argumentation? Or is the appropriate response to fully embrace storytelling: crafting new, better, more inclusive stories, and adopting ambitious and conscientious storytelling as part of one's philosophical approach?

In this paper, I will explore and motivate the possibility that political philosophers should present robust (counter-)stories in conjunction with their arguments. I will suggest that political philosophers have good reasons not only to tell stories in support of rational arguments and theories, but also to tell stories that are engaging, memorable, and tools for the promotion of justice. Drawing on recent scholarship on the history of political thought by Tae-Yeoun Keum on Plato (2020), Ioannis Evrigenis on Hobbes (2014), and John T. Scott on Rousseau (2020), I will outline several coherent ways of combining robust storytelling with truth-seeking and rational argumentation. And I will argue that the “genre” of social-contract stories in particular is a crucial place for political philosophers to tell counter-stories.

Daniel Smilov Sofia University | The Concept of Social Contract in the Theories of European Integration

The paper explores the role of the concept of social contract in the theories of European Integration. The analysis is focused on the three main theories – federalism, intergovernmentalism and neo-functionalism – which offer a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the EU and its future as a political entity. The paper also explores some of the constructivist approaches to European Integration. In general, the concept of social contract does not play a central role in any of those theories and approaches. Federalism is the most conducive to the application of the concept since it implies the adoption of a federalist constitutional framework for the EU: constitutional frameworks are based as a rule on broad social consent. The same applies for some of the constructivist approaches, such as the application of Jurgen Habermas’s theory of communicative reason to integration processes in Europe. Concepts, such as “democratic deficit”, also may be conceptually linked to the idea of social contract. Still, it is an intriguing question why the social contract concept does not feature prominently in the theories of European integration. 

The paper goes through a variety of explanations of this fact. Firstly, it is argued that the early stages of the processes of European integration had a definite elitist character. The creation of the European Coal and Steel Community and the EEC in the 1950s was a good example of this phenomenon. Secondly, the international character of the EU was too strong in comparison to its supranational character for most of the history of European integration. The creation of the EU in the Maastricht treaty and its subsequent evolution remedied this deficit to a degree, but still the original internationalist momentum is rather strong. Thirdly, the democratisation of the EU, the expansion of the powers of the EP, and the creation of supranational political parties coincided with the rise of nationalistic populism within the member states. This contemporary process is a significant factor, which impedes the creation of pan-European democracy, and ipso facto prevents the application of the concept of social contract at the level of the EU. 

The paper ends with suggestions about the better incorporation of the idea of the social contract in the theorising of European integration. 

Ana Matan University of Zagreb | Realist Utopia for a Compound Democratic Community of States

The idea of the social contract has been intimately connected with ideas of democracy, government by consent of the governed, and the idea that those bound by a social contract should have a say over its terms. Modern social contract theory (second half of the 20th century) states that the principles (and the rules and institutions following those principles) that govern our political life should be understood as a result of a contract among members of society. Modern social contract theory is a close reflection of the way how democratic societies (should) function, or in the famous phrase of John Rawls, they are to define the practical limits of politics – realistic utopias. While Rawls developed his blueprint for realistic utopias for nation-states (in The Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism) and for the international arena (The Law of Peoples), he was very skeptical about the European Union. The paper will explore the potential and the limits of Rawlsian social contract theory to serve as a basis for legitimacy and democratic transformation of the EU. The framework for the exploration will be Albert Weale's typology of social contract theories as based on mutual advantage, on a moral point of view or both. A preliminary hypothesis of the paper is that a social contract theory for the European Union cannot be one based solely on mutual advantage, but one that would provide the Union with a moral basis for its Treaties' obligations and its values. The paper will also include some illustrative empirical evidence of the range and hierarchy of the EU values as declared in its Treaties, but also in its foreign and enlargement policies. 

Théophile Pénigaud Yale University | Engaging with the Non-ideal Behind the Veil of Ignorance

This communication challenges Rawls' emphasis on ideal theory and his biases inherited from social contract theory while maintaining a commitment to universalism. The argument is twofold. Firstly, the focus on the worst-off should extend beyond the 'fully cooperative members of society' to include outlaws and criminals. Behind the veil of ignorance, the partners are to consider how little they know about the moral capacities of those they represent. As it is unclear whether we deserve our endowments and successes, so it is whether we deserve our flaws and failures either, even when we fall short of societal expectations under favorable circumstances. (At the international level, primary attention should be given to the stateless and immigrants, which are conspicuously absent from The Law of Peoples). Secondly, acknowledging reasonable doubts about free will and moral merit uncovers a more egalitarian interpretation of the 'political, not metaphysical' public conception of justice. From there, the question arises of whether the basic structure of society can remain agnostic about the relationship between the existence of free will, moral responsibility and criminal law.

David Peters AUP | James Wilson’s Revolutionary Critique of and Alternative to Contract Theory

Can contract theory address the crises modern democracies are facing? US Founder James Wilson would say no. Yet, the revolutionary alternative form of consensual government he proposes, grows out of this tradition, potentially pointing to a way forward. Wilson rejected the contemporaneous eighteenth-century conception of contract theory he was familiar with generally and specifically, as the appropriate interpretation of the US Constitution that he helped to draft. From Wilson’s perspective contract theory proposed to create a sovereign king or government through the people’s consent. Wilson rejected this idea as logically incoherent and akin to the people willingly enslaving themselves, effectively negating the people’s inalienable sovereignty and with it their consent. More practically, Wilson held that contract theory inhibited the possibility of improvement, making it brittle and unable to respond to developments in knowledge and society, much less crises. While Wilson rejects contract theory, he does utilise many of the same concepts to construct his alternative, such as: the state of nature, sovereignty, and the “consent of the governed”. However, he understands them differently, and thus, draws radically different conclusions, which are epitomised in his Revolution Principle. This principle is key to understanding Wilson’s revolutionary alternative and his critiques of contract theory. Wilson’s Revolution Principle asserts that the people possess the inalienable right to change their constitution or any facet of their governance at any time and for any reason through a simple democratic vote, substantively differentiating it from Locke’s. Moreover, Wilson hoped that the people would exercise this right to continually improve their governance, the chief end of which, Wilson claimed, was the protection and improvement of society. Through these principles and his broader theory, Wilson effectively reconceptualised democracy as a continual progressive reciprocal revolution in society and governance. Wilson’s conception of these principles allows for and even encourages improvements and ensures legitimacy, creating a flexible resilient system that can adapt to new information, social change, and crises. Wilson’s critique and alternative challenge us to question what the principles of sovereignty and consent require in terms of the practical function and legitimation of government, and more substantially to reorientate our thinking concerning what democracy and revolution entail. This challenge has potentially important ramifications for determining the viability of reviving contract theory and addressing the growing crisis of democracy.

Kevin Leportier Université de Caen Normandie | Freedom, crises and liberal social contracts

During global crises like the recent pandemics, the collective response becomes critical, often making it impractical to allow individuals the choice of whether to contribute. The response to a pandemic is a public good that must be delivered swiftly to be effective. The problem with public goods is that everyone prefers that it is produced, but an individual has little incentive to contribute since she cannot produce it by herself, and it is pointless to contribute without coordination. How can freedom be preserved in these conditions? Tabarrok (1996) has shown that is sometimes feasible for individual to coordinate effectively to produce the public good without coercion. What he called a dominance assurance contract is such a mechanism for coordinating public good provision which preserves everyone’s freedom. However, such contracts involve high transaction costs and are not feasible in a crisis situation, such as the start of an epidemic. 

This paper proposes an alternative approach, drawing on a tradition that emphasizes the role of the State in coordinating individuals to address public goods problems. This is Serge-Christophe Kolm’s (1985) idea of a liberal social contract—a hypothetical contract to which individuals could have consented, meant to allow individuals to produce some specific results such as the provision of public goods.

However, Kolm did not say much about the exact conditions that would make such a counterfactual consent valuable from the perspective of freedom, which this paper intends to do. To that end, I build on Amartya Sen’s distinction between freedom as control and indirect freedom (Sen 1982). Sen highlights that freedom can still be preserved even when individuals are not directly in control of decisions about themselves. For instance, a person who is unconscious and in need of a blood transfusion retains freedom if the medical decision reflects what they would have chosen if conscious.Thus, we can argue that the liberal social contract preserves indirect freedom when the outcome aligns with what individuals would have chosen, had they been able to. This paper explores how such a balance can be struck between state intervention and the preservation of freedom during crises.

Clémence Pellissier Trinity College Dublin | The Social Contract versus Autonomy? A Study on Arendt’s Critique of Rousseau’s Theory

At first glance, The Social Contract developed by Rousseau (in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Du contrat social, éd. par Bruno Bernardi, GF (Paris: Flammarion, 2012)) defends both a negative and a positive form of freedom. On the one hand, its purpose is to prevent domination and exploitation. Concepts like alienation or general will are indeed ways to make instrumentalization of the social pact impossible. On the other hand, Althusser stresses that social alienation is also a response to the natural alienation: “[Before Social contract] Nous sommes bien dans l’élément de l’aliénation : mais elle est inconsciente et involontaire. À cette aliénation totale, il n’est de solution que l’aliénation totale elle-même, mais consciente et volontaire” (Louis Althusser, Sur le contrat social, Epub, Le marteau sans maître (Paris: Manucius, 2009), 48-49). If the natural state is an independent one, this independence is always limited by individual possibilities (see Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Émile ou De l’éducation, éd. par André Charrak, GF (Paris: Flammarion, 2009), 94). This movement (or “changement de manière d’être” in Althusser’s words) from an involuntary/inconscient alienation to a voluntary/conscient one seems extremely closed to what can be defined as autonomy: not the freedom to do everything, but to fix to oneself a specific purpose and to follow it. 

However, autonomy seems also extremely linked to the recognition of the individual within a society. Rousseau’s will to unify the social body in politics, through the “general will”, seems therefore incompatible with autonomy. In her work on the French and American revolutions, Arendt highlights this problem (Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (Londres: Faber and Faber, 2016)). This paper starts from her analysis to show the two aspects of Rousseau's theory that makes it totally incompatible with autonomy. 

Firstly, this paper deals with the question of the community/body politic within the social contract, showing how these concepts risk the disappearance of plurality in politics. Secondly, it questions the signification and position of the individual in Rousseau's theory, trying to show how the individual is in fact absent from the political field. 

In other words, this paper starts from one of the original (and main) theories of the social contract to show its limitations, so that they can be overcome in a “renewing of the contract”.

Clara Lucas Centre Émile Durkheim, ScPo Bordeaux | Le Contrat social jaune : Rousseau et les Gilets jaunes

Cette communication propose de considérer comment Le Contrat Social (CS) de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, et plus largement sa théorie politique, fournit des clés de compréhension du mouvement des Gilets jaunes. Autant en termes de pratiques concrètes de la démocratie, de considérations sur les gouvernants ou de principes de reconnaissance politique, une continuité se dessine entre la pensée du philosophe genevois du siècle des Lumières et celle d’acteur·ices issu·es des classes populaires qui se mobilisent en France contre l’injustice et les inégalités sociales et en faveur de réformes du système démocratique à partir de novembre 2018. 

La théorie politique de Rousseau offre un éclairage sur les pratiques démocratiques des Gilets jaunes. Avec la proposition du RIC (Referendum d’Initiative Citoyenne) CARL (Constitutionnel, Abrogratif, Révocatif et Législatif), les Gilets jaunes vont plébisciter l’ajout d’un outil de démocratie directe dans la formation des lois. Ce dispositif cherche à pallier l’écueil de la représentation, qui réduit la liberté politique au seul temps électoral, en proposant notamment la possibilité d’affirmer que « toute loi que le peuple en personne n’a pas ratifiée est nulle » (CS, III, XV). Cette revendication trouve ses sources dans l’exercice démocratique du rond-point. De l’assemblée non-générale du rond-point aux Assemblées des Assemblées, le rond-point comme « forum » intègre à son activité une fonction délibérative (Ravelli, 2020). Pour Rousseau, ces délibérations d’assemblée, si elles se tiennent dans un lieu concret et demeurent autonomes, sont au cœur de la formation de la volonté générale (Pénigaud de Mourgues, 2024). 

Les Gilets jaunes ne s’opposent cependant pas à toutes formes de représentation, mais particulièrement à la représentation-distinction (Bedock et al., 2021) : la proximité statutaire des élu·es avec les citoyens et citoyennes ordinaires est au cœur de leurs revendications. Cette critique des gouvernants en termes de mode de vie (qui se cristallise dans certains événements comme certains fêtes ou achats ostentatoires) s'apparente à la critique du luxe formulée par Rousseau, le luxe étant à la source de la « vanité » (CS, III, IV). C'est, dans le fond, l’impossibilité de conserver la liberté, obéir à sa propre loi, si une trop grande distance sociale sépare dirigeant·es et dirigé·es; si l’égalité, non la stricte équivalence de puissances et de richesse mais la limitation contrôlée des écarts entre le riche et le pauvre, n’est pas assurée. 

Enfin, le mouvement des Gilets jaunes permet d’adopter une lecture en termes de « lutte pour la reconnaissance » telle que l’a proposée Rousseau avec les concepts d’amour-propre et d’opinion (Pénigaud de Mourgues, 2017). L’opinion publique, définie dans le Contrat Social comme « une espèce de loi » (CS, IV, VIII) qui détermine les objets de l’estime de façon arbitraire, est la source des alinéations de l’amour-propre. Deux opinions en particulier constitueraient l’essentiel du contenu critique de l’amour-propre : l’opinion nobiliaire et l’opinion bourgeoise. Le mouvement des Gilets jaunes va montrer comment dans cette opinion publique, les classes populaires, comme actrices politiques, sont l’objet d’un mépris de classe (Renahy & Sorignet, 2021) et dans quelle mesure les mouvements politiques populaires oeuvrent pour réédicter les critères de l’estime publique. 

Simone Leotta LIER-FYT/EHESS | Du nouveau sous l’ancien ? Le statut de la « religion civile » dans le Contrat social

Quel est le statut théorique du patriotisme chez Rousseau ? Faut-il considérer que le Contrat social réactive l’ancien thème citoyen ou, au contraire, qu’il introduit une nouveauté au sein de la tradition contractualiste, dont on n’a pas assez pris la mesure ? Et cette nouveauté, en quoi consisterait-elle ? Bien qu’elle ne soit pas inconnue des spécialistes, la question du patriotisme chez Rousseau occupe une place de choix, parce qu’elle permet de réinterroger les présupposés théoriques de la conception moderne de la politique issue de la révolution démocratique. En effet, dans Droit naturel et histoire, Leo Strauss affirme que le patriotisme de Rousseau illustre parfaitement le caractère aporétique du projet moderne : alors que, d’un côté, il prétend s’inspirer des Anciens pour relever la vertu civique, de l’autre, ce type de patriotisme n’acquiert une véritable assise conceptuelle qu’à condition de reconnaître les droits de l’individu. Deux conséquences semblent découler de cette hypothèse :

1. Rousseau aurait prolongé le paradigme hobbesien du droit naturel au point de le rendre contradictoire dans les termes ;

2. La pensée démocratique moderne, pour autant qu’elle hérite de la volonté générale rousseauiste, aurait pour horizon ultime et indépassable le libéralisme.

Or, en prenant au sérieux le diagnostic straussien, nous souhaitons approfondir ce problème en nous focalisant sur le chapitre VIII du livre IV du Contrat social. Quel est le statut théorique de la « religion civile » de Rousseau ? Les spécialistes sont divisés sur ce point : selon les uns, elle instaure une forme de sacralisation de l’État, selon les autres, elle réactive une religion sui generis, mi-civile, mi-naturelle. Dans notre contribution, nous souhaitons montrer que la « religion civile » peut être comprise comme l’opérateur d’un type de politisation qui ne passe pas tellement par la reconnaissance des droits de l’individu, mais par le partage d’un certain nombre de normes communes. Loin de réactiver une conception révolue de la citoyenneté, la « religion civile » recouvre une idée nouvelle : il n’y a pas de pacte social sans le partage d’un certain nombre de normes communes entourées de sanctions. L’humanité de l’homme repose dans un rapport de socialisation qui la qualifie à la fois collectivement et individuellement. En d’autres termes, il s’agit de tester l’hypothèse selon laquelle après la nature (« les lois naturelles ») et le droit (« le droit naturel »), le Contrat social de Rousseau pourrait faire place au seul critère à même de refléter la réarticulation entre théorie et pratique correspondante aux sociétés hautement différenciées : le social.

Maude Vidal EHESS | Contrat social et norme fondamentale, Kelsen lecteur de Vaihinger

Pour Hans Kelsen, les thèses contractualistes sont à ranger dans la catégorie des théories jusnaturalistes auxquelles il s’oppose. Afin d’éviter la régression à l’infini de la chaîne d’habilitation qui caractérise pour lui le système juridique, il pense une norme hypothético-transcendantale servant de fondement au droit. La norme fondamentale, grâce à laquelle les actes de volonté du pouvoir constituant se voient attribués une signification juridique objective, est la pierre angulaire de l’édifice kelsenien. Pourtant, ses lectures de Vaihinger vont le pousser à revenir sur la nature de sa célèbre Grundnorm puisque cette dernière deviendra une simple fiction. 

Dans sa Philosophie du comme si, Hans Vaihinger estime que l’hypothèse suppose une vérification ultérieure tandis qu’il définit la fiction comme « un simple échafaudage destiné à être démoli ». Sans approfondir ici les questions épistémologiques touchant à ce qu’entend Vaihinger par « vérification », notons que cela est impossible dans le schéma kelsenien, puisque les propositions portant sur le Sollen ne peuvent en aucun cas être déduites des faits. Ainsi la Grundnorm ne peut être une hypothèse.

Par ailleurs, pour Vaihinger, le contrat social est une fiction, analogue à celle de la liberté : la liberté sert à justifier le droit moral de punir une transgression — librement effectuée et donc répréhensible — et le contrat social est décrit comme la base du Code criminel — établissant les potentielles transgressions que l’on s’est engagé à ne pas commettre. Ces deux concepts agissent comme prémisse nécessaire à la déduction d’une conclusion finale, qui « s’évanouit, à l’instar du moyen terme dans tout syllogisme » :

En comparant la Grundnorm au contrat social, quelles conséquences pouvons-nous tirer de ce changement de nature ? Il semble que le contrat social et la Grundnorm exercent alors la même fonction de légitimation du dépositaire de l’autorité — à la différence près que la norme fondamentale n’engage que les juristes, Si la Grundnorm contient un ensemble de principes permettant aux juristes d’interpréter de façon cohérente les normes, elle opère alors une traduction de la volonté politique en énoncés juridiques. Cette opération, qu'elle soit un acte de connaissance ou un acte de volonté, peut-elle être généralisée à l'ensemble des sujets de droit ? Peut-elle alors faire l'objet d'une vérification ?

Emilia Palonen University of Helsinki | Hegemony, Radical Democracy and the Social Contract

This paper explores the way in which we can think of the social contract through the lens of the theory of hegemony of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe (1985). Such an endeavor would enable us to explore the way in which social contracts are established, retained and contested as hegemonic formations. Furthermore, it would enable a perspective to a social contract as a heuristic for assessing the processes of imagining collectives as it seemingly provides a glue to the society. It is interesting to explore the social contract in this role, as regularly it would be civic and ethnic forms of nationalism that would take this role. What makes the social contract different in this regard is the way in which it does not assume a foundational basis or an imagined cultural tie, but it envisions a contract that would assume a crafted but consenting relationship between the power-holders and the citizens. Theory of hegemony challenges the idea that this would be a one-off decision, but puts attention to the active maintenance and the possibilities of contesting such a relationship. Moreover, it points to the alternatives that may emerge and historicises the idea of contracts as something not to be taken for granted but building a basis of our society in a particular way. Radical democratic and Post-foundational theories of democracy stress the way in which democracy is not merely procedural but processual, ever improving, contrasted to the Rawlsian veil of ignorance. A resilient social contract is in a continuous process of re-negotiation, also whether everyone is indeed included and equally so - or who are they by on what. For a new generation taking forward Laclau and Mouffe’s work forty years after its publication, the social contract seen through the lens of hegemony and radical democracy, offers us a metaphor or a heuristic for better understanding prevailing logics in societies and politics.

Pınar Uyan Semerci & Emre Erdoğan Bilgi University | Rethinking “Social Contract” in the Times of Polycrisis

This paper explores the necessity of reimagining “social contract"" to address the multifaceted challenges of polycrisis. The traditional understanding of social contract is increasingly under strain in an era marked by overlapping and interconnected crises within the context of post-truth and information disorders—ranging from climate change and pandemics to economic and political instability and social inequality. The conventional “social contract” primarily, evolving from a state of nature to a political society, focuses on the relationship between the state and its citizens. Thus, a critical examination is needed to identify who is included in the “social” and who remains excluded, highlighting the limitations of the traditional anthropocene citizenship framework. The paper also questions the inherent difficulties of forming a “contract,” scrutinizing who determines its terms, and the complicated negotiation process with the existing power imbalances, polarization, and differing interests. The increasing diversity of groups experiencing poverty and social exclusion, shaped by factors such as class, gender, ethnicity, migration status, age, and sexual orientation, underscores the need for tailored solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic, infodemic, climate crises, and ongoing economic crises have reignited debates about the state’s role in welfare, leading to intense discussions about new social contracts. The marketization of services like education, health, and social care in the 21st century has made the concept of universality more urgent in social policy discussions whereas xenophobia and scapegoating of “others” are on the rise with growing anxiety and fear. The deepening economic and social inequalities that have become central to global politics. The increasing concentration of wealth and income disparities within and between countries exacerbates household poverty and highlights the destructive impact of a market disconnected from societal needs. The global rise in inequality is evidenced by the significant deterioration in wealth distribution. Rethinking the social contract between the state and citizens, especially as middle and lower classes receive diminishing shares of prosperity and many households are burdened with debt in a poly-crisis environment, is a need. The limitations of current citizenship practices in the face of global challenges like climate change, migration, and digitalization require the need for a more inclusive and adaptable understanding that can address these issues. Concepts like ecological citizenship and cosmopolitanism are potential frameworks for rethinking citizenship in a globalized world. Ultimately, for a sustainable and resilient “society,” in the context of existing uncertainties, a more inclusive and participatory approach to social contract is essential.

Aviezer Tucker University of Ostrava | Panarchy: Non-territorial Contractarianism

Panarchy, a normative political theory put forward initially by de Puydt in 1860 suggests that people and non-territorial states negotiate the relationships between them, and formalize them in explicit social contracts. In panarchy, citizens and states base their mutual relations on explicit, voluntary, and limited social contracts. Political agents choose among states, according to their social contracts (law codes) and their reputations for good service. Political agents literally sign social contracts with states for durations. Citizens may change their states, just as customers can change their insurance policies. States are founded on social contracts rather than sovereignty, service to citizens instead of monopoly over the use of violence in a territory. Explicit social contracts are voluntary. Persons and states are not forced to commit themselves to a social contract they did not sign or see, composed or agreed to. If social contracts are voluntary and explicit, they can have limited durations or otherwise have exit clauses. Political mistakes and experiments are reversible. The state bases its right to coerce its citizens on their consent formalized in an explicit contract, a law code that specifies the conditions of permissible coercion, just as citizens base their rights to services from the state on the same contract. Voluntary social contracts omit the "original-sin-like" character of social contracts that are “accepted” or “approved” hypothetically and implicitly "once and for all" either according to a social creation myth, or in a hypothetical otherworldly thought experiment whose results may well represent mutually inconsistent subjective intuitions. Explicit and voluntary social contracts are neither mythical, nor hypothetical, but explicit and actual, voluntary and reversible. It is unnecessary to speculate on what would have been an all-important original, once and for all, agreement in a hypothetical situation based on what rational and free hypothetical agents would have agreed on in otherworldly circumstances as the fundamental principles of any political association, irrespective of the different values and tastes real concrete people have here and now.

Panarchy has several advantages over democratic territorial monopolies (let alone non-democratic ones). Traditional democracies can function only on the basis of a broad consensus, and elections decide only a few controversial issues. Any likely result of democratic elections may not satisfy the Libertarian French or the Socialist American. The costs of migrating from one sovereign state to another may be too high. Immigration also has opportunity costs such as giving up on attachments to a geographical region where the emigrant may have family, friends, or a local source of income. When the states are non-territorial it is possible to migrate politically without moving geographically.

Léa Antonicelli SciencesPo | Une critique féministe intersectionnelle de l’utilité publique pour refonder un contrat social inclusif

La notion juridique d’utilité publique est au cœur de l’élaboration du Contrat Social, et ce dès même ses origines. Jean-Jacques Rousseau utilise ce concept lorsqu’il manifeste sa préoccupation de circonscrire le pouvoir dans Du Contrat Social : « Le droit que le pacte social donne au souverain sur les sujets ne passe point […] les bornes de l’utilité publique ». L’utilité publique, donc, limite le spectre d’intervention du gouvernement légitimé par le Contrat Social : Michel Foucault, dans la Naissance de la Biopolitique, dira qu’elle définit la sphère de la gouvernementalité qui émane du jusnaturalisme. Au-delà des bornes qu’elle pose, elle est aussi ce qui oriente la Volonté Générale, qui doit se tourner vers ce qui sert les intérêts du public. Le rôle de l’utilité publique est donc aussi de définir une certaine agentivité au peuple, de donner une direction au Contrat Social.

Or, la généalogie du concept d’utilité publique, en suivant (et en dépassant) les intuitions de Michel Foucault, permet de faire apparaître à quel point la conception néolibérale de l’utilité publique est construite selon un prisme phallocentré et anthropocentré. L’utilité publique néolibérale, outre le fait que son sens s’est restreint à une quasi identification à la notion de productivité économique, intervient comme une norme. Elle légitime certains acteurs réputé servir convenablement les intérêts (principalement économiques) validés par le gouvernement, tout en produisant des marginaux, des exclus, des inutiles au monde (formule de R. Castel). Or, puisque l’utilité est codifiée selon des critères qui valorisent les acteurs et les activités masculines et humaines, le contrat social élaboré en miroir de cette conception de l’utilité publique ne peut que se faire l’écho de cette approche hiérarchisante et discriminante du public (ou peuple).

Je propose de faire apparaître comment la norme néolibérale de l’utilité publique contribue à minimiser l’utilité sociale des femmes (ou plus largement des non-masculins) et des non-humains, ce qui a pour conséquence de définir le public (ou peuple) du Contrat social de manière phallocentré et anthropocentré. Pour cela, je me fonderai d’abord sur les hypothèses généalogiques évoquées par Michel Foucault, avant de développer une approche critique féministe intersectionnelle du contrat social et de l’utilité publique. Il s’agira de montrer qu’un reconceptualisation du concept d’utilité publique est nécessaire pour fonder un contrat social plus inclusif.

Djamel Chikh UMMTO | Le contrat social, une ambition universaliste et des écueils historicistes

Si le contrat social - notamment dans sa version rousseauiste et lockienne - se fonde sur les principes de liberté, d'autorité et de justice…, ces concepts demandent constamment d'être redéfinit. Cependant, une émancipation du sens originel suffit-elle pour son appropriation ? Pour Arendt, c'est dans la compréhension de l'évolution du sens que la redéfinition des concepts pourrait bénéficier de toutes les justifications nécessaires. Or, ces retours à l'histoire ne sont pas toujours assumés, notamment dans les airs postcoloniales où cela constitue aussi un héritage colonial vu comme une perpétuation de domination (Saïd, 1980). Il s'agirait, selon la littérature postcolonialiste, d'un « conflit intérieur » ou encore un « conflit avec soi », et non avec l'ancienne puissance coloniale (Bhabha, 2007). La décolonisation des territoires a laissé un héritage fait de mimétisme, d'hybridité et d'ambivalence (Spivak, 1988).

Ce que Foucault qualifie de « souci de soi » est la relation qu'entretient l'Homme libre avec lui-même. Celle-ci passe par la parênessia (le dire vrai), laquelle semble inséparable de la contestation, y compris à l'égard des « clauses » du contrat social. Modifier le « rapport préexistant entre la volonté, l'autorité et l'usage de la raison » ; et même s'il y a obéissance, l'usage de la raison est toujours de mise. La raison n'implique pas forcément le refus d'exécution ni la rébellion. Et c'est ici qu'une question se pose : si l'usage de la raison ne se traduit pas par des actes, quelle est donc la finalité de cet l'usage ? Une raison sans répercussions sur les faits, suffit-elle pour l'exercice démocratique ?

C'est à ces questions que tentera de répondre la présente communication qui vise à comprendre la théorie universaliste du contrat social et ces écueils liés au postcolonialisme. 

Valentin Avenard Université de Nantes | L’État et les anarchistes : un contrat social impossible

Penser le renouveau du contrat social n’est pas chose neuve, les anarchistes étant parmi les premiers, dès le milieu du XIXe siècle, à critiquer ses théories traditionnelles. Divers travaux en Histoire du droit (A.-S. Chambost, C. Vachet) mettent en valeur la cohérence juridique des différents points de vue anarchistes à cet égard. L’une des critiques majeures porte sur le fait que la conception traditionnelle du contrat social permet, en outre, de légitimer l’assise du pouvoir, du gouvernement, de l’État (Proudhon, Bakounine, Malatesta). Alors, une nouvelle théorie émerge progressivement, celle d’un contrat dit « anarchique », qui ne peut, à l’inverse, tolérer l’institution d’une autorité supérieure au sein de la société. 

​Si la conception traditionnelle du contrat social est inconcevable pour les anarchistes, la conception anarchiste du contrat l’est, réciproquement, pour l’État. À la fin du XIXesiècle, l’agitation anarchiste atteint son paroxysme, en France comme ailleurs, et les attentats s’enchaînent. Qu’il soit partisan de la propagande par l’idée ou par le fait n’importe plus : puisqu’il ébranle et met en péril la sauvegarde de l’État, l’anarchiste apparaît alors comme une menace, du moins en puissance, pour les fondements mêmes de la société. En Europe, les lois prises à leur encontre se multiplient, et continuent de légitimer, dans la pratique, leur exclusion progressive de la société. L’État, dès lors, ne leur accorde plus de place au sein de celle-ci. Alors qu’ils souhaitent son renversement et sa disparition, les anarchistes lui permettent, indirectement, de se renforcer. C’est alors une certaine vision du contrat social que l’État conçoit et défend : les anarchistes aspirent à une société sans État, tandis que celui-ci aspire à une société sans anarchiste. 

​Le principe selon lequel les anarchistes sont des ennemis pour la société, puisqu’ils sont des ennemis de l’État, a traversé le temps. Cependant, leurs théories du contrat social continuent de présenter des enjeux contemporains, en ce qui touche, notamment, à la notion de consentement (R. Graham), dont le raisonnement peut trouver des échos dans les théories féministes (C. Pateman) et décoloniales (C. W. Mills) du contrat social. Elles permettent aussi de poser une question, encore et toujours, fondamentale : a-t-on réellement besoin de l’État pour vivre en société (J. C. Scott) ?

Tonci Kursar University of Zagreb | How to Restore Democratic Capitalism as a Social Contract? Controversies of Streeck's Understanding of ‘Interregnum’

The so-called the Great recession (2008) first meant a crisis of capitalism, but it quickly opened the question of a crisis of (western) democracy. Political scientists contested the latter at first (Merkel), but soon dropped it. Wolfgang Streeck, a German sociologist, using the term 'democratic capitalism', shew that these two crises cannot be separated. His insights have become influential, but little attention has been paid to him as a social contract theorist. 

In that regard, in his book Buying time (2013), Streeck writes: "Capitalism presupposes a social contract in which the legitimate mutual expectations of capital and labor .... are more or less explicitly enshrined as a formal or informal economic constitution" (24). He is focused on the 'postwar social contract', which came into serious problems in the seventies. As a result, we got "the liberalization of capitalism and the expansion of its markets at home and abroad" (27). This change also meant the end of democratic capitalism or democracy as redistribution towards the lower classes. That turn was partly inspired by the neo-Hobbesian theory of Buchanan and Tullock. They insisted that instead of acquiring 'pure public goods', "the modern state exists in practice to satisfy the private preferences of collusive interest groups" (Gray, 1997: 12). Buchanan and Tullock's criticism of the postwar welfare state promoted the broad depoliticization of economy that has become the rule since the 1980s. Streeck, however, takes it a sign of a legitimation crisis from which capitalist democracy has not yet recovered. 

To resolve this crisis in the current 'interregnum' (Gramsci), Streeck believes that we need to "reclaim the national political arena to address the real issues that the old center has successively tried to cover up" (Streeck, 2024). According to him, in the German context, for example, "Sahra Wagenknecht is the only one asking the right questions and offering the right answers" (ibid.). Hence it seems that he leans towards a certain type of Bonapartism/Caesarism he finds in the writings of Marx and Gramsci. Apart from it, Streeck/Wagenknecht’s new social contract would not be particularly sensitive to those who do not belong to the existing national culture. However, I claim that a much bigger problem for Streeck is that the state in capitalism, according to Gramsci, can politically neutralize socio-progressive movements by dialectically absorbing them.

Ruzha Smilova Sofia University / Centre for Liberal Strategies | Resilience, Social Contract and Democracy: Conceptual and Substantive Dilemmas 

The last two decades saw a steady decline in the quality of democracy around the world. The widespread democratic erosion led authors to speak of a ‘third wave of autocratization’ (Lührmann and Lindberg 2019). The erosion of social contracts in our increasingly post-liberal societies is arguably undermining even well developed democracies. The panic about the state of democracy and social contracts prompted an interest in studying the resilience of both the democratic state and of its underlying social contract. 

The present paper will aim first to map the conceptual terrain, which links ‘resilience’ with the social contract and the democratic state. Drawing on the vast literature on the concept of resilience more generally, and on the rapidly growing more recent scholarship on democratic resilience in particular, I will first outline the meanings this protean concept takes when referring to democratic social contracts specifically. I will next try to spell out some of the conceptual dilemmas in defining ‘resilient social contracts’: does the conservative bent of ‘resilience’ (the capacity to rebound and resume unperturbed in the face of adversity) allow for sufficient adaptability, maybe even transformation, necessary for the survival of democratic states?   

Turning next to ‘resilient democracy’, I will argue that democracy needs a social contract that is inclusive and egalitarian, and is thus perceived as just. Democracy can withstand assaults by aspiring autocrats, only when it can rely on the loyalty of its citizens to stand in its defense. Loyalty depends on citizens viewing themselves as parties to a social contract they perceive as just. As the current social contracts are neither sufficiently inclusive nor egalitarian - and can hardly be perceived as just - trying to make them more resilient may be counterproductive, as this may weaken rather than strengthen citizen loyalty, and may thus threaten democracy. Thus, I will argue, the link between democratic resilience and social contracts is contingent on how just - rather than how ‘resilient’ - the respective social contract is. To ensure citizen loyalty, democracies should rely on social contracts  that are open to continuous social construction (renegotiation) from positions guaranteeing increasingly equal negotiation power. 

Keywords: Resilience; social contract; democratic resilience; democratic erosion; egalitarianism; inclusivity.  

Cyril Hédoin Université de Reims Champagne-Ardenne | Living in Disagreement: Public Reason and Jurisdictional Rights

This article discusses the justification of jurisdictional rights in the context of public reason liberalism. According to public reason liberals, there is a presumption in favor of liberty [(Benn 2008); (Gaus 2012)]. This presumption means that, except in case a person has a decisive reason for the contrary, no interference with someone’s action is justified. Moreover, this reason itself must be publicly justified, especially to the person interfered with. Public reason liberals like Stanley Benn and Gerald Gaus ground this presumption in an account of moral agency according to which, to be a moral person and to be recognized as such by others, entails that one should be permitted to pursue her ends, goals, and exercise her agency powers. Jurisdictional rights delineate a private sphere – a personal jurisdiction for each person. Within this personal jurisdiction, a person is free to act as she wants. The presumption of favor in liberty then becomes an absolute principle that cannot be trumped by other considerations (Gaus 2012). In so far as the justification of jurisdictional rights follows from the nature of persons as equal moral agents, they define natural prerogatives such as a natural right of private property (Mack 2010).

Jurisdictional rights have at least two functions. First, they indicate where the requirement of public justification ceases to be effective (Gaus 2012). Second, they make it possible to live together while in disagreement, especially when the ends pursued and the evaluation standards to justify these ends are incommensurable (Agostino 2019). However, while the public justification of jurisdictional rights is on secure ground, the justification of a specific system of rights is more difficult to establish. I identify and discuss three difficulties going in increasing order of seriousness: (i) jurisdictional rights may fail to internalize externalities; (ii) no system of jurisdictional rights may accommodate the diversity of perspectives that persons have over the world; (iii) the justification of jurisdictional rights is vulnerable to the identification of collectively harmful practices. I argue that regarding the last two difficulties, it might be difficult for persons-qua-moral agents to agree on a system of jurisdictional rights, thus putting the project of moral reconciliation within a liberal social contract in jeopardy.

Agostino, Fred. 2019. Incommensurability and Commensuration: The Common Denominator. London: Routledge.

Benn, Stanley I. 2008. A Theory of Freedom. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gaus, Gerald. 2012. The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World. Reprint edition. Cambridge New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Mack, Eric. 2010. “The Natural Right of Property.” Social Philosophy and Policy 27 (1): 53–78.

Mohsin Bhat QMUL School of Law | Adjudicating Belonging: Citizenship and the Identity of the Constitutional Compact

The terms and conditions of citizenship—formal membership in a political community—are subjects of profound philosophical debate and legal controversy. While foundational to social contract theories of political obligation, these theories are often criticized for either neglecting the complexities of citizenship status or failing to adequately address contemporary issues of mobility and belonging.

This paper contributes to these discussions by exploring how social contract theory continues to play an implicit role in legal interpretations of citizenship, sovereignty, and the boundaries between citizens and non-citizens. It examines the concept of "constitutional citizenship," the intersection of constitutional law and citizenship status, through the lens of the Indian Supreme Court’s adjudication of citizenship law amid India’s ongoing citizenship crisis.

India has recently witnessed an unprecedented legal crackdown on Muslim Bengali migrants, fueled by a racialized paranoia regarding immigration from Bangladesh. This sentiment has merged with the rise of Hindu nationalism and the broader political movement toward a Hindu ethnocracy. These trends starkly contrast with India’s historical openness to migrants and refugees, especially in the context of the Partition. In several key cases, social and political actors from border states—implicitly supported by the ruling government—have challenged the naturalization of refugee communities. The paper explores how the Indian Supreme Court has been forced to navigate competing interpretations of the implicit rights and federalism compact that underpin India’s constitutional identity.

The analysis focuses on three primary interpretations of citizenship: (1) a unitary model, where citizenship is the exclusive domain of centralized authority (Parliament), devoid of any substantive vision of who qualifies for membership; (2) a federalist model, which frames citizenship through the lens of culture and the perceived cultural vulnerability of border regions receiving migrants; and (3) a model of citizenship grounded in life and labor, where immigrants are seen as deserving of political membership based on their contributions.

The paper demonstrates how the Court has struggled to reconcile these divergent visions of the constitutional social contract, particularly in the context of increasing pressure to ethnicize India’s constitutional identity. This study offers new insights into the interplay between social contract theory, legal adjudication, and the evolving discourse on citizenship in one of the world’s most complex democracies.

Vandana Singh USLLS | Jurisprudential Foundation of Rule of Law through Prism of Social Contract Theory

The Rule of law is the most elusive doctrine of the Constitutional law because it is most subjective, value laden and capable of different interpretation by the different people. As per the contemporary understanding, the concept of the rule of law is based on the basic premises of the limited governmental power and protection of individual rights and the most cherished liberties as natural corollary to the theory that the Constitution is not the source of individual rights but delegates of people’s popular will and sovereignty. 

However, the rule of law cannot be assessed in isolation from political society in which it operates and it has been subject to various interpretations in socialist democracy and liberal democracy based on their inherent doctrine and philosophies. The Marxist perspective envisaged “classless society” and “dictatorship of proletariat”. The traditional oriental society perceived, law is mere regulator of individual behaviour. On the other hand, natural law doctrine, insists that the authority of law derives not from the power of any political ruler but from a higher source or higher form of law. 

In view of inherent contradiction in philosophical approach of Marxist perspective and natural law theory, it is germane to trace the foundation of the concept of rule of law from the social contract theory to reconcile the conflicting claims of individual rights and the State prerogatives. According to John Locke and Thomas Paine, from natural law principles deduced the ‘theory of social contract’. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau, citizens enter into a contract with the State, surrendering to the State, individual rights in exchange for the protection of the State. Accordingly, the State embodied in the “general will” of the people and becomes both the agents and the ruler of the people in the people’s name. 

In this background, the attempt is being made in the present paper to analyse firstly, the meaning and concept of the Rule of law and its jurisdictional habitat and secondly, analyse the approach of Marxist perspective to social contract theory to decipher the meanings of rule of law and its nature and scope and thirdly, to examine the approach of judiciary in interpreting the concept of law not only for protecting the individuals but emphasizing on checking arbitrariness but also affirmatively by insisting upon procedural safeguard including Principal of Natural Justice. The changing dimension of the systems of the modern art of the governance in view of complexities of human life and behaviours of the people will also be subject to microscopic analysis to examine its status in the modern welfare State.

Tamar Hostovsky Brandes Ono Academic College | Is solidarity necessary for democracy?

Equality and liberty are commonly perceived as pillars of the democratic social contract. However, in an era of populism and growing social polarization, the two principles appear to be insufficient for preventing both the crumbling of the social fabric and the decline of democracy, even where they are formally entrenched and generally agreed upon. This article suggests that solidarity (or fraternity, used interchangeably in the article), defined as an underlying sense of mutual commitment among members of a group, is a key concept for fully understanding and addressing democratic decline, which can, at least partially, be framed as a crisis of solidarity. The article argues that solidarity is a necessary element for a functioning democratic state. It explores the nexus between solidarity and democracy: as an underlying requirement for the existence of a political community, as a condition necessary for the recognition, realization and exercise of equal rights (both social rights and civil and political rights), and as a yardstick for evaluating practices of exclusion in society that are incompatible with democracy but do not necessarily fall into prevailing antidiscrimination doctrines. 

The article then moves to examine three subsequent questions. The first regards the “dark sides” of solidarity. Cosmopolitans are often suspicious of the notion of intra-state solidarity, which is perceived as contradictory to cosmopolitan solidarity. From a different perspective, liberals are often wary of the notion, as they fear it will be abused as an excuse for curtailment individual rights. The article addresses these concerns, arguing that they are not sufficient reasons for rejecting solidarity as foundational principle of democracy. The second question regards the interplay between liberty and solidarity and between equality and solidarity, including the possible tensions between them, and the ways equality, liberty and solidarity complement each other in fostering democracy. Finally, the article examines the role the principle of solidarity can play within constitutionalism and the ways in can be employed by different constitutional actors to strengthen democracy. 

Peter Hägel AUP | Customizing Social Contracts for Consumer Society?

Contemporary liberal democracy is widely seen in crisis, as many citizens seem to lose trust in and retreat from the social contract. Often, this is primarily framed as a political problem (Hay 2007, Mair 2013, Stoker 2017). But politics is only one field in which relations among people can be conceived as social contracts. People’s experiences in other “social contract fields” probably affect their attitudes towards democracy and government (as was the case during the formulation of classical social contract theory). This will be my hypothesis: 

Political consumerism is no longer just about bringing political considerations into the market place (Copeland & Boulianne 2022) – it is also about bringing the experiences and expectations of the market place to politics and government. The idealized golden age of post-WWII mass democracy coincided with mass production and consumption, as bureaucratization and standardization characterized both business and politics (Schumpeter 1942, Chandler 1977). This became challenged around “1968”, when the romantic spirit of modern consumerism (Campbell 1987) met with neoliberal celebrations of freedom and choice (Friedman & Friedman 1980). Over the following decades, the digital revolution, globalization and related business practices have tremendously augmented many people’s agency in daily life. When we have a desire or when we face a problem, online retailers and service providers deliver solutions, or we visit apps and websites where experts and peers offer DIY-instructions (Reagle 2019). Much more than in the past, we find and get what we want, almost instantly. Modularity and customization in production, which permit personalization of products and services, go hand in hand with societies embracing singularity (Reckwitz 2017). In such a cultural, economic and social context, the notion of a static, one-size-fits-all social contract in politics is at odds with people’s everyday experience, and therefore appears as inept and outmoded.

While much of my paper will explore this growing mismatch, I also plan to examine whether proposals for renewing democratic government (e.g. Landemore 2020, Posner & Weyl 2018) can be seen as “customizing”, at least partially, the social contract, potentially increasing its legitimacy. Likewise, I want to study whether governments’ efforts to improve the provision of public services via e-government can do the same on the output side of the social contract.

Anja Thomas Hochschule Fulda/University of Lille/EUI | A Question of the Underlying Social Contract? About the Differentiated Impact of Populism on Policy-Making in Proportional and Majoritarian Democracies

The impact of populist democratic morals on parliamentary behaviour – and in turn on public policy –can be better understood by putting the spotlight on the different social contracts which are institutionalised in the two main forms of parliamentarism which currently exist. Idealtypically, the Rousseauan version of democracy as self-rule is enshrined in majoritarian democracies. The Lockean version of democracy as a form of more intermediated rule is closer to proportional systems. In majoritarian systems members of parliaments’ role-taking is twisted towards delegation of ideas and interests of citizens in the constituencies, while in in proportional systems members of parliament tend to exercise their mandates as trustees, basing their choice about which social interests to represent on manifold consensus and intermediation processes between political elites and parties.

Populism promotes less intermediated forms of policy-making and is thus ideologically closer to the Rousseaun version of democracy. Populist moral pressure pushes members of parliament to act more like citizens’ delegates with important implications for the policy-making process and the stakeholders concerned. Drawing on both the policymaking literature and parliamentary sociology, this paper theorises first how populist moral pressure for less intermediated and less pluralist forms of democracy changes informal rules of policymaking in parliament. It then shows how populist moral pressure exerts a differentiated impact on majoritarian and on proportional democracies. Primary difference is that in proportional democracies populism breaks with informal norms which are constitutive of the democratic legitimacy of the system as a whole.

While populism is thus an important challenge for both proportional and majoritarian democracies, the risk of a total breakdown of trust in democratic policy-making is higher for consensual democracies. To understand this difference is crucial for the debate about the erosion and resilience of democracies.

Elijah Okpanachi Federal University of Lafia | Democracy in the 21st Century: Current Trends, Challenges, and Opportunities for Democratic Governance

Democracy, a system of government that has long been championed for promoting freedom, equality, and justice, faces a complex array of trends, challenges, and opportunities in the 21st century. This abstract explores the contemporary landscape of democratic governance, highlighting the evolving dynamics that shape its practice globally. In recent decades, democracy has experienced significant shifts, driven by globalization, technological advancements, and changing social dynamics. The spread of democratic ideals has been notable, with more nations adopting democratic frameworks. However, this trend is accompanied by varying degrees of success and stability. The rise of digital technology has transformed political engagement, enabling greater access to information and facilitating new forms of participation through social media and online platforms. Additionally, the global movement towards greater transparency and accountability has pressured governments to be more responsive to their citizens. Despite these advancements, democracy faces numerous challenges that threaten its integrity and effectiveness. Populism and nationalism have surged in many countries, often undermining democratic norms and institutions. The erosion of trust in political leaders and institutions, fueled by corruption, misinformation, and perceived inefficacy, poses a significant threat to democratic stability. Economic inequality continues to exacerbate social divisions, leading to disenfranchisement and weakening democratic participation. Moreover, the impact of climate change and global health crises, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, has tested the resilience of democratic systems, revealing vulnerabilities in governance and public trust. Technological innovation offers tools to enhance transparency, improve public services, and foster greater civic engagement. The increasing global emphasis on human rights and social justice can drive reforms that promote inclusivity and equity. International cooperation and multilateral institutions play a critical role in supporting democratic transitions and defending democratic values against authoritarian threats. Additionally, grassroots movements and civil society organizations are pivotal in advocating for democratic reforms and holding governments accountable. As democracy navigates the complexities of the 21st century, it is imperative to address the challenges while capitalizing on the opportunities for positive transformation. Strengthening democratic institutions, fostering inclusive participation, and embracing technological advancements are crucial steps towards resilient and effective democratic governance. By understanding and responding to contemporary trends and challenges, policymakers, scholars, and citizens can work together to ensure that democracy continues to thrive and evolve in an increasingly interconnected and dynamic world.

Nefeli Lefkopoulou SciencesPo | Renewing the social contract through city empowerment

Contemporary constitutional thought has failed to address one of the major challenges of modern governance: the rise of the megacity. Most constitutional orders treat cities, as creatures of the state, fully submerged within a Westphalian constitutional framework, and assigned limited governance authority. However, as the world has become more global and interdependent, sovereign nations and their international networks have proven less effective. Survival depends more and more on glocality, action that is simultaneously local and global.

As the representatives of citizens, who are in turn the ultimate source of sovereignty, municipalities' jurisdiction could rest not only on their capacity to act effectively but on their right to do so when higher jurisdictions fail to discharge the responsibilities of sovereignty. The paper seeks to explore if this conundrum returns us to the foundational idea of the social contract. It discusses the right of cities to govern themselves and to come together with other cities, both within and beyond their national borders. The rightful exercise of power by governing bodies could be justified by their capacity to secure the life, liberty, and property of its citizens. By failing to protect citizens from climate change, nation-states have reneged on their end of the bargain. Their inability to assure sustainability in the face of rising greenhouse gas emissions, sea rise, and extreme weather constitutes a default of sovereignty that could both allow and require action from municipal authorities. Cities, too, partake of the social contract, if only tacitly. They tax and police their citizens. They can be empowered with quasi-constitutional competences. This imposes on them a parallel obligation to that of states: they must protect their citizens’ life, liberty, and property and ensure sustainability. 

The paper asks whether the sovereign default, a consequence of interdependence, is leaving nation-states with diminished democratic legitimacy while endowing cities with ever increasing democratic authority. Social contract theory holds that although power may be exercised top-down, its legitimacy flows from the bottom up. The paper aims at examining the functioning of new bodies such as the Global Parliament of Mayors which can qualify as a “cities rights movement” as well as how cities – as plaintiffs – could judicially challenge state failure in addressing climate change.

Xhejn Xhindi  Université libre de Bruxelles | Influences of Social contract theory in Bruno Latour: from early works to Politics of Nature

French author Bruno Latour (1947-2022) has opened striking perspectives on both inquiries on reality and political thinking during the climate crisis era. Latour’s research is profoundly interdisciplinary, and moves nimbly from anthropology to sociology, from philosophy to Science and Technology Studies (STS). However, a centrality is reserved to political questions. The full-scale experiment to which Latour is engaged is to find new ways of tying the knot between science and politics; an experiment that is all the more crucial in the global ecological crisis we are living through. Although we cannot properly consider Latour as a social contract theorist, it is clear, as his critic commentator Graham Harman points out in his Bruno Latour. Reassembling the political (2014), that social contract theory had a strong impact on his early years’ political thinking. Moreover, social contract theory has contributed to the political coordinates that accompanied him throughout all his career. Besides, Harman’s recognition of the fil rouge of the social contract in Latour’s work stems from Peer Schouten’s research, which clearly states that Latour positions himself in terms of social contract theory. This becomes all the more clear as we look at his Politics of Nature (2004), a true political treatise that tries to reorganise a new Constitution of both human and non-human actants. This Constitution aims at the creation of an inclusive democracy that stems from the identification of new objects and entities proper to the experimental scientific research. The actants, defined not by subject-object paradigm but solely by their ability to act, are bound through a new social contract, baptized learning compact. The latter impose the questions “How many are we?”, “Can we live together?”, through which everyone is obliged to redefine its needs and the circumstances of the collective as soon as a new entity enters. Instead of a civil war between subjects and objects, man and nature, Latour develops a contract whose heart is civil collaboration between human and non-human. Therefore, this contribution seeks to show how social contract theory is not only related to administrative intervention for environmental protection, it is also a tool for rethinking the composition of new collectives needed for ecological transformation. It is in this framework that social contract gains an importance central to think how marginalized agencies can see the light and be included in the collectives though a never static contract that could deal with the complexity of environmental issues. 

Oliver Feltham AUP | Locke's state of nature as colonial practice: social contract and ecology

Land-grabbing and punishing trespassers on new property as the two rights-based practices in Locke's state of nature clearly mirror historical colonialist practices in the new American colonies and later in the colony of New South Wales. The abundance of nature's gifts is the premise that justifies appropriation in Locke's theory of property. If the history of ecological economics (Missemer et al.) has recently shown that ecological concerns emerged in colonial contexts - such as deforestation on colonized islands due to ship-building - what trace of ecology do we find in classic social contract theory written for the colonizing age, such as that of Locke.