Carole Pateman

1. Introduction

Carole Pateman (b. 1940) is a prominent feminist political theorist whose work has reshaped discussions of democracy, citizenship, and social contract theory. Writing across political philosophy, political science, and feminist theory from the late 1960s onward, she is widely associated with two major interventions: a systematic defence of participatory democracy and a far‑reaching feminist re‑interpretation of liberal contractarianism.

Pateman’s account of democracy challenges minimalist and elitist models that reduce citizens to voters, arguing that democratic legitimacy depends on extensive participation in workplaces, associations, and local communities. Her analysis of political obligation and welfare policy extends this argument by asking whether citizens can meaningfully consent to political and social arrangements under conditions of structural inequality.

Her feminist critique of the social contract tradition—developed most influentially in The Sexual Contract (1988)—contends that classical contract theorists presuppose a prior sexual contract through which men establish political and civil dominance over women. This thesis has become a foundational reference point in feminist political philosophy and has informed later critiques of race and colonialism, including work on the settler contract.

Across these themes, Pateman consistently interrogates how relations described as free and contractual may in practice institutionalize subordination. She combines close readings of canonical texts with analysis of contemporary institutions such as marriage law, employment contracts, and welfare states. Her work is therefore treated as central both to the critique of liberalism and to ongoing debates about what substantive, rather than merely formal, democracy and equality require.

2. Life and Historical Context

2.1 Biographical Outline

Carole Pateman was born on 11 December 1940 in Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, and grew up in postwar Britain, a context marked by welfare‑state expansion and class stratification. Leaving school at sixteen, she later entered the London School of Economics (LSE) in 1963, an atypical route that has been seen as sharpening her sensitivity to education, class mobility, and political participation.

Her early academic appointments were in Britain, but around 1970 she moved to Australia, taking up a position at the University of Sydney. In subsequent decades she also worked extensively in the United States, where she became a prominent figure in political theory and feminist scholarship and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992). She later served as President of the American Political Science Association, one of the first feminist theorists to do so.

2.2 Historical and Intellectual Milieu

Pateman’s formative years coincided with:

Scholars often emphasize how Pateman’s trajectory—from working‑class origins to global academic prominence—parallels her intellectual concern with formal equality, participation, and the persistence of hierarchy within liberal democracies.

3. Intellectual Development

3.1 Early Focus: Obligation and Participatory Democracy

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Pateman’s work centred on political obligation and democratic theory. At LSE she encountered pluralist and Schumpeterian models that treated democracy primarily as competition among elites. In Participation and Democratic Theory (1970), she argued against such minimalist accounts, drawing on empirical studies (e.g., workplace participation experiments) to claim that participation can foster political competence and a democratic character. This phase is often described as her “participatory democracy” period.

3.2 Turn to Feminism and the Public–Private Divide

By the late 1970s, influenced by second‑wave feminism and debates in Australia about patriarchy and the state, Pateman began to re‑examine core concepts of liberal theory—contract, citizenship, individuality—through a feminist lens. Essays later collected in The Disorder of Women explored how the supposed separation between public politics and private family life masks the political character of marriage, sexuality, and domestic labour. This work laid the groundwork for The Sexual Contract.

3.3 Contract, Work, and Welfare

In the 1980s and 1990s, Pateman extended her analysis of contract to employment relations and welfare states. In The Problem of Political Obligation she scrutinized consent‑based justifications of state authority; later essays examined how employment contracts and welfare policies create dependency while invoking the language of individual choice. Commentators see this period as a broadening from primarily feminist critique to a general theory of contract and subordination.

3.4 Contracts, Race, and Colonialism

From the 1990s onward, Pateman engaged more directly with issues of race and settler colonialism, frequently in conversation with theorists such as Charles W. Mills. Her notion of the settler contract extends her earlier argument about hidden contracts to the legitimation of territorial dispossession and Indigenous subordination. This later phase integrates feminist, critical race, and decolonial perspectives under a unified critique of contractarian narratives.

4. Major Works

4.1 Overview of Principal Books

4.2 Thematic Groupings

Commentators typically group Pateman’s works into overlapping thematic clusters:

• Democracy and Obligation: Participation and Democratic Theory and The Problem of Political Obligation develop her critique of minimalist democracy and liberal consent theories, arguing that participation and social conditions shape the validity of obligation.

• Feminism and Patriarchy: The Sexual Contract and essays in The Disorder of Women advance her claim that classical social contract theory rests on a prior patriarchal “sexual contract.” These works also analyse marriage, employment, and citizenship as gendered institutions.

• Contract, Work, and Welfare: Articles from the 1980s–1990s explore employment contracts, unemployment, and welfare policy, arguing that contracts often institutionalize dependency.

• Race, Colonialism, and Global Contexts: “The Settler Contract” and Contract and Domination extend her contract critique to racial hierarchy and settler colonial rule, relating her ideas to critical race theory and decolonial scholarship.

These works are frequently cited both independently and as a coherent corpus articulating a sustained critique of liberal contractarianism and formal democracy.

5. Core Ideas and Theoretical Framework

5.1 Contract and Subordination

At the centre of Pateman’s framework is the claim that contract is not merely a device for free agreement but also a mechanism through which relations of subordination are created and maintained. She argues that modern liberal societies treat contract as paradigmatically egalitarian, yet many central contracts—marriage, employment, and, in later work, settler arrangements—presuppose and reproduce structural inequalities.

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“Contract has been presented as the paradigm of free agreement, yet contract is also the means through which relations of subordination are created and maintained.”
— Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract

5.2 Critique of the Abstract Individual

Pateman contends that the supposedly universal, gender‑neutral individual of liberal theory is actually a civil individual whose status is historically tied to male, property‑owning heads of households. She interprets classical social contract theorists as constructing a political order in which men’s civil freedom depends on women’s subordination, challenging interpretations that view the tradition as straightforwardly emancipatory.

5.3 Participatory Democracy and Citizenship

Her democratic theory emphasizes participation beyond voting. Pateman posits that citizens develop democratic capacities through involvement in decision‑making across social institutions, particularly in workplaces and local associations. She frames participation as both instrumentally valuable (producing informed citizens) and intrinsically linked to autonomy and self‑government.

5.4 Structural Context of Consent

Across discussions of political obligation, employment, marriage, and welfare, Pateman maintains that consent is meaningful only when background power relations permit genuine refusal and negotiation. She therefore insists that assessments of legitimacy must consider economic dependency, gender hierarchies, and institutional coercion.

5.5 Hidden Contracts: Sexual and Settler

Her notions of the sexual contract and settler contract exemplify how ostensibly universal social contracts rest on prior, often unacknowledged agreements that define who counts as a full citizen and who is subordinated. These ideas provide a unifying lens for her analyses of patriarchy, race, and colonial domination within liberal democracies.

6. Feminist Critique of the Social Contract

6.1 Re‑reading the Canon

In The Sexual Contract, Pateman offers a systematic feminist re‑interpretation of canonical contract theorists—Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and others. She argues that standard readings treat the social contract as the origin of freedom and equality among abstract individuals, but overlook a prior sexual contract through which men establish their political and civil supremacy over women.

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“The social contract is a story of freedom; the sexual contract is a story of subjection.”
— Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract

According to her analysis, the transition from patriarchal monarchy to liberal civil society replaces paternal power with fraternal patriarchy, where men as a group share authority over women.

6.2 The Sexual Contract

The sexual contract names the implicit agreement among men that underpins institutions such as marriage, prostitution, and waged work. Pateman argues that women’s access to civil society is mediated through these contracts, which codify women’s subordination while formally appearing to be consensual. She maintains that the very figure of the “free civil individual” in social contract theory is constructed against a background of women’s unfreedom.

6.3 Public–Private Divide

A key element of the critique is the dismantling of the public–private divide. Pateman contends that classical theorists treat the family and sexuality as pre‑political, thereby excluding them from norms of justice and citizenship. She argues instead that marriage and the household are political institutions central to the constitution of patriarchy, and that liberalism’s insistence on privacy obscures structured domination within them.

6.4 Reception and Debates

Supporters regard Pateman’s critique as foundational for feminist political philosophy, emphasizing its influence on later work about intersectionality and contractarianism. Some critics contend that she underestimates the egalitarian potential within the social contract tradition or that her emphasis on patriarchy sidelines class or race. Others argue that contemporary contractarian theories (e.g., Rawlsian justice) may escape parts of her critique by being more idealized or non‑historical. These debates continue to shape interpretations of both liberalism and feminist political theory.

7. Democracy, Participation, and Citizenship

7.1 Critique of Minimalist Democracy

In Participation and Democratic Theory, Pateman challenges Schumpeterian and other elitist accounts that define democracy as competitive leadership selection through elections. She scrutinizes empirical and normative claims that broad citizen participation is unnecessary or destabilizing, arguing instead that such models reduce citizens to passive spectators.

7.2 Participatory Democracy

Pateman defends participatory democracy, in which citizens are involved in decision‑making across multiple spheres of life. She interprets participation as both a right and a formative experience: by participating, individuals acquire the skills, confidence, and sense of political efficacy required for democratic citizenship.

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“Democracy demands that individuals participate in decision-making not only in the state but in all areas of social life.”
— Carole Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory

Her analysis includes workplace democracy, neighbourhood councils, and other associative forms as crucial sites of learning and exercising citizenship.

7.3 Political Obligation and Consent

In The Problem of Political Obligation, Pateman extends these concerns to why citizens should obey the law. She critically examines liberal consent theories—tacit consent, political promises, hypothetical agreements—arguing that they often fail to reflect real citizens’ capacities to accept or refuse authority. Her alternative stresses membership in a democratic community and participation in collective decision‑making as key to justifying political obligation.

7.4 Citizenship, Inclusion, and Exclusion

Pateman’s later feminist and contract‑focused work feeds back into her account of citizenship. She argues that formal citizenship status often coexists with gendered and economic hierarchies that limit effective participation, such as unpaid care work or precarious employment. Proponents see her approach as a bridge between democratic theory and social policy; critics sometimes question whether extensive participation is feasible in large, complex societies, or whether participation risks overburdening citizens. These debates frame much of the contemporary discussion of participatory and deliberative democracy.

8. Work, Welfare, and the Employment Contract

8.1 The Employment Contract as a Site of Subordination

Pateman interprets the employment contract not as a simple exchange between equals but as a structured relation in which workers, formally free and equal at the point of contracting, become subordinated within the workplace. Drawing on earlier labour theory and her general critique of contract, she argues that selling one’s labour power often entails submitting to managerial authority, raising questions about the compatibility of employment relations with democratic ideals.

8.2 Work, Unemployment, and Welfare

In essays from the 1980s and 1990s, Pateman examines unemployment, welfare benefits, and emerging workfare policies. She contends that welfare institutions, while providing economic security, can entrench dependency and stigma—particularly for women—when eligibility is tied to marital status or breadwinner norms. She also interrogates the moral language surrounding the “undeserving” unemployed, arguing that it obscures structural labour‑market conditions.

8.3 Gender, Care, and Dependency

Pateman links employment and welfare to gendered divisions of labour, highlighting how unpaid care work and part‑time or low‑paid employment shape women’s citizenship. She suggests that welfare states often assume a male breadwinner / female caregiver model, which restricts women’s economic independence and political participation. Her analysis of “dependency” challenges the liberal ideal of the autonomous individual by emphasizing the inevitability of interdependence across the life course.

8.4 Debates and Influence

Supporters of Pateman’s approach consider it significant for feminist welfare‑state research and for critiques of neoliberal labour markets. They draw on her work to argue for democratization of workplaces and for social policies that recognize care and reduce economic dependency. Critics sometimes respond that her account underplays the benefits of contractual flexibility or that it does not fully engage with differences among welfare regimes. Nonetheless, her treatment of employment and welfare as deeply political institutions has informed subsequent discussions of social rights and economic citizenship.

9. Contracts, Colonialism, and the Settler Contract

9.1 Extending Contract Critique to Colonial Contexts

In later work, particularly the essay “The Settler Contract,” Pateman extends her analysis of hidden contracts to settler colonialism. She argues that standard social contract narratives implicitly presuppose a prior settler agreement that normalizes the occupation of Indigenous lands and the establishment of settler sovereignty.

9.2 The Settler Contract

The settler contract denotes the tacit or explicit understandings among settlers—and between settlers and metropolitan authorities—through which land is claimed, Indigenous political orders are displaced, and new polities are founded. Pateman suggests that this contract is rarely acknowledged in liberal political theory, which tends to treat existing territorial boundaries as given and legitimate.

This framework parallels her earlier sexual contract thesis: in both cases, a supposedly universal social contract rests upon a prior contract that defines a subordinated group (women, Indigenous peoples) as outside or below full citizenship.

9.3 Intersection with Race and the Racial Contract

Pateman’s discussion interacts closely with Charles W. Mills’s idea of the racial contract. In Contract and Domination, they explore how sexual and racial contracts jointly structure modern liberal societies. Pateman’s analysis stresses that colonial domination involves both racial hierarchy and gendered dynamics, including the regulation of Indigenous women’s bodies and family structures.

9.4 Reception and Critical Engagement

Proponents argue that Pateman’s notion of the settler contract provides an important bridge between feminist, critical race, and decolonial theories, illuminating how contractarian language can mask historical processes of conquest and dispossession. Some critics maintain that the contract metaphor may oversimplify complex colonial histories, or that it risks re‑centering European theoretical frameworks even when critiquing them. Others question how far contemporary constitutional arrangements remain bound by original settler compacts. These debates situate Pateman’s contribution within broader reassessments of sovereignty, territory, and Indigenous rights.

10. Methodology and Interdisciplinary Influence

10.1 Textual Interpretation and Historical Reconstruction

Pateman’s methodology combines close textual analysis of canonical theorists with reconstruction of the historical and institutional contexts in which their ideas operated. She reads Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau not only as abstract philosophers but also as contributors to debates about patriarchy, property, and colonial expansion. This approach has been seen as an alternative to both purely historical and purely analytic readings.

10.2 Normative Theory Grounded in Institutions

Her work also advances normative arguments—about democracy, obligation, and equality—while engaging with empirical research on workplaces, welfare regimes, and political participation. Pateman often uses case studies (such as workplace participation experiments or welfare policies) to test and illustrate theoretical claims, encouraging closer links between political philosophy and political science.

10.3 Feminist and Critical Perspectives

Pateman is frequently cited as a model of feminist methodology in political theory. She foregrounds gender as a basic analytic category and questions taken‑for‑granted boundaries (public/private, political/economic). At the same time, her later collaborations with critical race theorists, especially Mills, show an increasing attention to race and colonialism, contributing to intersectional analyses of power.

10.4 Interdisciplinary Reach

Her ideas have influenced multiple disciplines:

Some commentators view her method as a “bridge” between normative political philosophy, empirical social science, and feminist theory, while others question whether her historically grounded approach can be fully reconciled with more ideal‑theoretic forms of analysis. Nonetheless, her work is widely recognized for expanding the methodological repertoire of political theory.

11. Impact on Feminist and Political Philosophy

11.1 Influence on Feminist Theory

Pateman’s concept of the sexual contract has become a staple reference in feminist political philosophy. It has shaped debates on marriage, prostitution, pornography, and reproductive rights by highlighting how formal consent can coexist with structural subordination. Feminist theorists have drawn on her work to critique the public–private divide and to argue that the family and sexuality are central topics for political theory rather than peripheral domestic matters.

At the same time, some feminists argue that Pateman’s emphasis on patriarchy may underplay differences among women, particularly along lines of race, class, and sexuality. Intersectional theorists have both used and revised her framework to incorporate more complex patterns of domination.

11.2 Contributions to Mainstream Political Philosophy

Within broader political philosophy, Pateman’s critiques of liberal contractarianism and minimalist democracy have influenced discussions of legitimacy, participation, and justice. Her work is frequently cited in debates about the adequacy of consent‑based justifications of the state and about the role of participation in democratic legitimacy.

Deliberative and participatory democrats have built on her claims about the formative value of participation; republican theorists have engaged her emphasis on non‑domination in workplaces and households. Some contract theorists, especially in the Rawlsian tradition, acknowledge her challenge but contend that ideal or hypothetical contracts can be insulated from historical injustices she foregrounds.

11.3 Cross‑Currents with Critical Race and Decolonial Thought

Through Contract and Domination and related essays, Pateman’s ideas intersect with critical race theory and decolonial philosophy, particularly via the notion of the racial and settler contracts. These exchanges have encouraged political philosophers to treat race and colonialism as foundational, not peripheral, to modern political order.

Her impact is visible in syllabi, scholarly debates, and institutional recognition, such as the Johan Skytte Prize, which many interpret as signalling the integration of feminist and critical perspectives into the mainstream of political theory.

12. Legacy and Historical Significance

12.1 Reframing Liberalism and the Social Contract

Pateman is widely regarded as having permanently altered how scholars approach social contract theory. Her argument that classical contracts rest upon hidden sexual, employment, and settler contracts has prompted re‑evaluations of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and has encouraged political theorists to treat patriarchy, race, and colonialism as constitutive features of modernity rather than historical side notes.

12.2 Consolidating Feminist Political Theory

Historically, Pateman’s work contributed to establishing feminist political theory as a recognized subfield. Her leadership roles—such as the presidency of the American Political Science Association—and major awards, including the Johan Skytte Prize, are often cited as markers of feminist theory’s entry into the institutional mainstream of political science and philosophy.

12.3 Influence on Democratic Thought and Policy Debates

Her defence of participatory democracy has shaped later theories of participatory and deliberative governance, citizen juries, and workplace democracy. While scholars disagree about the practicality of extensive participation, Pateman’s insistence that democracy involves more than periodic elections continues to inform debates on constitutional design, civic education, and labour law.

12.4 Continuing Relevance and Critique

Pateman’s analyses of contract, consent, and dependency remain central to discussions of sexual consent, care work, gig‑economy labour, and settler‑Indigenous relations. Some contemporary theorists argue that new forms of precarity and digital labour underscore her concerns about contractual subordination; others suggest that evolving forms of family, gender identity, and transnational governance require revising or extending her framework.

Overall, her legacy is commonly characterized in terms of a durable shift in political theory’s agenda: bringing issues of gender, work, and colonialism into the heart of debates about democracy, obligation, and legitimacy, and demonstrating that apparently neutral liberal concepts are historically embedded in relations of power.