The idea of the social contract resonates in many societies as a framework to conceptualise state–society relations, and as a normative ideal which strives to improve them. Policy-makers, development organisations, politicians, social scientists (including anthropologists), and our interlocutors all live with contractarian logics. While generations of political philosophers have debated the concept and its usefulness, the term has also travelled beyond academia into the wider world, shaping expectations, experiences, and imagined futures of state–society relations. An anthropology of the social contract explores ethnographically how this pervasive concept, laden with assumptions about human nature, political organisation, government, and notions such as freedom, consensus and legitimacy, impacts state–society relations in different settings. In this way, the social contract itself – its many emic instantiations, and its political effects – becomes the object of study.

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The 2016 Peace Accord signed between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP guerrilla was narrowly rejected by the public in a polarising referendum. This article focusses on government officials in the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace, the government institution in charge of peace negotiations, and explaining the peace process to society in an innovative strategy called ‘peace pedagogy’. These officials resorted to rational communication about peace and repudiated the accord’s opponents, whom they perceived as right-wing populists. They then self-critically analysed the referendum loss as due to their strategy being ‘too rational’ and ‘not emotional enough’. Drawing on the anthropology of liberalism, this article characterises these officials as ‘culturally liberal’: liberal ideology was enmeshed in their cultural worldviews, including a perceived binary between rationality and emotions, and a contractarian imaginary of state-society relations as above politics. This both contributed to the loss of the referendum, and confounded their attempts to analyse the result. The normative model of the social contract, enmeshed in real-world interpretations of state-society relations, thus creates inexorably political effects.

The Havana Peace Accords of 2016 sought to end five decades of internal conflict in Colombia. As well as disarming the FARC, they promise to bring state institutions to abandoned regions and enable citizen participation. However, there is an obstacle to this which has consistently been overlooked by Juan Manuel Santos' government: a chronic distrust in the state dating back to colonialism. This article draws on ethnographic research with the Colombian government's 'peace pedagogy' team, tasked innovatively with educating citizens about the Havana Accords and incorporating them in the co-production of peace. It shows that citizens' learning about state policies, and reception of state efforts to shape that learning, are filtered through pre-existing perceptions of the state: in Colombia, interpretative frameworks of distrust. This ethnography illuminates state-society relations in the Colombian peace process, offering implications for ongoing implementation of the Accords, and posing questions for other countries in transition, arguing that historically-constituted perceptions of the state should be taken into account when communicating government policies to society. 37 Gwen BurnyeatHowever, there is low public awareness about the Accords -there has been much controversy on those elements relating to the disarmament and reincorporation of the FARC into society, eclipsing the rest. There have been many 'peace pedagogy' initiatives; by the FARC, civil society organisations (CSOs), academics, and also by the state. The government set up a 'peace pedagogy' team tasked with educating citizens about the Havana Accords and incorporating them in the co-production of peace. However, their efforts met with a challenge that has consistently been overlooked by Juan Manuel Santos' government: a chronic distrust in the state which dates back to colonialism.This article draws on ethnographic research with the Colombian government's 'peace pedagogy' team to reveal how citizens' learning about state policies, and reception of state efforts to shape that learning, are filtered through pre-existing perceptions of the state. It first explains the emergence of state 'peace pedagogy' efforts. Next it gives a theoretical overview of anthropological approaches to the state, and of ethnographies in Colombia detailing this distrust. It then discusses a particular project, Un, Dos, Tres … 1 Contemos una nueva historia (One, Two, Three … Let's tell a new story), then analyses the state-society encounters the project created, and their relevance for the broader context of the peace process. It concludes that this analysis offers implications for the ongoing implementation of the Havana Accords and suggests a framework for other transitional contexts and beyond, in emphasising the role that fundamental relationships between citizens and state play in communicating major government policies to society, and the importance of taking into account historically-constituted interpretative frameworks according to which citizens perceive the state.