Political Obligation: Various

Theories
III SEMESTER
Political Obligation-Consent Theory
• Consent=will of people
• Theories are about “basis of sanction to
political obligation”
• Consent theory replaced divine theory
 Consent theory
• In its simpler form, the citizen is tied to the
governing authority, first, because he in common
with all other citizens, has made a contract with a
person or body of persons, under which that
person or body receives authority in return for the
protection and service of declaring and enforcing
a system of legal rules and secondly, because he
and his fellows are bound by natural law to
respect and perform the terms of contract.
 Consent theory-2
• This theory is based on the hypothesis of a contract
entered into by men living in “state of nature”
whereby political authority came into being.
• Thus, the authority of the state is based on the
consent of people.
• The terms of contract were morally binding on those
who made it; and now these are equally binding on
their successors.
• Thus, political authority is based on the consent of the
people.
 Chief Proponents of consent theory
• Thomas Hobbes and John Locke –England
• Jean Jacques Rousseau- France
• Their view differed in matter of details, but they adopt the same
framework so as to prove the contractual nature of the origin and
establishment of authority.
• The common point is that political authority is derived from a
contract whereby the people are collectively bound to obey it so
long as the government works for the general good and keeps
itself within limits laid down in the contract.
• Locke has best explained it- “ no one can be subjected to the
political power of another, without his own consent”. (Second
Treatise of the Civil Government, sec 95)
 Chief proponents…2
• Rousseau: “Social Contract; book I sec. 8”
• “the passage from the state of nature to civil state
produces a very remarkable change in man by
substituting justice for instinct in his conduct, and
giving his actions the morality they had formerly
lacked. Then only when the voice of duty takes the
place of physical impulses and right of appetite, does
man, who so far had considered only himself, find
that he is forced to act on different principles, and to
consult his reason before listening to his inclinations”.
 Rousseau …2
• Thus, after entering into the civil society, man is no
longer slave of his mere impulse of appetite; he
becomes bound to obey the law of the general good
(general will) which he prescribed to all, including
himself, and that constitute his real liberty.
• Obviously, the authority is legitimate and it is entitled
for commanding the obedience of all so long as it is
based on the great moral idea –general will-in obeying
which man obeys himself alone and thus remains free in
the civil society as he was in the state of nature. (ibid)
Essence of Social Contract or Consent Theory

• On the whole social contract theory justifies the conception

that the ruling authority, if it has to be legitimate, must rest
ultimately on the consent of the governed.
• If the government violates the terms of the contract, the
people has a right to resist.
• If the authorities fail “ the people have with them the
reserved ultimate determination to themselves which
belong to all mankind, where there lies no appeal on earth ,
by law antecedent and paramount to all positive laws of
men, whether they have just cause ke their appeal to
Heaven”.Locke
 Critical Analysis
• Still significant theory on account of constituting the moral
basis of a democratic order.
• Weakness-
• It makes state an artificial organisation and thereby puts a
heavy premium on the reverence that it is entitled to by
virtue of being a natural association.
• The element of consent as enshrined in some contract made
in a hypothetical state of nature is nothing else than a
fiction not at all legally binding on the existing generations.
•
 Critical Analysis…2
• thus, the people may go to extent of staging
rebellion on the plea that they withdraw their
consent in as much as the government has
committed such an action in violation of the
“general will”
• The result is that a theory of political
obligation is converted into a theory of
rebellion.
 Conclusion
• However, the weight of the influence of this
theory, in general, “has been in the direction
of safeguarding the rights and liberties of the
people and of checking of the arbitrariness of
rulers. It has also engendered a general
irreverence towards the state is an artificial
creation and the governmental authority is a
restraint upon man’s natural freedom”.
 Next
• Prescriptive theory –based on reverence to
the established conventions