Social Contract Theory

Social contract theory holds that political authority is legitimate because free individuals consent, actually or hypothetically, to establish and obey a common authority. Thus, the basis of political legitimacy is the consent of the governed, given in return for public order, security or protection of rights, rather than divine right or mere force.

Core logic of the social contract

The theory begins with individuals outside organised political authority and explains why they would create a state through an agreement. The resulting government possesses authority only because the agreement supplies a moral justification for political obligation.

• Consent converts coercive power into legitimate authority and creates an obligation to obey valid laws.
• The contract is primarily a philosophical device for testing whether state authority can be justified, not necessarily a claim about an actual historical agreement.
• Legitimacy involves reciprocal obligations: citizens obey the state, while the state fulfils the purposes for which authority was entrusted to it.

Different accounts of legitimacy

Major social-contract thinkers differed over the contract's purpose and the limits it placed on government.

• For Thomas Hobbes, individuals authorise a sovereign chiefly to escape insecurity and secure peace and self-preservation.
• For John Locke, government rests on consent and remains a trust for protecting natural rights, especially life, liberty and property; serious breach can justify resistance.
• For Jean-Jacques Rousseau, legitimate laws express the general will, under which citizens collectively govern themselves rather than submit to another person's private will.

Political significance

Social contract theory shifts the source of authority from rulers to the people. It therefore provides a basis for evaluating governments through consent, rights, accountability and performance of essential public purposes.

• A state may possess effective power without enjoying full legitimacy if rule lacks public acceptance or violates the purposes that justify authority.
• Modern constitutional government reflects this logic through popular sovereignty, limited government and accountable institutions.