COntinuous COnstruction of resilient social COntracts through societal transformations (CO3)

Project Information

CO3

Grant agreement ID: 101132631

DOI

10.3030/101132631

EC signature date 12 November 2023

Start date 1 February 2024

End date 31 January 2027

Funded under

• Culture, creativity and inclusive society

Total cost

€ 2 998 905,50

EU contribution

€ 2 998 905,50

Coordinated by

DEMOS HELSINKI OY
Finland

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CO3 (COntinuous COnstruction of resilient social COntracts through societal transformations (CO3))

Reporting period: 2024-02-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

A social contract is a political-theoretical concept which describes the (imagined) basic agreement between the members of a polity on the principles of this polity. The CO3 project aims at developing and promoting a democratic, inclusive and open model of social contracts, which manifest political and social resilience in the face of major societal challenges, crises, and anti-democratic tendencies. Based on its theoretical and empirical research, CO3 generates knowledge on the safeguards and mechanisms for promoting resilient social contracts, which support citizen involvement and democracy.

CO3 develops a model and an extensive knowledge base, which enables anticipatory policymaking and supports sensemaking on the construction, dimensions and resilience of social contracts. Central to CO3’s approach are empirical case studies in Finland, Germany, France, Portugal, France, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria,Turkey, Ukraine and Bosnia-Herzegovina. CO3 develops scenarios to recognise the mechanisms for reconstruction and safeguards for strengthening democratic social contracts, and generates understanding of how new social contracts can be safeguarded.

The project considers the continuous construction of social contracts over time and across three time scales: 1) Any apprehension of a social contract must analyse attempt to grasp long-term debates around the original establishment of a collective contract in history. 2) Contracts however are not just established as one-time events, but must also be regularly renewed, especially in the face of exclusions from the originary contract and demands of new members. Across the medium term, an open social contract must remain flexible, able to integrate previously excluded populations, and remain open to new populations and new groups, organisations or identities. 3) It is an essential claim of this approach to continual contract construction that momentary flashpoints or crises may be used to help build a stronger contractual model for members.

CO3 is committed to promoting citizen involvement, ecological transformation, and wellbeing by advocating for democratic, inclusive, and open social contracts. Exploitation activities result in the CO3 model of social contract; a guidebook in support of this application; and policy recommendations to embed its implementation in the relevant policy landscape. As a result, lay citizens, young people, researchers and policymakers, will better understand the determinants of successful social contracts.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The major achievements in the reporting period include both theoretical and empirical research and outputs. The work in WP2 was completed as planned, resulting in three major deliverables and outputs, such as a working paper on the mapping of social contract theories, blogposts and interviews. Also WP4 was completed in schedule, with the work completed in time, though with one rescheduled deliverable deadline. Furthermore, the empirical country cases beyond the WP2024 context were kicked off in WP2 and WP3, with the CO3 framework, social contract indicators, and a guiding framework to work on four key areas of societal frictions, in place. Community and audience building took off with setting up of the communications infra, and initial content creation based on the project's research.

In project organisation, all practices, infrastructure and governance structure were established and are now in place. The project is highly collaborative in nature, and the joint ways of working have been developed and grounded over the first year. The consortium successfully completed two General Assemblies with content working sessions, and additional joint working sessions in Paris for WP2.

Two international conferences were organised: the first one was organised by AUP in Paris in December 2024, and additionally CO3 was among the organisers of the 5th Helsinki Conference on Emotions Populism and Polarisation, HEPP5, where social contract was the main theme. The consortium members also took part in the ECPR General Conference with presentations of CO3 research, and successfully submitted a Section proposal for the next year's conference with several panels discussing social contracts. Several consortium members are also joining the International Political Science Association's conference in Seoul after successful paper - and panel submissions.

On impact creation, some of the major achievements include the collaboration with PLEDGE and MORES projects for EP2024. This included data gathering and sharing effort and the participation in the first PLEDGE conference in Brussels, participation at the PROTEMO kick-off in January 2024 already their first conference in Saarland in June 2024.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project's findings in its theoretical part have produced new scientific knowledge about the development of social contract theories overtime and the relationship of this development to societal resilience. While the work will develop as the project moves ahead, the theoretical work already now indicates that there is great potential for deepening our understanding and analysis for how the role and contribution of theory to how social contracts can be analysed and interpreted. The initial design of the empirical cases also shows promise in how we could utilise the rich theoretical foundations while analysing empirical data in versatile context, though this work is still emerging. The analysis of the theoretical and historical perspectives in the project have advanced ways of understanding the concept of the social contract as a theoretical, historical and political concept.

The outcomes of the theoretical work include the initial resilience model of the social contract based on a thorough engagement with theory, and an initial framework for understanding how the theoretical and empirical legacies of social contracts can come together through upcoming research. The work on addressing the democratic decline and polarisation theoretically has continued through empirical country cases. We also conducted a major overview of political communication across Europe, using thorough analysis and deep observations of the European Elections in 2024 across different political orientations and in 8 (total 10) countries. While the deliverables in WP4 have been submitted, this will be unpacked further in the project's other WPs. This offered a backbone for all country teams for understanding contestation in contemporary Europe. It offers a database for further research in several consortia. Compared to the state of the art datasets, this is a particularly rich one.

The image displays the CO3 country cases on a map.