Ideas tagged with governance

Engine change at 80MPH: OSS projects as laboratories for participatory governance transformation

Online communities are high-throughput laboratories for governance change and innovation. Elinor Ostrom's idea of institutional diversity, that sustainable resource governance requires a diversity of governance forms and approaches, is well represented by the diversity and complexity of online r...

By Seth Frey, Nicholas Vincent, Nathan Schneider, Amy Zhang, Joshua Tan, Shauna Gordon-McKeon

Stratified sortition for balancing representativeness and efficiency in large participatory institutions

As a self-governing institution grows, it becomes a target for elite capture. Sortition, or governance by lottery, is a mechanism displacing elites and for preserving democratic rule. A large legislature with randomly appointed representatives, or a small board with oversight over that legislatu...

By Seth Frey

Protocol Society

The concept of “protocol society” is an invitation to see social structures through the lens of the protocol—a set of voluntary rules governing communication and conduct. Examples include monastic rules, cross-border financial systems, diplomatic rituals, Internet standards, and blockchain contr...

By Nathan Schneider