Governance as software
The idea
Governance mechanisms shipped as code by independent developers, so that the rule layer is made of the same stuff as the resource it regulates. Schroeder & Wagner report the self-similar precedent: Wikipedia's "development of a regulatory framework is based on the same patterns as the resource that is to be regulated" (p. 1950, citing Aaltonen & Lanzara) — policies are wiki pages, editable like articles. Modular Politics generalizes it prescriptively: governance as composable Modules with editable Policies and transparent source (16:9–16:10), distributed via an open standard plus independent open-source libraries (16:15–16:16). Fuster Morell supplies the IAD amendment: "rules embedded in the code govern the interaction as much as other rules" (preprint pp. 37–38).
On Nostr the concept is realized without a platform author: mute lists, kind-1984 reports, relay allowlists, NIP-65 relay hints, spam filters, and WoT scorers are governance mechanisms any dev can ship, and each is itself signed events or open-source services on the same substrate as the speech it governs. The mechanism space grows by shipping — no committee enumerates it — which is why Schroeder's closed 24-item catalogue cannot close on Nostr.
The strain: Schroeder's formal/informal binary (1948–1949, 1955) presupposes that norms are soft and rules are hard. When a norm ships as code — a mute list is informal in origin, formal in execution — the binary breaks; classification should track who can change the mechanism and at what cost, not its degree of writtenness.
Sources
- {{ref:src-open-content-governance|Schroeder & Wagner 2012}} — p. 1950 (self-similarity); 1955 (binary) - {{ref:src-modular-politics|Schneider et al. 2021}} — 16:9–16:10, 16:15–16:16 - {{ref:src-fuster-morell-occ|Fuster Morell 2014}} — pp. 14–18, 37–38
Related: - {{ref:emergentgov|Index}} - {{ref:concept-rules-in-use|Rules-in-use vs rules-in-form}} - {{ref:concept-rule-types|The seven rule types}} - {{ref:concept-requisite-variety|Requisite variety (Ashby's law, institutionalized)}} - {{ref:concept-adaptive-governance|Adaptive governance as feedback architecture}} - {{ref:claim-composable-bounded-institutions|Bounded institutions compose on the open substrate}} - {{ref:claim-multiplicity-stack|Multiplicity}} - {{ref:q-generativity-robustness|Q: Is robustness generativity rather than redundancy?}}