Synopsis Rousseau’s Social Contract was one of the best projected works on political institutions. In 1759 this work was evidently well under way when he decided to abandon it and extract from it what was to become the Social Contract, published in 1762. Rousseau’s argument derives from the traditions of the social contract was little used in France since the sixteen century. He equivocated over the use of the term Social Contract in the title to heightens its originality in using other central features of contract theory, namely the transfer of political authority from a people to a sovereign. Although this theory is less obvious, but he also draws in important traditions and debates in French thought.