Continuous Social Contracts: Theoretical Foundations, Challenges, Case-Studies

The rise and risks of autocratization and polarization have provided novel challenges to social contracts in contemporary polities. The financial crisis, climate crisis, and the COVID-19 pandemic have made the idea of non-democratic decision-making appealing to some while disengagement among citizens and new modes of social and political engagement among others has contributed to polarization. In response to these challenges, arguments of a “renewed social contract” have become increasingly prevalent while others have argued that social contracts remain too exclusive and insufficient for grasping the global, environmental and migratory imperatives of contemporary democracies. This panel addresses contemporary critiques of social contracts with the shared proposition that the exercise of government power over The People may be legitimized only through the continuous renegotiation of its premises or what we refer to as “continuous social contracts.” Presented papers will offer critiques of current social contract theory, propose new theoretical models of “continuous social contracts”, and examine the resilience of social contracts on national and supra-national scales in view of generational inequality and the rise of radical violence.
One of the papers focuses on the resilience aspect of social contracts, arguing that democracy needs a social contract that is inclusive and egalitarian, and is thus perceived as just. Another paper claims that a resilient social contract is not merely a given state but a continuous process of re-negotiation, approaching the way in which we can think of the social contract through the lense of the theory of hegemony. The third paper will take on generational inequality of opportunity and of status, arguing that contractual agreement on social rules raises legitimate claims for rectification. The fourth paper will focus on the use of the French laïcité as a government tool to eradicate radical violence, its de facto use as an assault on Islam in France, and its consequences on the state’s social contract with its Muslim populaiton. Finally, the fifth paper will explore the nature of the EU social contract, and demonstrate how legitimacy and stability issues in the EU can be informed by classic and continuous social contract theories.