social contract

The social contract has been about rights and responsibilities in human societies. Facebook and its role in manufacturing and sustaining a global social contract, a new “we” is clearly one of the research areas that needs more attention. A new “we” is coming of age in the new age of connectivity and communication with a new outlook toward responsibility and rights at individual and collective levels. Facebook purports to build a new world based on connection and communication which is based on progress and prosperity. However, a fundamental factor and feature of Facebook that needs attention and more research is that people and users are becoming increasingly lonely, separated and independent from each other in this process while connecting and communicating with one another. This new social contract and “we” thus have the new features of the relationship between the human agency and his/her social structures. Cyberspace is the product of human agency and clearly creates and sustains a specific social structure. This research seeks to study the relationship between human agency, changing technical tools of communication and connection and emerging and evolving social structures and social contracts. Bandura’s “social cognitive theory” (2006) rejects a conflict and dichotomy between agency and social structure. As agency helps to build new social structures after destroying the old ones these new structures create and sustain a new social contract and “we” with a new sense of responsibility, obligations, and rights.

This article intends to study and reinterpret the concept of freedom, focusing on the Amir al-Mu'minin Ali (PBUH) ruling era. The main question of the research is whether it is possible to achieve a concept beyond Western nationalist freedom in the Alawi discourse. This research faces two variables in its analysis. The independent variable is the Alawi government, which needs to be reinterpreted with a historical explanation in drawing practical policy during the Alawi government. The dependent variable is the concept of freedom in a general sense, which has been emphasized in the meaning of freedom according to the Companions of the Contract (Hobbes and Locke). The assumption of the article is a discursive look at the concept of freedom and aims a modern reinterpretation of the practical policy of Imam Ali (PBUH), that is, a policy based on the social contract of obedience and security, to achieve an alternative meaning of freedom for a blissful life. The research findings show that freedom in the Alawi discourse, unlike the modern Western discourse, has an internationalist and universal meaning manifested in the field of action and practice in addition to thought and opinion. The research method is analytical-historical.

The position and relationship between the government and the civil society has always occupied the minds of political thinkers, especially in the modern period. In general, governments assume different roles depending on the application of different approaches. From the point of view of the relationship and the type of influence of the government on the society, there have always been two competing views, which are rooted in the thoughts of two prominent political philosophers: John Locke and Karl Marx. In John Locke's view, the government is a mediating entity, limited and conditional, based on the principle of consent and with the aim of creating peace and public welfare based on the social contract and the right of public rebellion in times of inefficiency and disobedience to the law, and ultimately independent of civil society. And in the view of Karl Marx, the concept of government is based on three different opinions. The government as a means of suppressing the working class, the government as an arbiter or mediator, and finally the government as a function of the changing economic infrastructure, and ultimately relying on classes of society.

Thomas Hobbes's theory of "social contract" provided a new basis for the establishment of the gov-ernment, which had fundamental differences with the theories before it. In such a way that he con-sidered the government "constitutional" and not "natural". According to him, before the govern-ment, people lived in a natural state, which is a kind of a state of war, and according to the natural law and the rule of reason, they should have left this state and entered a state of peace. A state of peace requires the "establishment" of the government to provide security. Based on this, the citizens establish the government through agreement and contract and transfer all their rights to it in order to end the war situation and be the final judge of the affairs. This theory of Hobbes was proposed in the field of religious and political ideological controversies, which its roots go back to the late Mid-dle Ages and the conflict between the church and the kingdom regarding the basis of the legitimacy of the government. On this basis, without paying attention to the context of Hobbes's discussion, it is not possible to get a precise understanding of his theory and intention in the "Social Contract" plan. Our goal in this article is to read Hobbes's theory "context-centered" and we use Quentin Skinner's approach. As a result, our question is, in what context was Thomas Hobbes's "social con-tract" about the basis of government legitimacy formed, and what was his intention in proposing it? Our hypothesis is that Thomas Hobbes, in the field of disputes between the church and the kings, based on the two main theories of the absolute authority of the Pope (controversy of installation) and the divine right of kings, to transition from the state of religious-political wars in England, pro-posed a "social contract" and provided a new basis of legitimacy for the establishment of the state.