ABSTRACT
The term “Contractarianism” refers to the school of political philosophy that advances a consent-based approach to the problem of State authority. Emerging most prominently with pre-Enlightenment and Enlightenment thought, the central philosophical figures associated with Political Contractarianism are generally identified as Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78). The core theoretical commitment of Contractarianism is the claim that the legitimacy of the major rules and institutions of a given society can best be established by the agreement of its political subjects. The different varieties of contractarian thought pertain to the nature of the agreement the theory hypothesizes. Because it privileges the voluntary nature of political governance, contractarian political thought provides a particularly attractive foundation for democratic theory, especially insofar as the latter rests on a Lockean conception of rights (Simmons 2008).
