IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rmm/journl/v5y2014i86.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social Yes; Contract No

Author

Listed:
  • Russell Hardin

    (New York University)

Abstract

Social contract theory is incoherent and it does not work as desired. Among the most obvious disanalogies is that contracts are enforced by a third party, commonly the state. There is no such external enforcer for a constitution. Contractarian theorists typically ignore all such issues and use the metaphor of contract very loosely to ground a claim that citizens are morally obligated to defer to government by their consent, as the parties to a standard legal contract would be legally obligated. David Hume’s term is acquiescence. He compellingly argues that actual citizens do not believe their own legal or political obligations depend on their having agreed to their social order. More often than not our interests are simply better served by acquiescing in the rules of that constitution than by attempting to change it. The forms of commitment that are important for constitutional and even for much of conventional social choice are those that derive from the difficulties of collective action to re-coordinate on new rules. They are inherent in the social structure of the conventions themselves, a structure that often more or less automatically exacts costs from anyone who runs against the conventions without anyone or any institution having to take action against the rule breaker. Establishing a constitution is itself a massive act of coordination that, if it is stable for a while, spawns conventions that depend for their maintenance on their self-generating incentives and expectations and that block alternatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Russell Hardin, 2014. "Social Yes; Contract No," Rationality, Markets and Morals, Frankfurt School Verlag, Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, vol. 5(86), October.
  • Handle: RePEc:rmm:journl:v:5:y:2014:i:86
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.rmm-journal.de/downloads/Article_Hardin.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Weingast, Barry R., 1997. "The Political Foundations of Democracy and the Rule of the Law," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 91(2), pages 245-263, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Karla Hoff & Mayuresh Kshetramade & Ernst Fehr, 2011. "Caste and Punishment: the Legacy of Caste Culture in Norm Enforcement," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(556), pages 449-475, November.
    2. Michael K Miller, 2013. "Electoral authoritarianism and democracy: A formal model of regime transitions," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 25(2), pages 153-181, April.
    3. Jerg Gutmann & Katarzyna Metelska-Szaniawska & Stefan Voigt, 2024. "The comparative constitutional compliance database," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 95-115, January.
    4. Cason, Timothy N. & Mui, Vai-Lam, 2015. "Rich communication, social motivations, and coordinated resistance against divide-and-conquer: A laboratory investigation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 146-159.
    5. Omar Al-Ubaydli, 2011. "How Large Looms the Ghost of the Past? State Dependence versus Heterogeneity in Coordination Games," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 78(2), pages 273-286, October.
    6. Pavlik, Jamie Bologna & Jahan, Israt & Young, Andrew T., 2023. "Do longer constitutions corrupt?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    7. Pursey Heugens & J. Oosterhout & Muel Kaptein, 2006. "Foundations and Applications for Contractualist Business Ethics," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 68(3), pages 211-228, October.
    8. Voigt, Stefan, 2022. "Determinant of Social Norms," ILE Working Paper Series 58, University of Hamburg, Institute of Law and Economics.
    9. Douglas A. Irwin & Richard Sylla, 2010. "The Significance of the Founding Choices: Editors' Introduction," NBER Chapters, in: Founding Choices: American Economic Policy in the 1790s, pages 1-21, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Bryan K. Ritchie, 2010. "Systemic Vulnerability and Sustainable Economic Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 13731.
    11. Andrew T. Young, 2021. "The political economy of feudalism in medieval Europe," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 127-143, March.
    12. Justin Callais & Andrew T. Young, 2021. "Does constitutional entrenchment matter for economic freedom?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 39(4), pages 808-830, October.
    13. Inman, Robert P. & Rubinfeld, Daniel L., 2012. "Understanding the Democratic Transition in South Africa," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt4mp5t4ff, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    14. Kawanaka, Takeshi, 2008. "Political conditions for fair elections," IDE Discussion Papers 181, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    15. Militiades N. Georgiou & Nicholas Kyriazis & Emmanouil M. L. Economou, 2015. "Democracy, Political Stability and Economic performance. A Panel Data Analysis," Journal of Risk & Control, Risk Market Journals, vol. 2(1), pages 1-18.
    16. Jaekwon Cha & O. Fiona Yap, 2020. "Challenging the East Asian Development Model: Evidence from South Korea," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 32(1), pages 220-250, January.
    17. Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Khalid Sekkat, 2016. "A time to throw stones, a time to reap: How long does it take for democratic transitions to improve institutional outcomes?," Working Papers CEB 16-016, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Jennifer Raymond Dresden, 2017. "From combatants to candidates: Electoral competition and the legacy of armed conflict," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 34(3), pages 240-263, May.
    19. Eric Maskin & Jean Tirole, 2004. "The Politician and the Judge: Accountability in Government," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 1034-1054, September.
    20. Timothy N Cason & Vai-Lam Mui, 2008. "Coordinating Collective Resistance Through Communication And Repeated Interaction," Monash Economics Working Papers 16/08, Monash University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consent; political obligation; contractualism; dual-convention; David Hume; coordination; acquiescence; Thomas Hobbes; John Rawls.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D6 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics
    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • H2 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue
    • H4 - Public Economics - - Publicly Provided Goods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rmm:journl:v:5:y:2014:i:86. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Friederike Pförtner (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/hfbfide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.