Response to the two prompts below. Make sure to answer each sub-question. Your answers to these prompts should be written as short essays with a combined length of 5-7 pages, double-spaced. Find a rubric on the next page for a detailed explanation of expectations. Each response is worth up to 25 points with the final score being given out of 50 points.
1. What is the social contract? What is it supposed to explain? According to the theories we read, why is the social contract created and how? What are some criticisms of this theory? Do you think the social contract can be used to analyze politics in the present? Why or why not? In your answer, be sure to define the following terms: social contract, state of nature, sovereign, commonwealth.
2. Define the state and explain as best you can the origins of the modern nation-state. How do states consolidate their rule? What is the meaning of legitimacy as it applies to states? Why is the nation-state the dominant form of political organization in the world today?
Some readings that we have read so far:
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/amreboggs.html
Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (read Ch. 17)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3207/3207-h/3207-h.htm#link2HCH0017
John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (read Chs. 1-4, 8)
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm
Paul Musgrave, “Political Scientists Turned a Blind Eye to America’s Democratic Failures”
Max Weber, Economy and Society (Sections 16-17)
Charles Tilly, “War Making and State Making as Organized Crime”
Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto
