Contract, Citizen, Sovereign

The Contract in the main Modern Contractarian models, e. g. both Hobbes' and Rousseau's, is between each Citizen and the Sovereign, however the latter might be embodied.  Now, the establishment of the Contract in these cases tends to conflate three distinct stages: 1. Association of individuals on some basis; 2. Representation of the association; 3. Establishment of an agreement between the representation and each individual.  However, implicit in #1 is a more fundamental agreement, namely, one constituted by the terms of the association, e. g. a cessation of hostilities, which develops through the other two stages, i. e. implicit in one's contractual arrangement with the Sovereign is that each other is doing likewise.  So, the ground of legitimacy of the Citizen-Sovereign Contract is the consent between each Citizen with every other, a ground which tends to be obscured in the tradition.