A social contract is an agreement to cooperate peacefully between individuals and/or nations.
This theory was popular in the Age of Enlightenment,
1500s-1700s, to explain topics such as: the need for government, a government's responsibilities, and the rights of the people.
an implicit agreement among the members of a society to cooperate for social benefits, for example by sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection. Theories of a social contract became popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries among theorists such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as a means of explaining the origin of government and the obligations of subjects
