Political Figures
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Genevan philosopher whose The Social Contract (1762) argued that legitimate political authority arises only from the general will of the people acting as sovereign. His account of popular sovereignty influenced the French Revolution and later republican and democratic thought. He died in 1778.
Facts
Cross-Tradition Connections
Advocated
The Social Contract argues legitimate sovereignty rests in the direct, ongoing assembly of citizens rather than in elected representatives.
Drafted
Rousseau published The Social Contract in 1762, the same year as Emile; both were banned and burned in Geneva and Paris shortly after publication.
Founded
Rousseau's account of the general will in The Social Contract (1762) is the paradigmatic modern statement of popular sovereignty: sovereignty is inalienable and can never be represented, only exercised by the assembled citizen body.
Rousseau's Du Contrat Social (1762) reframed the contract around the general will.
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