Contract

Examples of Contract in the following topics:

• Subsidies and Contracting

  • The authority of a contracting officer (the Government's agent) to contract on behalf of the Government is set forth in public documents (a warrant) that a person dealing with the contracting officer can review.
  • The contracting officer has no authority to act outside of his or her warrant or to deviate from the laws and regulations controlling Federal Government contracts.
  • The private contracting party is held to know the limitations of the contracting officer's authority, even if the contracting officer does not.
  • This makes contracting with the United States a very structured and restricted process.
  • Government must comply with the laws and regulations that permit it, and must be made by a contracting officer with actual authority to execute the contract.

• Introduction to Evaluating and Justifying Government

  • True, social contract theorists have argued that government is a voluntary association, as if it were a voluntary association, or ought to be a voluntary association.
  • Social contract theory has been influential in America ever since the "Mayflower Compact".
  • However, contract theorists have always foundered on the fact that not everybody subject to a government consents, or has consented, to be governed by it.
  • A contract, like any other voluntary association, requires mutual consent of all the parties, not just a majority of them.

• Facilitating Private-Voluntary Associations

  • A contract is a legally enforceable agreement, and government encourages private-voluntary associations chiefly through laws regarding contracts.

• Size of the Federal Bureaucracy

  • The fact that the Defense Department contracted out for military interrogators and security officers in war zones did not become public knowledge until the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal broke in April 2004.
  • The federal government directly supports 5.6 million jobs through contracts and 2.4 million jobs through grants.
  • The government also contracts with private companies to provide goods and services.
  • The federal government directly supports 5.6 million jobs through contracts and 2.4 million jobs through grants.
  • The reliance on mandates and contracts have resulted in fewer civil servants directly interacting with the public as much as street-level bureaucrats.

• Arbitration

  • As with arbitration generally, international arbitration is a creature of contract.
  • In other words, the parties' agree to submit disputes to binding resolution by arbitrators, usually by including a provision for the arbitration of future disputes in their contract.
  • The New York Convention requires that the states that have ratified it to recognize and enforce international arbitration agreements and foreign arbitral awards issued in other contracting states, subject to certain limited exceptions.
  • These provisions of the New York Convention, together with the large number of contracting states, has created an international legal regime that significantly favors the enforcement of international arbitration agreements and awards.
  • The resolution of disputes under international commercial contracts is widely conducted under the auspices of several major international institutions and rule making bodies.

• Justification of Government

  • Some social contract theorists try to resolve the problem by asserting that government is, in fact, a voluntary association.
  • But there is no historical evidence of an "original" contract, and even if there were an original contract it could not—by the logic of contracts—bind later generations.
  • Other social contract theorists, following Rousseau, argue that government ought to be a voluntary association.

• Referenda on Affirmative Action

  • In California, Proposition 209 (the California Civil Rights Initiative) was passed in 1996 and amended the state constitution to prohibit state government institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity, specifically in the areas of public employment, public contracting, and public education.
  • The initiative passed with 58.22% of the vote, adding the following language to Washington's laws: "The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, or any individual group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."
  • The Nebraska Civil Rights Initiative, or Initiative 424, was a 2008 ballot measure that proposed a constitutional amendment which would prohibit the state from discriminating against or granting preferential treatment to "any individual on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting."

• Liberty

  • There are different conceptions of liberty, which articulate the relationship of individuals to society in varying ways, including some which relate to life under a "social contract" or to existence in a "state of nature," and some which see the active exercise of freedom and rights as essential to liberty.
  • The concept of liberty plays a very important role in social contract theory, particularly in its discussion of sovereignty and natural rights.
  • In addition, under the social contract, the people could instigate a revolution against the government when it acted against the interests of citizens, and replace it with one that would serve the interests of citizens.

• Article VI

  • All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

• Popular Consent, Majority Rule, and Popular Sovereignty

  • Popular sovereignty in its modern sense, that is, including all the people and not just noblemen, is an idea that dates to the social contracts school (mid-17th to mid-18th centuries), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778), author of The Social Contract, a prominent political work that clearly highlighted the ideals of "general will" and further matured the idea of popular sovereignty.
  • Whether men were seen as naturally more prone to violence and rapine (Hobbes) or cooperation and kindness (Rousseau), the idea that a legitimate social order emerges only when the liberties and duties are equal among citizens binds the social contract thinkers to the concept of popular sovereignty.