Rousseau's Social Contract Theory

Modern Social Contract theory was initiated by Hobbes, elaborated by Locke and developed to the utmost by Rousseau. Rousseau' s Social Contract theory has been important to the development of modern democratic states: the idea of the government as the creation of the people' s general will, which they can and should judge, and they have the right to overthrow if they find it wanting, contributed to the development of democratic forms of policy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Rousseau' s ideas of democracy, equality, the rule of law, and social justice should contribute to the development of political culture of present-day China.