Social contract
The Concept of the “Social Contract”
The term “social contract” is seeing increasing use in academic and journalistic texts – and by international organisations (see below) – to describe state-society relations. Amongst other things, it helps to analyse
- why some social groups are socially, politically or economically better off than others;
- why some revolt and demand a new social contract;
- why some countries descend into violent conflict;
- how foreign actors – e.g. external donors – can influence state-society relations by strengthening the government or certain social groups.
Nevertheless, the term has remained insufficiently conceptualised, and its potential for comparing and analysing state-society relations in various countries has been underutilised.
A research and advisory project by the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) is therefore working on developing the concept further and facilitating its use by researchers and policymakers. The project defines the social contract as the “entirety of explicit or implicit agreements between all relevant societal groups and the sovereign (i.e. the government or any other actor in power), defining their rights and obligations towards each other” (Loewe, Zintl and Houdret 2020). Social contracts have the following main features: (i) their scope, (ii) their content (reciprocal commitments by governments and social groups), and (iii) their temporal dimension.
The project, which is being funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), is focusing on countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, amongst others. After independence, these countries saw the emergence of highly specific social contracts based on the redistribution of external rents (from natural resources and other sources) paid to the state. Governments provided subsidised food and energy, free education and public-sector jobs to citizens in exchange for their tacit recognition of the regimes’ legitimacy, despite almost a complete lack of political participation. As populations grew and state revenues fell, however, governments became less and less able to fulfil their duties, a situation that ultimately sparked the 2011 protests in the Arab countries.
Team
Project lead
Loewe, Markus
Team
Abedtalas, Musallam
El-Haddad, Amirah
Furness, Mark
Houdret, Annabelle
Zintl, Tina
Publications on the concept of the social contract
An abridged version of IDOS' concept was published in German, English, French and Arabic in 2019 in four languages as part of the “Briefing Papers” series:
- The social contract: an analytical tool for countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and beyond
Loewe, Markus / Bernhard Trautner / Tina Zintl(2019)
Briefing Paper 17/2019 - Der Gesellschaftsvertrag: ein Analyseinstrument nicht nur für Länder im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika (MENA)
Loewe, Markus / Bernhard Trautner / Tina Zintl(2019)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 13/2019 - Le contrat social: un outil d’analyse pour les pays de la région Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord (MENA), et au-delà
Loewe, Markus / Bernhard Trautner / Tina Zintl(2020)
Briefing Paper 5/2020 - العقد الاجتماعي كأداة تحليلية: بلدان الشرق الأوسط وشمال أفريقيا كمثا
Loewe, Markus / Bernhard Trautner / Tina Zintl(2020)
Briefing Paper 6/2020
The same series also includes policy papers with conclusions that development cooperation (DC) can draw from the concept of the social contract:
- Drivers of change in social contracts: building a conceptual framework
Loewe, Markus / Amirah El-Haddad / Mark Furness / Annabelle Houdret / Tina Zintl (2024)
in: Mediterranean Politics, first published 17.07.2024 - Social Contract and Social Cohesion: Synergies and Tensions between Two Related Concepts
Loewe, Markus / Armin von Schiller / Tina Zintl / Julia Leininger (2024)
Policy Brief 3/2024 - Focussing European cooperation with the Middle East and North Africa on social contracts
Furness, Mark / Markus Loewe (2021)
Briefing Paper 18/2021 - Development cooperation with conflict-affected MENA countries: refocussing on the social contract (English Original)
Furness, Mark / Annabelle Houdret(2020)
Briefing Paper 7/2020 - Le contrat social: un nouveau concept pour la coopération avec les pays de la région MENA touchés par des conflits (French Translation)
Furness, Mark / Annabelle Houdret(2020)
Briefing Paper 10/2020 - Entwicklungszusammenarbeit im Nahen Osten und in Nordafrika: auch in konfliktbetroffenen Ländern neue Gesellschaftsverträge unterstützen (German Translation)
Furness, Mark / Annabelle Houdret(2020)
Analysen und Stellungnahmen 7/2020
A detailed version of the concept was released as the introduction to a special issue in World Development:
- The social contract as a tool of analysis: introduction to the special issue on “Framing the evolution of new social contracts in Middle Eastern and North African countries”
Loewe, Markus / Tina Zintl / Annabelle Houdret(2020)
in: World Development
The following essays also appeared in the same special issue:
- Reconstituting social contracts in conflict-affected MENA countries: Whither Iraq and Libya?
Mark Furness / Bernhard Trautner (2020)
in: World Development, 135 - The rise and decline of the populist social contract in the Arab world
Raymond Hinnebusch (2020)
in: World Development 129 - Rethinking social contracts in the MENA region: Economic governance, contingent citizenship, and state-society relations after the Arab uprisings
Steven Heydemann (2020)
in: World Development 135 - Perspectives on the rebel social contract: Exit, voice, and loyalty in the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria
Mara Redlich Revkin and Ariel I. Ahram
in: World Development 132
Two essays deal with the question of what expectations citizens in the Arab world have of social contracts in their countries:
- The social contract in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia: what do the people want?
Loewe, Markus / Holger Albrecht(2022)
in: Journal of International Development, 1-18, Print/Online - States or social networks? Popular attitudes amid health crises in the Middle East and North Africa
Albrecht, Holger / Markus Loewe(2022)
in: International Political Science Review, first published 26.08.2022
Several opinion papers deal with the question of the consequences for international cooperation of analysing it from the perspective of the social contract:
- Feminist development policy for more inclusive social contracts
Zintl, Tina (2023)
in: D+C (7/2023), 32-33 - Deutschland und Europa müssen die MENA-Region stärker im Kampf gegen die wirtschaftlichen Auswirkungen von COVID-19 unterstützen
Claes, Thomas / Mark Furness (2021)
Die aktuelle Kolumne vom 08.03.2021 - Wiederaufbau in Assads Syrien trotz exklusivem Gesellschaftsvertrag?
Zintl, Tina / Yannick Sudermann (2021)
Die aktuelle Kolumne vom 15.03.2021 - Ein neuer Gesellschaftsvertrag für die Länder des Nahen Ostens und Nordafrikas (MENA)
Loewe, Markus / Amirah El-Haddad / Mark Furness / Annabelle Houdret / Bernhard Trautner / Tina Zintl (2016)
Bonn: German Development Institute / Deutsches Institut für Entwicklungspolitik (DIE) (Die aktuelle Kolumne vom 05.12.2016) - Climate change: threat or potential opportunity for social contracts in the MENA region?
Houdret, Annabelle / Markus Loewe (2022)
published on www.unrisd.org, 22.06.2022 - Ist der „unsoziale“ Gesellschaftsvertrag im Nahen Osten Vergangenheit?
El-Haddad, Amirah (2021)
Die aktuelle Kolumne vom 25.01.2021 - Breaking Egypt's unsocial contract
El-Haddad, Amirah (2018)
published on Economic Research Forum (ERF) January 30, 2018 - Kuwaiti small businesses after the pandemic: time for a new social contract
El-Haddad, Amirah (2021)
published on The Forum (Economic Research Forum policy portal), 01.06.2021
Empirical publications
Several papers (two of which appear in the World Development special issue mentioned above) analyse selected policy areas with significant potential for reform. They look at what measures in each area could help make the existing social contracts in the MENA countries acceptable to larger sections of the population and thus more stable and sustainable overall:
- Are cash-for-work programmes good for local economic growth? The case of donor-funded public works for refugees and nationals in Jordan
Loewe, Markus / Tina Zintl (2023)
in: Canadian Journal of Development Studies, first published 14.11.2023 - Redefining the social contract in the wake of the Arab Spring: the experiences of Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia
El-Haddad, Amirah(2020)
in: World Development 127 - The Lived Social Contract in Schools: From protection to the production of hegemony
Hania Sobhy (2020)
in: World Development, online 19.09.2020 - Iraks Suche nach dem Gesellschaftsvertrag: Ein Ansatz zur Förderung gesellschaftlichen Zusammenhalts und staatlicher Resilienz
Wolfgang Mühlberger (2022)
IDOS Discussion Paper 13/2022, Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS) - Subsidy reform and the transformation of social contracts: the cases of Egypt, Iran and Morocco
Vidican Auktor, Georgeta / Markus Loewe (2022)
in: Social Sciences 11 (2), article 85, 1-22 - State fragility, social contracts and the role of social protection: perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region
Loewe, Markus / Tina Zintl (2021)
in: Social Sciences 10 (12), 1-23 - Iraq’s quest for a social contract: an approach to promoting social cohesion and state resilience
Mühlberger, Wolfgang (2023)
Discussion Paper 1/2023 - More than the sum of its parts: donor-sponsored cash-for-work programmes and social cohesion in Jordanian communities hosting Syrian refugees
Zintl, Tina / Markus Loewe (2022)
The European Journal of Development Research, first published 13.05.2022 - Introducing social protection in the Middle East and North Africa: prospects for a new social contract?
Markus Loewe, Rana Jawad(2018)
in: International Social Security Review 71 (2), 3-18, (Special Issue) - The rural social contract in Morocco and Algeria: Reshaping through economic liberalisation and new rules and practices
Annabelle Houdret and Hichem Amichi (2020)
Journal of North African Studies - A new rural social contract for the Maghreb? The political economy of access to water, land and rural development
Houdret, Annabelle / Zakaria Kadiri / Lisa Bossenbroek(2017)
in: Middle East Law and Governance 9 (1), 20-42 - Decentralisation in Morocco: a solution to the "Arab Spring"?
Houdret, Annabelle / Astrid Harnisch(2018)
Journal of North African Studies, 12 April 2018 - Industrial policy in Morocco and its potential contribution to a new social contract
Hahn, Tina / Georgeta Vidican Auktor (2018)
Discussion Paper 31/2018 - The end of the Bacthist social contract in Bashar Al-Asad’s Syria: Reading sociopolitical transformations through charities and broader benevolent activism
de Elvira, L. R. / T. Zintl (2014)
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 46(2), 329–349
Reception of the concept in development policy
International cooperation organisations are also increasingly using the concept of the social contract to gain a better conceptual grasp of developments in the MENA region and reshape their own work. The IDOS MENA team has therefore also been asked to support the World Bank and the OECD. For example, the following report has been written with the assistance of IDOS:
- Building for Peace: Reconstruction for Security, Sustainable Peace, and Equity in the Middle East and North Africa
The World Bank
Washington, DC, 2020
The OECD has held two annual meetings of the MENA-OECD Economic Resilience Task Force with help of IDOS: one in 2018 in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia) and the other in 2019 in Berlin (Germany).
Working on behalf of the BMZ, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) is also currently preparing an analysis of Germany’s portfolio of development cooperation with Middle Eastern countries, using the concept of the social contract formulated by the IDOS.
- Tunisia has a new government. How will challenges be addressed?
Annabelle Houdret im Gespräch mit Atlantic Council, 22.11.2021 - Why the next German government needs a long-term approach to Tunisia and Morocco
Furness, Mark / Annabelle Houdret (2021)
The Current Column of 22 November 2021 - Focussing European cooperation with the Middle East and North Africa on social contracts
Furness, Mark / Markus Loewe (2021)
Briefing Paper 18/2021 - How the international community can support Lebanon’s reset
Trautner, Bernhard / Mark Furness (2020)
The Current Column of 17 August 2020
But the IDOS concept of the social contract was also received with interest in the MENA countries. The branch of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) has been using the IDOS concept in its advisory services since 2020, and the governments of Jordan and Morocco have also shown interest. In addition, the concept was strongly adopted by the Stabilization Support Unit (SSU), which deals with future development in Syria, at its fourth political conference in Gaziantep (Turkey), which took place in the framework of the phase "Social Contract for the Future Syria" and focused on the participation of the Syrian local communities in the political processes in Syria:
Aspirations of the Syrian local communities for a NEW Syrian Social Contract
Conference organised by the Stabilisation Support Unit (SSU),
Gaziantep, Turkey, 27 October 2022
Events
IDOS also brought the issue through organised panels at several international conferences - such as:
- Fifth World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies (University Sevilla, 16.-20. Juli 2018),
- 51. Annual Meeting der Middle East Studies Association (MESA) (Washington DC, 18.-21. November 2017)
- 26 Annual International Congress of the German Middle East Studies Association for Contemporary Research and Documentation (DAVO) (University Hamburg, 3–5 October 2019)
- 34. Deutscher Orientalistentag (Freie Universität Berlin, 12.-17. September 2022).
The IDOS organised an academic conference in Bonn on the future of social contracts in the MENA countries on its own initiative in cooperation with the Institute for Policy Research (IPR) at the University of Bath:
- A new social contract for MENA (Middle East and North Africa) countries: Experiences from Development and Social Policies
International Confernce
(Bonn, 5/6 December 2016)
And six years later, a scientific workshop followed to discuss the factors that can lead to changes, positive and negative, in social contracts:
- Social Contracts in the MENA – Drivers of Change
Scientific Workshop
IDOS, Bonn, 24 - 26 August 2022
Publications by other authors
The following publications are also relevant for the topic:
- Leveling the playing field: Rethinking the social contract in ECA
Bussolo, M. / L. Lopez-Calva / R. Sundaram (2018)
Washington, DC: The World Bank. - Toward a New Social Contract : Taking on Distributional Tensions in Europe and Central Asia
Bussolo, M. / M. Davalos / V. Peragine / R. Sundaram (2018)
Washington, DC: World Bank - Reconnecting people and the state: Elements of a new social contract.
Healy, S., & Murphy, E. (2017).
In B. Reynolds & S. Healy (Eds.), Society Matters. Reconnecting people and the state (pp. 1–28). Dublin: Social Justice Ireland. - Understanding social accountability: Politics, power and building new social contracts.
Hickey, S., & King, S. (2016).
The Journal of Development Studies, 52(8), 1225–1240. - Inclusive social contracts in fragile states in transition: Strengthening the building blocks of success.
Kaplan, S. (2017)
Barcelona: Institute for Integrated Transitions. - Vision 2030 and Saudi Arabia’s social contract: Austerity and transformation.
Kinninmont, J. (2017).
Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs (Research Paper). - Communal democracy: The social contract and confederalism in Rojava.
Knapp, M., & Jongerden, J. (2016).
Comparative Islamic Studies, 10(1), 87–109. - The Russian social contract and regime legitimacy.
Makarkin, A. (2011).
International Affairs, 87(6), 1459–1474. - Forging resilient social contracts: A pathway to preventing violent conflict and sustaining peace.
McCandless, E., Hollender, R., Zahar, M.-J., Schwoebel, M., Menocal, A., & Lordos, A. (2018).
Oslo: United Nations Developmnet Programme Governance Center. - Reconceptualizing the social contract: In contexts of conflict, fragility and fraught transition.
McCandless, E. (2018).
Johannesburg: University of the Witwatersrand (Wits School of Governance Working Paper Series 76). - Governance for peace: Securing the social contract.
Muggah, R., Sisk, T., Piza-Lopez, E., Salmon, J., & Keuleers, P. (2012).
New York: United Nations Development Programme. - Social Contracts and World Bank Country Engagements: Lessons from Emerging Practices
Raimondo, E. et al. (2019)
Washington, DC: World Bank Independent Evaluation Group (IEG) - Economic performance and the case for a new social contract in the Middle East and North Africa.
Rother, B., & Devarajan, S. (2016).
In H. Larbi (Ed.), Rewriting the Arab social contract: Toward inclusive development and politics in the Arab world (pp. 21–39). Cambridge, MA: Harvard Kennedy School. - ‘‘Fire in Cairo”: Authoritarian-redistributive social contracts, structural change, and the Arab spring
Rougier, E. (2016).
World Development, 78(2), 148–171. - The Saudi ‘‘social contract’ under strain: Employment and housing.
Thompson, M. (2018).
POMEPS Studies, 31, 75–80. - Engaged Societies, Responsive States: The Social Contract in Situations of Conflict and Fragility
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), & NOREF (Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Center) (2016).
New York and Oslo. - Local governance in fragile and conflict-affected settings: Building a resilient foundation for peace and development.
UNDP (United Nations Development Programme) (2016).
New York.
Call for Papers
Workshop
Social Contracts in the MENA – Drivers of Change
Bonn, 24 - 26 August 2022