From the Social Contract to a Social Contract Law - Forms and Functions of Administrative Contracts in a Fragmented Society - A Continental View

Abstract

In view of increasing instances of cooperation between the state and private parties, it seams questionable at least that legal concepts focusing primarily on the needs of the administration and on traditional state‐derived legitimacy solve current and future problems for good. Taking the viewpoint of the civil law tradition with its long‐term experience with a state‐derived legitimacy of the administration, this text recognises the constant decline of state sovereignty in modern times and consequently the increasing diffusion of the state into society. On the level of state theory, this reflects in a shift from the great philosophical 'social contract' to many small legal contracts as its functional equivalent. Dealing with this phenomenon, the perspective of administrative law has to adopt in a fundamental way to the question of how law can sustainably support the unity of a society where the state administration and the various parts of society it has to govern are strange to each other and at the same time depending on mutual ad‐hoc cooperation time and again.