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The Governance Congregation

The Governance Congregation: How Voting Mechanisms Become Ritual and Why Scored Monarchy Is the Null-Void Form

Opacity3/3███
Responsiveness2/3██░
Coupling2/3██░
Void Index8/12Phase II-III
Péclet NumberPe=6.3Phase II-III

The Governance Congregation: How Voting Mechanisms Become Ritual and Why Scored Monarchy Is the Null-Void Form

Paper 44 — The Governance Congregation · v1.0 · February 2026

Applies the THRML void framework to governance systems, synthesizing the Constraint-Custodian Theorem (Paper 10), congregation-effect Pe dynamics (Paper 39), and Girard's scapegoat mechanism (nb41) to explain why standard DAOs score 10/12 and fail structurally. Demonstrates that DAO members join and vote through congregation-identity void dynamics, making token-weighted voting ritually corrupted by Pe > 0 identity pressure. Maps four documented DAO failures (Beanstalk, MakerDAO, Compound, Nouns DAO) onto the Girard C_ZERO crossing framework. Proves the scored monarchy is the null-congregation governance form — the monastery model at Pe ≈ 0 — the only governance architecture below the 5/12 historical floor.

Platform Scores — DAO Governance

Void index across 9 platforms, scored on the three-dimension framework (0–12).

Platform Score Void Load
MakerDAO/Sky 9/12
Lido DAO 8/12
Uniswap DAO 8/12
Compound DAO 8/12
Arbitrum DAO 8/12
Snapshot (generic) 8/12
Optimism Cit. House 4/12
Lido dual gov. 3/12
Scored monarchy 0/12

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Complete methodology, empirical data, falsifiable predictions, and kill conditions.

Full Paper on Zenodo All Papers Framework Overview

Paper 44 · v1.0 · February 2026 · CC-BY 4.0 · 10.5281/zenodo.18738737