Overcoming the Fragility of the Social Contract

• Supervisors:

Frank Hindriks (philosophy, University of Groningen)

Martijn van Zomeren (social psychology, University of Groningen)

• Aim of project:

Liberal democracies are under pressure due to polarization and fragmentation as well as the underlying struggles of identity. As a consequence, they have become fragile. The aim of this project is to determine whether and how liberal democracy can and should be strengthened. To this end, it focuses on the social contract and the institutions that it supports, asking how a new social contract can provide robust basic rights against the background of core liberal values. Furthermore, what roles can and should identity and social cohesion play in this contract? Strong ties between individuals can keep a society together. However, in light of the liberal commitment to pluralism, individuals should also be free to pursue their own conception of the good life.

• Project description:

Polarization, Fragmentation and Identity

Many feel that the social fabric of Western democratic societies has weakened due to polarization (e.g., debates about migration). This is reflected in how people identify with political, ideological or opinion-based groups that are opposed to one another. Think, for instance, of protests and counterprotests about contentious issues such as Zwarte Piet and Gaza. Increased polarization can lead to a fear of societal breakdown, as it becomes more difficult for individuals to find common ground behind their differences and disagreements. Thus, it leads to decreasing support for social contracts (Van Zomeren et al., 2024).

The Social Contract in Philosophy and Psychology

A social contract consists of an implicit agreement between individuals in a plural society about how they should interact and govern themselves. In philosophy, the notion of a social contract is used primarily to justify a core set of institutions in a peaceful and just society, including democratic institutions, state neutrality and social media. They structure behaviour and governance and enable people with diverse backgrounds to live together.

According to the social contract tradition, morality is inherently social. What is permissible depends on what people can justify to each other. Moral principles can be revealed by means of a thought experiment, such as the veil of ignorance. In this case, the social contract is regarded as hypothetical. Other proposals invoke an overlapping consensus or moral principles that no one can reasonably reject. It is an open question what role identities play in this respect. On the one hand, they are tied to particular communities. On the other hand, they can be used to make claims on society as such.

In contrast, psychology uses the notion of a social contract to refer to the actual (perceived) intersubjective agreement on which liberal societies are based, which shapes their core institutions. Its function is to enable people to live together in a peaceful, just and plural society. This actual social contract revolves around shared identities, shared values and principles of conflict regulation (Van Zomeren et al. 2024), which can differ in strength, just as the core institutions that it supports.

Aim of the Project

This PhD project examines the fragility of the social contract in the context of the politics of identity that undermine the stability and cohesion of many societies. This also raises the question of whether a new social contract is needed in times of polarization. It seems that we are moving away from a liberal and open society towards an illiberal and closed one, and from an tolerant and open mentality to an intolerant and closed mentality (Hindriks, 2025). The aim of this project is to determine whether and how the social contract and the institutions it supports should be strengthened and what role social cohesion can and should play in the process.

Based on two existing frameworks – Hindriks’ (2025) theory of the open society and Van Zomeren’s (2025) intergroup value protection model – the project innovatively seeks to bring together notions such as the social contract, social cohesion, identity, values and institutions, studied in a time of polarization and fragmentation.

Specifically, the project focuses on (perceived) principles of conflict regulation as a key component of the social contract (how we should manage conflict together despite our differences to avoid societal breakdown). These include democratic institutions and state neutrality. Such institutions require support from overarching values – common values at a superordinate level – such as toleration. Furthermore, the role of identity in contemporary processes of polarization raises the question of whether the principles of regulation should be adjusted to avoid societal breakdown. The underlying idea is that adequate principles of conflict regulation enable people with diverse backgrounds to live together in a peaceful and just manner.

Connection to Social Cohesion

The PhD project will deliver a normative assessment of whether and how the social contract and the institutions it supports should be strengthened and what role social cohesion can and should play in the process. It is anchored within SOCION’s Normative Assessment of Social Cohesion cluster and the societal challenge of migration. Furthermore, in line with SOCION’s interdisciplinary ambitions, the project makes use of a unique simulated-society research method to assess whether strengthening the (perceived) social contract increases social cohesion.

• Research design

The main question of the project is normative. Hence, the main methods used are philosophical: conceptual and normative analysis. Core concepts are identity and the institution, as well as individual freedom, social cohesion and social contract. These can be used in the normative analysis, which is based on the social contract tradition. This tradition started with Thomas Hobbes (contractarianism) and has flourished ever since John Rawls (contractualism) proposed his theory of justice as fairness. The question is whether the tools of this social contract tradition can provide an answer to the crisis we are currently facing. In particular, can and should they be used to strengthen core liberal institutions?

Psychology is theoretically relevant, as psychologists have started using the notion of a social contract. It is also empirically relevant, as a subsidiary question is whether and how social contracts can strengthen social cohesion. This is primarily investigated by considering existing empirical findings from a simulated-society research paradigm, in which small groups of participants play a two-hour game according to the rules of a simulated society. This provides a unique opportunity to explore whether the perception of a social contract serves to hold society together, even (or particularly) in times of polarization and fear of societal breakdown.

• Literature 

Hindriks, F. (2025). The structure of the open society: Social ontology meets collective ethics. Oxford University Press (in particular section 3.6).

Van Zomeren, M., d’Amore, C., Pauls, I. L., Shuman, E., & Leal, A. (2024). The intergroup value protection model: A theoretically integrative and dynamic approach to intergroup conflict escalation in democratic societies. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 28(2), 225–248.