The social contract: consent of those governed

Abstract

Abstract This chapter focuses on the concept of a social contract, which was accepted as the core of modern conceptions of democratic national governments. Social contract theory’s driving insight is that legitimate government requires the consent of those governed. Moreover, early social contract theory offered new ideas about the best form and origins of governments. Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau contributed to the modern theory of the social contract based on the fiction of the state of nature to justify forms of government relevant to their historical circumstances and the interests that they represented.