Governance Without Global Consensus

Status: Draft / Notes Non-normative Builds on: Incentives Under Partial Verification

Premise

In a bounded-verification system:

• there is no single canonical truth
• verifiers may disagree
• disagreement may persist indefinitely

Governance must function despite this, not in spite of it.

Core Constraint

Governance decisions cannot rely on:

• global state agreement
• full historical visibility
• synchronized participation

Any governance model assuming these properties is invalid at the edge.

What Governance Actually Means Here

Governance is not:

• deciding truth
• enforcing correctness
• selecting a canonical history

Governance is:

• coordinating behavior under uncertainty
• defining acceptable refusal
• managing evolution without coercion

Local Legitimacy

A governance decision is legitimate only within a verifier’s context.

Legitimacy requires:

• verifiable inputs
• explicit assumptions
• bounded scope

There is no universal legitimacy.

Proposal Visibility

A governance proposal may be:

• visible to some verifiers
• invisible to others
• visible at different times

Therefore:

• participation is optional
• absence is not opposition
• silence carries no semantic meaning

Voting Under Partial Knowledge

Votes are valid only if:

• the voting statement is verifiable
• the voter’s identity is verifiable (within context)
• the vote references a known proposal state

Votes outside the frontier are undefined.

No Absolute Quorum

Quorum cannot be global.

Instead:

• quorum is contextual
• quorum depends on the verifier’s observed participation set
• quorum thresholds must be conservative

Failure to reach quorum is not failure of governance.

Fork-Tolerant Governance

Different verifier groups may:

• accept different governance outcomes
• diverge temporarily or permanently
• reconcile later or never

This is allowed.

Governance must be fork-tolerant by design.

Governance Outcomes as Suggestions

Governance outputs are:

• recommendations
• policy signals
• coordination hints

They are not mandates.

Execution remains voluntary and verifiable.

Enforcement Limitations

Governance cannot:

• force execution
• punish unverifiable dissent
• override verification constraints

Any attempt to do so violates system safety.

Refusal Is a First-Class Action

Participants may refuse governance outcomes if:

• proofs are missing
• assumptions are unacceptable
• context differs

Refusal requires no justification.

Upgrade Coordination

Protocol upgrades must:

• be opt-in
• be verifiable
• allow coexistence with prior versions

Forced upgrades are incompatible with bounded verification.

Identity and Governance

Identity systems may assist governance, but:

• identity does not grant authority
• reputation is contextual
• historical trust does not imply future correctness

Governance authority is never absolute.

Offline Governance Participation

Offline participants may:

• miss votes
• rejoin later
• accept or reject past outcomes

Governance must tolerate delayed participation.

Failure Modes

Governance fails when it assumes:

• universal awareness
• enforced compliance
• singular truth

These assumptions are invalid in this model.

Design Principle

Governance should aim to:

• minimize harm from disagreement
• allow peaceful divergence
• enable gradual convergence

Not consensus at all costs.

Boundary Statement

There is no such thing as “correct governance” under bounded verification.

There are only acceptable coordination outcomes.