The Social Contract in Transition: Theoretical Issues in European Context

The paper explores the link between the concepts of social contract and transition. Societal transitions are the circumstances in which the social contract is forged, amended or replaced by a new one. Transitions could be the result of a changed social contract or the circumstances and the causes for a change of the social contract. Thus, the first big theoretical question that emerges is about causes and effects: is the social contract a cause or an effect of social transition? A second theoretical issue that appears when social contracts in transition are studied is epistemological. The empirical evidence for the existence of a transition is often the same as the empirical evidence for a change in the social contract. Third, the concept of “transition” in comparative political science has a strong teleological bias. Descriptively, transitions could be understood as major societal transformations. But in “transitology” these transformations have a direction: from totalitarianism and authoritarianism towards consolidated liberal democracy. The implicit teleology in the concept of transition thus often creates the impression that history is moving towards its political end – the global triumph of liberal democracy. At present, there is an apparent reverse wave of de-democratisation and of conservative and nationalist “revolutions”, which are attempting to create their own teleology: that national government and strong, autocratic leaders are the best political form of governance. The choice of a teleological direction of the analysis is both an important research question and a question of political judgement The paper analyses these theoretical problems in the context of contemporary Europe and the EU. The EU is first and foremost a normative project of supra-national integration, which is open to all European states, which share the same values enshrined in Art. 2 of TEU. These are the values of liberal democracy, which include democratic sovereignty, constitutionalism and respect for minorities. The EU also is based on the understanding of a liberal international order in which the major players abide by basic rules of non-aggression, non-interference and respect for each other. However, the major transition that the world is experiencing at the moment is actually away from the liberal international order in foreign relations. The paper explores how this transition impacts the possibilities for a just and resilient European social contract.