External publications

Drivers of change in social contracts: building a conceptual framework

Loewe, Markus / Amirah El-Haddad / Mark Furness / Annabelle Houdret / Tina Zintl
External Publications (2024)

in: Mediterranean Politics, first published 17.07.2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2024.2379733
Open access

The role that social contracts play in the stability of countries and the well-being of people has recently re-emerged as a field of research. Social contracts can stabilize the relationship between state and society if they establish some predictability about the mutual deliverables between actors. They are even more effective in this regard if they are flexible for modifications to take account of changes in the framework conditions, the positions and preferences of the contracting parties, and prevailing norms, values and ideologies. The question is, thus, when, why and how social contracts change. We argue that they change more continuously in countries with institutionalized mechanisms of renegotiation, such as parliamentary debates, open public discourse and interest group lobbying. These are more often democratic countries even if changes in democratic countries can also happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Autocratic countries, though, tend to be more resistant to regular change because they lack the procedures and mechanisms. This includes most countries in the Middle East and North Africa. Here, significant changes usually only take place if something unforeseen happens, such as a price shock, a pandemic, an earthquake or an invasion by a foreign country. At these ‘critical junctures’, at least one key actor in a country – often but not always the government – must react. This actor can, but does not have to, change its previous course. If they do change course on account of sufficiently influential drivers of change, often the social contract will also change.