Questioning and Bearing
追问与承担
A government's judgments are fallible, and this is one of the reasons they must be open to questioning (Paper 1). This paper asks about the other end of questioning: who questions power, whether questioning has a final bearer, and, once the question has been asked, whether those affected can actually move anything. The channel of questioning is there in governments at every level: it is independent of the party questioned, those inside can actually reach it, and using it brings no retaliation; independence is checked against the party actually questioned, and must be checked again when the level changes; the separation of powers may weaken with conditions, but openness to questioning does not. That there is a channel does not mean that it has efficacy. "Control within the line," which this series has taken on, is answered here. The functions of control, classed by what they act on, are four candidates: reversal, rectification and reopening the agenda, acting on decisions and rules; revocation of authorization, acting on positions; exit, acting on the relation itself; interruption, acting on the forward conduction of acts. Of each it must be possible to state who can activate it, what actual efficacy it has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office, and how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own. The connection between control and the three conditions of the channel is the extension of the three conditions of the correction half of the fifth ought from being questioned to efficacy, and this step is an extension within the fifth ought: whether efficacy comes into play is not monopolized by the party questioned; the step that activates the efficacy is within reach of those affected, or they can reach a position that can activate it without waiting for the consent of the party questioned; using it brings no retaliation. It says only that on the side of efficacy at least these three must be guarded, not that with them control is sufficient. Control is not a veto, nor a change every time. Decisions can be closed; positions cannot be final; bearing falls on the several positions, and there is no place where the accounts can all be gathered in and the door shut. A public grant must retain the function of revocability: the scope, conditions or continued existence of the grant itself must be changeable, and being able to revoke only a single exercise, or only to replace the person who holds the office, does not by itself satisfy this layer; revocation goes through procedure, and is not an individual rendering a decision void at will. Capture is read with a focus on two kinds: the channel controlled by the party questioned, and the party questioned controlling delivery and so hollowing out the position of a right; capture can cause hollowing-out, and hollowing-out by itself does not certify capture; the two are not claimed to be exhaustive, and capture is judged by structure, not by the name of a body. For exit offered in form and sealed off in fact, the criterion lies in Rights Theory; this paper takes up only the question of whether exit is actually usable. The voting-position is a structural position that retains the interrupt-right standing; this series takes only the structure, does not judge the merits of institutions, and does not certify that actual democracy has been achieved; interruption has been given a structural position in this paper, but its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found, and it is listed as nominal together with rectification and reopening the agenda. Finally the whole series is brought to a close: how far each of the two slots taken on has been answered, and where the series stops, registered in six slots; the direction is the Kingdom of Ends, which a government cannot make on persons' behalf, nor declare made; a government can never be perfect, and so the close lies not in having made it, but in remaining open to questioning. A single objection in Apple City runs through the paper, which interfaces in place with Pettit, Hobbes, Rousseau, Hirschman and Kant. The paper has eight propositions (G35 to G41, with G36a), listed together at the end.
Introduction
In the autumn of Year 5, Levee Street High School was still under requisition.
That spring the river had risen. The mayor declared a state of emergency under the Apple City Emergency Ordinance and requisitioned the school. The water went down two weeks later, and the curfew was lifted in the fifth week; by summer the school was still requisitioned, the emergency order was still being renewed month by month, and the students were having their classes in a temporary school building on the east side of the city (Paper 5). What time leaves behind needs someone to ask about it.
The parent of one of the students raised an objection: the water had long since gone down, so why had the school not been returned, and why was the emergency order renewed again and again? She first called the Mayor's Office complaint hotline. The hotline's answer was: "The emergency order is renewed under the ordinance; it is outside the hotline's remit."
She then went to the Office of the State Ombudsman of the Kingdom State. The Office takes complaints from residents against the city, and needs no consent from the party complained against; she went, and the Office took up her complaint. The ombudsman called for the case file, required the mayor to explain in writing the present ground for the renewals, and in the spring of Year 6 published a report. A month after the report was published, the mayor terminated the emergency order, and the school was returned. The ombudsman closed the case.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the parent and the students. Which line: requisitioning the school acts on actions that may be restricted, and lies within the line; what this matter involves is the channel of the fifth ought. Baseline: before the flood.
The matter ended well enough, but it shows up several questions. The hotline said the matter was not its business: does that route count as a channel? The ombudsman was within reach, but could not itself annul the city's decision: how far does its efficacy go? After the report the emergency order was terminated: was that the efficacy of questioning, or the mayor's own decision? Once the case is closed, can the matter never be asked about again? The mayor's power to issue emergency orders was given by the City Council: who can take it back?
Action Theory named one of these questions and handed it to the Theory of Government: "who calls power to account, and whether calling to account has a final bearer, is the business of the Theory of Government" (Action Theory Paper 0, §9.4). The same place hands over one more item: the concern about offering exit in form while in fact sealing it off at a ruinous cost "has already been handed over from On Accountability to the Theory of Government" (ibid.). Paper 1 stopped at discretion within the line, and also left a question there: when the question can be asked and the answer goes to the point, can those affected actually move anything? This paper takes up these items.
The answer runs in eight steps. §1 says that the channel of questioning is there at every level; §2 says what the functions of control are, giving the overall table first; §3 says that bearing can be located and exemption from questioning cannot be made final; §4, §6 and §7 each answer for one function of control, in turn revocation of authorization, exit and interruption; §5 treats capture; §8 closes the whole series. Conventions follow the Prequel, §8; as the last paper of the series, this paper has no closing section of conversation, and the handovers downstream are carried in the Interfaces at its end.
§1 The Channel of Questioning at Every Level
The hotline's reply, "outside the hotline's remit," need not be judged at once.
Institution Theory's fifth ought says that an institution keeps open the channel through which it is questioned and corrected, and that the channel meets three conditions: "it is independent of the party questioned, internal subjects can actually initiate it, and initiating it brings no retaliation" (Z34). A government is one kind of construct, and this ought falls on it whole (the Prequel, §7). By these three, look at the two places the parent went.
The hotline sits in the Mayor's Office, and what the parent was asking about was precisely the mayor's renewals. Even had the hotline taken up the complaint, whether it is independent would have to be checked against the mayor. Institution Theory says of independence that "what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own," and that it is "checked against the party actually questioned" (Z34). A hotline set up in the office of the party questioned can register a complaint, chase it up, and refer it elsewhere; whether it can have the matter reviewed without going through the mayor depends on its configuration. In this case it did not even take the complaint up.
When Institution Theory considers whether "raised but not answered" counts as a further item of unaccommodated residue, it sets several cases aside: a reply still pending; a referral, within its remit, to the body that has authority to handle the matter; a suspension on conditions; the same matter having already been handled (Institution Theory Paper 6, §3). The hotline's answer is none of these: it made no referral, and did not say where to go. But a hotline need not handle everything. What has to be asked is not whether it handles this, but whether, on the question "is there a present ground for the renewals," the parent has a route that is within her reach and not in the mayor's hands. That is what is checked next.
The Office of the State Ombudsman is another matter. It takes complaints from residents against governments at every level within the state; it can call for case files, require the party complained against to explain in writing, publish reports, and refer cases to the state courts; it cannot itself annul or rewrite the city's decisions. Check the three conditions against the mayor. It is not a city body, and taking up a complaint needs no consent from the mayor: independence passes at the layer of taking up the complaint; whether the mayor can sway how far the inquiry goes and when the case is closed is checked separately. She went, and it took the complaint up: being within reach passes too. As for no retaliation, there is no fact in this matter of anyone making things hard for her for it; the absence of such a fact is not the same as having passed the check, which has to be made separately against the actual practice of the state and the city, and this paper does not vouch for them.
Independence is not certified once and for all. The ombudsman is independent with respect to the city because what is being questioned is the city. If what is questioned is instead some part of the state itself, for instance the bill by which the State Legislature took the management of Riverbank Park into the state's hands (Paper 4, §6), whether the same Office is independent must be checked again against the state: "when the party questioned changes level, independence must be checked again" (Z34; Paper 4, G25). Its independence of the city does not testify to its independence of the state.
This ought is there at every level. Below Apple City there is Orchard Court; above it, the Kingdom State. The shape of the separation of powers changes with conditions. Paper 4 has written down the threshold: from the city level up there must be separation, and a residential complex that enforces its own covenant must have separation as well; this is this series' normative undertaking; where a residential complex holds no compulsion, or its covenant can be enforced only through the City Court, separation may be weak. Being questioned does not change with conditions. The oughts of Institution Theory are addressed to every construct that has institutional identity, and the fifth ought, moreover, "does not vary with relational thickness" (Z34): however thin a relation, the channel must be there. A government, whatever its size and at whatever level, is a construct. So every government ought to be open to questioning.
Paper 4 left the channel at the level of the residential complex for this paper (Paper 4, §4). Under the Orchard Court covenant, a household six months in arrears on the management fee is fined monthly and loses the use of the clubhouse and of the surface parking spaces, by decision of the owners' committee; a household in arrears that objects to the measure makes representations to the owners' committee, and these too are heard by the owners' committee; the household can sue the owners' committee in the City Court, but needs a lawyer, and a first-instance case usually takes a year. Check by the three conditions. Representations land in the hands of the party that imposed the measure: not independent. The City Court is independent of the owners' committee; but a year at first instance comes too late for a fine that grows month by month and a parking space suspended today, and this is a fact of this case (Paper 4, §4). Where the separation of powers may be weak, this ought does not weaken either: if the covenant were changed so that fines could be enforced only through the City Court, a household in arrears that disputes the owners' committee's measure must still have somewhere it can ask that is not single-handedly gatekept by the owners' committee, and asking must not cost it its parking space. Where the channel is placed, and how it is set up, is handed to specific theories of institutions; this paper says only that these two points are what must be checked.
Two more words must be kept apart. The parent asks, the ombudsman inquires, the mayor explains: this is the channel in use, and it is called being open to questioning; it holds for every government, at every time. It is no evidence of illegitimacy: being questioned does not by itself show that the mayor was wrong. "Must be questioned" says something else: a verified lapse owes an explanation and a correction. Whether, once the water was down, the renewals had a present ground is Paper 5's matter (G31); if it is verified that they had none, this point is no longer only open to questioning but must be questioned, and what is owed is not only a reply but also a correction. The two are not mixed: being questioned is no charge, and providing a channel is no certificate of repair.
Whether to ask is the parent's own affair. Institution Theory says: "Whether to ask is the internal subjects' own affair." (Z36) This series does not say that residents ought to go and ask; it says only that when she wants to ask, the government must make it possible for her to ask, and must answer.
One thing remains, and is left to the next section. The ombudsman is independent and within reach, but it cannot annul the city's decision. The question could be asked, and the answer came; what efficacy this channel has on the emergency order itself has not yet been said.
G35 At the layer of government, the channel of questioning is there at every level. The channel meets the three conditions of Institution Theory Z34: it is independent of the party questioned, internal subjects can actually initiate it, and initiating it brings no retaliation; independence is functional, is checked against the party actually questioned, and must be checked again when the level changes (Paper 4, G25). Every government, whatever its size, ought to be open to questioning; the separation of powers may weaken with conditions, but this does not. "Open to questioning" means that the channel is always open, for every government and at every time, and being questioned is no evidence of illegitimacy; "must be questioned" means that a verified lapse owes an explanation and a correction, and providing a channel is no certificate of repair. That a channel is independent and within reach does not mean that it has efficacy on decisions; efficacy is checked separately.
§2 The Functions of Control
Paper 1, §6, stopped on Levee Street: the objection could be raised, the reply went to the point, and still that decision could not be moved. That paper went as far as "what has to be asked": who can activate which procedure on what matter; what actual efficacy this procedure has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own (Paper 1, G5). This section answers.
First, the overall table. Control is classed by what it acts on, and there are four candidates:
| What it acts on | The function of control | Where it is answered |
|---|---|---|
| Decisions and rules | Reversal, rectification, reopening the agenda | This section (the stall on Levee Street) |
| Positions (grant and the holding of office) | Revocation of authorization | §4 |
| The relation itself | Exit | §6 |
| The forward conduction of acts | Interruption | §7 |
Of each, the same three things are asked: who can activate it; what actual efficacy it has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own.
An example laid out. Back to the stall on Levee Street (the three things are given in the Introduction to Paper 1). First, who is being questioned: the Permits Office. The approval decision is made in the Permits Office's name, and the rules for stalls were also set by the Permits Office under the City Council's ordinance; the permit examiner belongs to the Approvals Section and the review officer to the Regulations Unit, and both are its positions.
Activation: an applicant who objects to an approval decision files a written objection within thirty days. The objection does not pass through the permit examiner or the section chief; it is taken up by the review officer in the Regulations Unit. Activation is in her hands, and needs no consent from the Permits Office.
Efficacy: Paper 1, §6, has already gone through it layer by layer, and the efficacy stops at reasons. The review officer replied in writing within the time limit, answered the very matter she asked about, and also verified the note the permit examiner had missed; but the review officer can only recommend that the Permits Office reconsider, and whether to reconsider is decided by the Permits Office itself, which decided not to; for "how succession is to be read," this procedure has no route for sending the rules to be revised; and the holding of office it does not touch at all.
Not being cancelled has to be laid out layer by layer in this case.
- At the layer of reasons, the Permits Office cannot cancel it. Whether to look into it, and whether it has been fully answered, are not for the Permits Office to decide; the reply is signed by the review officer and sent directly to the applicant, and the Permits Office cannot change it. The review officer sits within the Permits Office, but independence is functional and "does not require being outside the institution" (Institution Theory Z34): what has to be looked at is whether the party questioned can seal off this layer on its own, and here it cannot. Whether the Permits Office can withdraw this procedure itself is not set in this paper.
- At the layer of actions, the Permits Office can cancel it on its own, because whether reconsideration is activated is in its hands. When it refused, it gave its reason in writing: "The note says only that it may be recognized at discretion, not that it ought to be; the original decision stands." Whether this reason addresses the point she raised, that the note had been missed, can be asked: the note leaves the matter to the discretion of whoever is deciding, and since the permit examiner did not see it at the time, no discretion was exercised at all. But in this configuration there is no position outside the Permits Office to question this reason. As to efficacy at the layer of actions, the Permits Office both decides whether it comes into play and checks, by itself, the reason it has itself given.
- No retaliation: no one made things hard for her because she objected. This concerns the side of being questioned; on the side of efficacy, there was no function in this configuration to use in the first place.
So the structure of this case is: activation lies on the side of the person affected; efficacy stops at reasons; at the layer of reasons, the party questioned cannot cancel it; at the layer of actions, whether efficacy comes into play is decided by the party questioned alone, and the reason it gives is checked by it alone. This is what "could not be moved" means.
Suppose that reconsideration were instead activated by a position outside the Permits Office, for instance the administrative division of the City Court, or the state ombudsman through a referral, and that the Permits Office could not refuse. The three things change with it.
- Activation: the applicant still files the objection; whether reconsideration is activated falls to a position outside the Permits Office.
- Efficacy: once it is activated, the original decision must be determined afresh; this is efficacy on actions.
- Not being cancelled: that the Permits Office cannot refuse activation is not yet enough. The fresh determination is either made by that position itself, or remade by the Permits Office with that position checking its reasons; if the reasons the Permits Office gives when it remakes the decision do not address the point she raised, that the note had been missed, that position can have it examined again. If it were laid down only that the Permits Office cannot refuse activation, while no one checks the reasons for the remade decision, the Permits Office could still empty this layer of efficacy with a sheet of stock phrases upholding the original decision, and the efficacy would fall back into its hands. Whether that position activates reconsideration must also be explained, and it too stands under a channel it cannot itself close (G36; Paper 1, G2). Whether using this function would bring retaliation this supposition does not set, and it must be checked separately: that no one made things hard for her on the side of being questioned does not testify for the side of efficacy.
Only if it were changed in this way would the objection on Levee Street go from being answered to being able to move the decision. Being able to move it does not guarantee that she wins: after re-examination the case can still be handled as a new application, so long as the reasons answer that point and hold up when that position checks them. Being able to move it means that, for the missed note she raised, there is a position not in the Permits Office's hands that can have the decision examined over again.
The layer of rules this supposition does not touch. For the gap of "how succession is to be read," the procedure has no route for sending it to be revised; whether Apple City has such a route outside the procedure, this paper does not set on its behalf. One more look is needed here: the one who writes the rules is the Permits Office itself. A route that sends the gap in the rules back to the Permits Office will, at the layer of rules, have it as the party questioned once more, and independence must be checked again against it. This is what the item "reopening the agenda" in the overall table has to answer. Rectification is the same: the note is printed on the last page of the rules, and it is missing from the handling guidelines the Permits Office issues to its permit examiners; the review officer verified that it had been missed, but whether the guidelines were changed this paper does not set. What must be asked is still those three things: who can have the guidelines changed, what efficacy a change would have on later approvals, and whether the Permits Office can leave them unchanged on its own.
What control is not. Two readings must be headed off. Control is not a veto: if the residents across the street raise an objection demanding that all the stalls on this stretch be removed, and the Permits Office changes nothing, that does not show that the residents have lost control. Nor is control a change every time: suppose the procedure has the efficacy of re-examination, and simply in five years no new material happens to have come in that would warrant a reversal; that no decision has been reversed does not by itself diagnose a failure of control (Paper 1, G5). Conversely, a reversal does not by itself prove that control is there. In the matter of the Introduction, the emergency order was terminated a month after the report; whether the termination came from the ombudsman's report or from the mayor's own judgment of the water, the matter does not say, and this series does not infer cause from sequence. What is looked at, in looking at control, is the structure: if what has been raised would warrant a reversal, is there a route not in the hands of the party questioned that actually has it re-examined?
How it connects with the three conditions of the channel. In its comparison with Pettit, Institution Theory Paper 0 left a question: "how the control that non-domination requires connects with the three conditions of the channel" (Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the sixth slot). Levee Street gives the shape of the answer.
On the side of being questioned, the Permits Office's objection procedure passes all three conditions: she can reach it, the Permits Office cannot seal off the review officer's taking up and answering of it, and no one made things hard for her. But what the three conditions check is precisely the side of being questioned. On the side of efficacy, whether reconsideration happens was never touched, and so it fell back into the Permits Office's hands. Institution Theory says that questioning must be independent, and that the reason is that "the party under review may not monopolize the decision on whether a challenge exists and whether it is over" (Z35a). What the Permits Office monopolizes is the same kind of thing, only moved one step later: what it monopolizes is whether the challenge takes effect.
Institution Theory's fifth ought already speaks of "the channel through which it is questioned and corrected" (Z34), and also says that an institution may not "close off the conditions of questioning and correction" (Z37). Yet where it makes the three conditions concrete is mainly on the side of being questioned: what independence guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own (Z34), and what the party under review may not monopolize is whether a challenge exists and whether it is over (Z35a). Institution Theory Paper 0 also says that a complaint channel may be independent, usable and bound to answer, and still it must be asked separately whether those affected really control the relevant power of interference (§4.2); it registers this cell as a research candidate, asking whether it calls for handling beyond the fifth ought (§11, the fourth slot); and the overlap it writes out it describes as a reading, not a new ought (§11, the sixth slot).
What this series does is to read the three conditions of the correction half of the fifth ought concretely, and extend them to efficacy:
- independence: whether efficacy comes into play is not monopolized by the party questioned;
- can be initiated: the step that activates the efficacy is within reach of those affected, or they can reach a position that can activate it without waiting for the consent of the party questioned;
- no retaliation: using this function brings no penalty.
The object has changed from being questioned to efficacy; this step is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking). The grounds are in two layers. First, Z34 and Z37 already write correction into the channel. Second, Institution Theory Paper 0 gathers Z34 to Z37 of Institution Theory Paper 6 into one sentence: "the party questioned may not monopolize the power to shut the door" (§10.2); the door can be shut at the layer of being questioned, and also at the layer of efficacy, and if only the first is guarded, the second can be shut all the same. Paper 5 has already taken the same step for the termination of an emergency: review of whether the determination holds and when the emergency ends is not monopolized by the party taking the measures; once measures are taken, confirmation and termination fall at the layer of efficacy, and there must be a route that the party taking the measures cannot block (Paper 5, G32). Here is the general form of the same step.
This step has three limits. It says only that on the side of efficacy at least these three must be guarded; it does not say that with these three, control is sufficient; whether it is sufficient is registered in §8. It is a reading within the fifth ought, not a further ought. Its modality is this: the three are conditions for determining that a given control stands; beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), which decisions must have which control this paper does not prove.
The matter in the Introduction can be read the same way. The ombudsman is independent of the city and within reach; it has efficacy on reasons: it can require explanation, and can make things public. On actions, it can refer the case to the state courts, and the state courts are another position not in the mayor's hands. Efficacy here is made by joining two positions: one within reach but reaching only to reasons; one reaching to actions, but, for everyday matters, distant, expensive and slow (Paper 4, §3; that is a fact of the Apple City case, not an assertion about cities in general). The functions of control can be carried jointly by several positions; once they are joined, the three things must still each be statable.
With Pettit. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with Pettit on this point (§4.2); here this paper only points back to it, and states this series' own step precisely. Pettit himself requires that the people's control be effective, as Paper 1 has already recorded (Paper 1, §6); "from contestability to efficacy" is not a step by which this series goes beyond him. This series' step is to connect control to the three conditions of the channel, on the side of efficacy. There is one more difference. In the abstract of Chapter 5 of On the People's Terms, he says that making the people's influence individualized, unconditioned and efficacious is likely to require an open electoral system, and that the unconditioned part of it rests on the citizens' disposition to resist (unconditioned independence by the resistive character of the citizenry; Chapter 5 abstract, per the Cambridge University Press web page; tier C). This series' third question looks only at the construct's configuration: whether the party questioned can cancel it on its own. Whether residents ask, and whether they resist, is their own affair (Z36), and does not enter the criterion of this question. Whether the two answer the same question is registered in §8.
This section has done two things: for every control, the three things must be statable; the three conditions are extended from being questioned to efficacy (extension; own undertaking). There are three things it has not done: the four functions are candidates, and are not claimed to be exhaustive; beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), whether every level of government and every kind of decision must have every one of them, and to what degree, this paper does not prove; and being able to state the three things does not certify that any actual government, or any actual democracy, has achieved them.
G36a The functions of control (following Paper 1, G5). Classed by what they act on, there are four candidates: on decisions and rules, reversal, rectification and reopening the agenda; on positions (grant and the holding of office), revocation of authorization (G37); on the relation itself, exit (G39); on the forward conduction of acts, interruption (G40). Of each, three things must be statable: who can activate it; what actual efficacy it has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own. Where these cannot be stated, that function is there in name only. The connection between control and the three conditions of the channel is the extension of the three conditions of the correction half of the fifth ought from being questioned to efficacy: whether efficacy comes into play is not monopolized by the party questioned; the step that activates the efficacy is within reach of those affected, or they can reach a position that can activate it without waiting for the consent of the party questioned; using it brings no retaliation (extension; own undertaking). These three are conditions for determining that a control stands; they say only that on the side of efficacy at least these must be guarded, not that with them control is sufficient; it is a reading within the fifth ought, not a further ought. The functions of control can be carried jointly by several positions. Control does not mean that every person affected has a veto, nor that each time a change must be made as someone wishes; that no decision has been reversed does not by itself diagnose a failure of control, and a reversal does not by itself prove that control is there. The four are candidates and are not claimed to be exhaustive; beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), which of these every level and kind of decision must at least have is not proved; nothing here certifies that any actual democracy has been achieved.
§3 Bearing Can Be Located; Exemption from Questioning Cannot Be Made Final
A month after the report was published, the emergency order was terminated and the school returned. The ombudsman closed the case.
Once the case is closed, can the matter still be asked about?
It can be closed, and it should be possible to close it. Institution Theory says that "a particular matter can be answered and closed"; what persists is the conditions of the channel and of the burden of explanation, "not the endless re-asking of the same matter" (Z35a). The ombudsman need not keep the file on this matter open forever.
But what closing a case closes is this matter, not the position. Institution Theory says that after a case is closed, "under new evidence or new problems the matter can be questioned again" (Z37). One matter in Apple City falls exactly here. In Year 2, Apple City requisitioned a vegetable plot by the river to build the flood levee; compensation was at market price, and the farmer who worked the plot objected: market price would not buy land that was likewise by the river and could be watered. Paper 2 has read this case: compensation at market price answered how much the loss was worth in money, and did not answer where the alternative path lay; the loss and the remedy for that plot had not yet been booked (Paper 2, §4). In Year 5 the flood came, and this stretch of levee held. After the flood, the farmer questioned the compensation once more.
The decision on compensation had been made long before. Is his asking again a re-asking of the same matter? If the question back then had been answered to the point, and he brought only the same question again, that matter need not be reopened. But what was answered back then was how much the loss was worth in money, and what he asked was where the alternative path lay; that question was not answered then, so his asking again is not a re-asking, but the original item still standing: "When something raised goes unanswered, the original item remains" (Z35a). If he brings new evidence, or asks about a new matter, it can also be questioned again. What matters is this: whether it can be asked again is not for the place that made the decision in the first place to say on its own.
Decisions can be final; positions cannot. A matter can be closed; no position may monopolize the power to shut the door, and shut out all later asking along with it.
Who questions the questioner. The ombudsman is a position too, and its closing of a case can also be wrong. Who questions it? It is independent of the mayor; when it is itself questioned, independence must be checked again against it (§1). But this question need not be pushed ever upward, to a last position that is no longer questioned. Questioning does not need an unquestionable endpoint in order to stand (own undertaking; the grounds are in Institution Theory Paper 6: an institution cannot acquire the standing of permanent exemption from questioning, Z37). In answering Schmitt, Paper 5, §4, left to this place the question of why no final judge is needed; this passage answers it. A construct's configuration ought to place every position under some channel it cannot itself close. What several channels make together is a net, not a ladder with one person sitting at the top.
With Hobbes. The Law Series Supplement has already conversed with Hobbes on the unquestionable sovereign (§2). That paper says that in the ashes of civil war "an unquestionable sovereign is better than an unbounded showdown," that this judgment was rational in his environment, and that the paper does not criticize it; where they part is that law must be questionable, and the Leviathan is only a waypoint. Here this paper only points back to it, and adds one sentence that falls in this section: Hobbes closes the chain of questioning with an unquestionable position; this series does not close it, but lets the chain be open to questioning everywhere within a net, and bearing still lands somewhere.
Where the bearing falls. There are several accounts in this matter, each with its own source. The mayor renews the order every thirty days, and a renewal needs a present ground: that is an account for his position. The City Council can terminate an emergency order by a two-thirds majority, and right up to the spring of Year 6 it did not terminate it; whether it has an account here, and which, must be checked by what it knew at the time and what it could do. The hotline's not taking up the complaint, and whether it should have referred it and did not, is an account for the place where the hotline sits. The students' move to classes in a temporary school building on the east side of the city: which place that arrangement came from, and what the arrangement itself is like, is an account for that place. How Apple City configured these several places together is an account for Apple City as a construct. Institution Theory says: "the construct's name does not shield an individual responsibility that has independent grounds, and the construct's failure is not automatically transferred onto any one person" (Z6). The several accounts are each checked by source, authority, registration and the facts of conduct, and none settles another's (Paper 1, G2).
So the question Action Theory handed over, whether questioning has a final bearer, has to be answered on two readings. If "a final bearer" means a position where the accounts are all gathered in and the door is shut, this series does not have it, and does not want it. If it means that every account lands on a position that can be named, then it does, and the construct's configuration ought to see that it does. Bearing can be located; exemption from questioning cannot be made final. The separation of these two readings is undertaken by this series.
One more point. Terminating the emergency order and returning the school is also a disposition. If this disposition draws lines by rules, categories and belonging, for instance who may still stay in the shelter and whose classes resume first, it too is a new division, and leaves its own unaccommodated residue (Z35, Z35a). Suppose that at that time there were still residents in the shelter with nowhere to return to: where they go is another question. Questioning does not settle division; when this matter is closed, the next will come. This is not the failure of questioning; it is why questioning cannot stop.
G36 Bearing can be located; exemption from questioning cannot be made final. Decisions can be final: a particular matter can be answered and closed. Positions cannot be final: no position may monopolize the power to shut the door; after a case is closed, it can be questioned again under new evidence or new problems, an original item not answered at the time remains, and whether it can be asked again is not decided by the place that made the decision on its own. Bearing falls on the several positions, as in Institution Theory Z6, and is booked separately by source, authority, registration and the facts of conduct (Paper 1, G2). If "a final bearer" means a position where the accounts are all gathered in and the door is shut, this series does not have it; if it means that every account lands on a position that can be named, it does (this split reading is undertaken by this series). Questioning does not need an unquestionable endpoint (own undertaking): a construct's configuration ought to place every position under some channel it cannot itself close. Nor does questioning settle division.
§4 Authorization
Where does the mayor's power to issue emergency orders come from? From the Apple City Emergency Ordinance. The ordinance was enacted by the City Council: it grants the mayor the power to declare a state of emergency and to renew it every thirty days, and at the same time keeps two means in reserve: the City Council can terminate an emergency order by a two-thirds majority, and can also, through the procedure for making ordinances, amend or repeal this grant (Paper 5).
This section answers the item "revocation of authorization" in the overall table.
Rights Theory, discussing whether encapsulation can be surrendered, separated two things: "Revocable authorization is exercise: the subject commits certain decisions to another position while retaining revocation and exit — this is one way of disposing of its own exercise under its own law, and authorization lies within the space of limits. The surrender of position that seals revocation and exit is another matter" (Rights Theory P5 §III).
The subject term of this sentence is a subject, and what it disposes of is its own exercise. The City Council granting the mayor the power to issue emergency orders is not a thing of this kind: the City Council is not disposing of its own first-person exercise, and what the mayor receives is not any one person's decisions. From a subject disposing of its own exercise to a grant between public positions, both the subject term and the object have changed, and a bridge is still owed in between. This bridge is undertaken by this series (extension; own undertaking). It must be able to state three things: who grants the authorization, what is granted, and who terminates or alters it, by what procedure.
Take Apple City. Who grants the authorization: the City Council, through the Emergency Ordinance. What is granted: the power to declare a state of emergency and to renew it, together with measures such as curfew, requisition and evacuation (on what grounds the measures themselves stand goes back to Paper 2). Who terminates or alters it, by what procedure: revocation can fall in three places.
- On a single exercise: the City Council terminates an emergency order by a two-thirds majority;
- on the grant itself: the City Council, through the procedure for making ordinances, amends or repeals this grant in the ordinance;
- on the holding of office: the mayor is elected, and residents can initiate a recall under the ordinance (§7).
By the three questions of §2, the three differ from one another. In efficacy, the first acts on actions, the second on rules, the third on the holding of office. The first, terminating an emergency order, acts on a single decision, and so also falls under the first item of the overall table; the slots are divided by what they act on, and do not require that one act fall in only one slot (§7). In the conditions of not being cancelled: for terminating an emergency order, the ordinance states that the City Council can terminate it by a two-thirds majority; for amending the ordinance and repealing the grant, whether the mayor has a veto in the procedure for making ordinances is not set in this paper, and that is exactly the point that must be checked; a recall vote is held as soon as enough signatures are gathered, without waiting for the mayor's consent.
Why must a public grant retain the function of revocability? That sentence of Rights Theory gives a structure: hand over, while retaining revocation. The judgment of line-crossing it gives cannot be carried over directly here, because here no one's encapsulation is being overwritten. This series' reason lies on the side of Institution Theory's fifth ought. An irrevocable public grant would make the grant itself permanently exempt from correction: the grantee would hold a power that no one can take back, and the door would be shut at the layer of the grant. Institution Theory says that an institution may not "close off the conditions of questioning and correction" on the grounds that it claims to cultivate, that it has already reformed, or that its aims are right (Z37). From the conditions of a construct's questioning and correction to whether a grant within the construct is revocable, both the subject term and the object have changed (extension; own undertaking); the grounds are the same as in §2: the party questioned may not monopolize the power to shut the door (Institution Theory Paper 0, §10.2). To grant without keeping revocation is to hand the key to that door over to the grantee as well. What this reason supports is that the grant itself can be changed: its scope, conditions and continued existence can be amended or taken back; it does not reach so far as to require that this public function itself be capable of being abolished as a whole.
This requirement has its scope, and it must be stated at once. Revocability does not mean that every person affected is a direct grantor of every public power. The parent's child went to that school, and the requisition fell on her; but the power to issue emergency orders was not granted by her, and she has no power of her own to take it back. What she has is questioning: she asked, the ombudsman inquired, and an explanation came (§1). Nor does revocability mean that an individual can render a decision void at will (Paper 1, G6). Revocation goes through procedure, and the procedure itself must also be open to questioning.
When two-thirds cannot be mustered. Suppose that the majority of the City Council belongs to the mayor's party, and two-thirds can never be mustered (Paper 5, §4, has used this supposition). Belonging to the same party does not by itself prove that the majority acts solely on the mayor's will; whether it does is checked by the reading of Paper 2, G16. If the check finds that it does, termination needs two-thirds, and amending or repealing the grant must also get past that majority; as a structure, within the city, when the emergency ends is decided by the party taking the measures, and Paper 5, G32, has not been achieved at the city level (Paper 5, §4). This is close in shape to Levee Street: the function is written on paper, and whether its efficacy comes into play is held by a position standing on the same side as the party questioned.
If the supposition of Paper 5, §4, is checked and found to be of that kind, who makes up this slot, and at which level, is answered here. By §2, the functions of control can be carried jointly by several positions. This paper establishes only functions, and does not fix forms.
- Within the city, there must be a position of confirmation or termination that does not depend on the party taking the measures: it checks whether the emergency is still there, and if it finds that it is not, the emergency order must stop, and this step passes neither through the mayor nor through the majority that stands with him. What body it is this paper does not fix.
- The outer layer has two places. The state ombudsman is within reach, and taking up a complaint needs no consent from the mayor, but its efficacy reaches only to reasons: calling for files, requiring explanation, publishing reports (§1). The state courts reach to actions, but for everyday matters they are distant, expensive and slow; this is a fact of the Apple City case (Paper 4, §3). Together, the two give one that is within reach but reaches only to reasons, and one that reaches to actions but is distant (§2).
- On the voters' side, there are also recall and re-election at the end of a term (§7). What they revoke is the holding of office; they do not directly terminate an emergency order; a recall needs signatures to be gathered, and a re-election has to wait for the term to run out.
When the level changes, independence must be checked again against the mayor (Institution Theory Z34; Paper 4, G25). Whether this makes up enough is checked separately for the case at hand; this paper points as far as these places and no further.
What form revocation takes this paper does not fix; non-renewal at expiry, amendment of the ordinance, recall and annulment by a court can all be revocation, and which is used is handed to specific theories of institutions. What this paper requires is that a single exercise, the grant itself and the holding of office each have a route that can be questioned and can alter it, and that the three things can be stated. Of these, the route that falls on the grant itself must be able to have efficacy on the scope, conditions or continued existence of the grant, and may re-grant it elsewhere; it is not required that this public function itself can be abolished as a whole. Being able to revoke only a single exercise, or only to replace the person who holds the office, does not by itself satisfy this layer. The functions can be carried jointly.
With Rousseau. The Law Series Supplement has already conversed with Rousseau on the social contract and the general will (§7); what that paper presses is "who defined the general will?" Here this paper only points back to it. Rousseau has another passage that lies closer to this section; it is a different topic from the same author, and this paper takes it up here. He says that the act by which a people puts itself under a prince is not a contract: "It is simply and solely a commission, an employment ... This power it can limit, modify or recover at pleasure," where "it" is the Sovereign (The Social Contract III.1, trans. Cole; tier A). He also says that "the depositaries of the executive power are not the people's masters, but its officers; that it can set them up and pull them down when it likes" (III.18, same source). To guard against the government's usurpation, he wants periodical assemblies, preferably ones that need no summoning, so that the prince cannot stop them without openly declaring himself a law-breaker; and their opening should put "two propositions that may not be suppressed" (ibid.): whether the Sovereign wishes to keep the present form of government, and whether the people wishes to leave the administration with those now charged with it.
The common question is clear: how public power that has been granted can be taken back. The agreement goes as far as two points. One: the government is entrusted, and the grant can be taken back; this section says so too. The other is finer: Rousseau keeps the occasions of revocation out of the government's hands; the assemblies need no summoning, and the two questions may not be suppressed. This is exactly the third question of §2: the function of revocation cannot be cancelled by the party questioned on its own.
They part in three places. First, who revokes. For Rousseau it is the Sovereign: the people in assembly, the general will. This series sets up no "we" to revoke: "Consensus does not automatically generate a third first-person legislator" (Conflict Treatise §24), as the Prequel, §3, has already used it; who gives voice to "what the people want" must itself be questioned, and this is exactly the point the Law Series Supplement, §7, presses. Revocation falls on positions and procedures that can be named: the City Council, the recall vote. Second, whether revocation is itself questioned. For Rousseau the Sovereign can, as a matter of right, take back at will, unbound by any contract. He grants too that such changes are always dangerous; but, he says, "the circumspection this involves is a maxim of policy and not a rule of right," and he requires the observance of "all the formalities necessary to distinguish a regular and legitimate act from a seditious tumult" (III.18, same source). What this series wants is a further layer: whichever position revocation falls on, that position and that procedure are themselves open to questioning. The parting lies in the authority of revocation and the manner of review, not in one side having reasons and procedures and the other none. Third, form. Rousseau gave periodical assemblies and the two questions; this series does not fix forms.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). If revocation is not in the people's hands but falls on a position such as a two-thirds majority of the City Council, revocation itself can be seized by those in power; the supposition in which two-thirds cannot be mustered is exactly this. Only if the Sovereign can take it back at any time is authorization truly revocable.
Reply. That the position of revocation can be seized this series grants; it has just checked that supposition above. The remedy is not to set up yet another unquestionable revoker, for the reasons given in §3; the remedy is to have the function of revocation itself meet the three conditions and be open to questioning, and, when it is seized, to have it made up jointly by positions that do not depend on the party questioned and by the outer layer. This is a difference of route, not a refutation; for Rousseau, how the Sovereign's authority is kept from being usurped by the government is exactly what his eighteenth chapter sets out to handle.
G37 Authorization is revocable. The revocable authorization of which Rights Theory P5 §III speaks is a subject disposing of its own exercise under its own law; a bridge is still owed before it reaches public power (extension; own undertaking): every public grant must be able to state who grants the authorization, what is granted, and who terminates or alters it, by what procedure. A public grant must retain the function of revocability; the reason lies not in the criterion of line-crossing but in this: the party questioned may not monopolize the power to shut the door (extension; own undertaking). Revocation can fall on a single exercise, on the grant itself, or on the holding of office. This does not mean that every person affected is a direct grantor of every public power, nor that an individual can render a decision void at will; revocation goes through procedure, and the procedure too is open to questioning. If the position on which revocation falls is held by a majority standing on the same side as the party questioned, the corresponding function of confirmation or termination must be carried jointly by positions that do not depend on the party questioned and by the outer layer; only the function is established, and whether this makes up enough is checked separately, case by case. What form revocation takes is not fixed; a single exercise, the grant itself and the holding of office must each have a route that can be questioned and can alter it, and of these, the route that falls on the grant itself must be able to have efficacy on the scope, conditions or continued existence of the grant, and may re-grant it elsewhere, without its being required that this public function itself can be abolished as a whole; being able to revoke only a single exercise, or only to replace the person who holds the office, does not by itself satisfy the layer of the grant.
§5 Capture
The Economics series has a sentence: "Institutions can be captured." (Economics P2 §5.4) What that section says is that when the suppressing party happens to hold the institution's enforcement power, the institution itself can become a tool of suppression (paraphrased; the original sentence carries a numbered term, and its subject term is written as the suppressing party, following the context of that section; not quoted). The examples it gives are these: "Judicial independence can be eroded; FOI requests can be stalled by bureaucratic procedure until they are useless; whistleblower hotlines can exist on paper only; protection orders can go unenforced" (ibid.). That section draws on real empirical research; this section takes only its structure.
What does capture mean? This series focuses on two readings. One is the channel of questioning controlled by the party questioned: it can seal off review of itself on its own (Institution Theory Z34). The other is the party questioned controlling delivery, and the position of a right being hollowed out as a result: the embedding remains, the delivery is gone (Paper 3, G19). Rights Theory has defined hollowing-out: "Hollowing-out is power backing falling below threshold while the institutional shell remains, the position reverting to a declaration, operation gone." (Rights Theory P3 F11, §II) Capture can cause hollowing-out; hollowing-out by itself does not certify capture: when staff and procedures fall short, delivery can also fall below threshold, and there need not be anyone in control there.
Read the four examples from Economics by these two. Judicial independence being eroded is the first kind: the position of review has fallen into the hands of the party under review. Protection orders going unenforced: the order is still written, the leg that delivers it is gone, and it reverts to a declaration; this is first of all hollowing-out; under the antecedent of that section, the one holding enforcement power is precisely the suppressing party, and delivery fell below threshold in its hands, and only so is it read as the second kind. The middle two depend on their source. FOI requests stalled until they are useless, whistleblower hotlines existing on paper only: if the stalling and the existence on paper come from the hand of the party questioned, they are the first kind; if it is only that the staff and procedures that deliver them have fallen short while the shell remains, they are first registered as hollowing-out (Paper 3, G19), and only with material showing the party questioned controlling delivery are they read as the second kind of capture; the two kinds can also be present in one and the same matter. Rights Theory has one more kind of failure, called de-righting: compulsion persists while the relevant network no longer treats the recipient as a holder who can initiate requests on the strength of the position (Rights Theory P3 F11); that kind is listed separately only where it fits, and is not forced onto these four examples. This division is this series' reading by Z34 and Rights Theory P3, not the division of the original Economics text. The two readings are focused on, and are not claimed to be exhaustive.
Back to Apple City. Complaints about the heating subsidy are taken up by the Housing Department's internal complaints desk (for the three things of the subsidy matter, see Paper 1, §9, and the opening of Paper 3; here only the matter of the desk is added). The desk sits in the Housing Department, and what is complained about is the Housing Department. Is this capture?
Not on this ground alone. Institution Theory says: "Independence is functional and does not require being outside the institution; what it guards against is the party under review sealing off review of itself on its own" (Z34). Look at it in two branches.
By the matter of the Introduction, residents could in any case go directly to the state ombudsman, and taking up a complaint needs no consent from the party complained against; the same goes for complaints about the subsidy. The desk is in the Housing Department, but it is not the only door; the Housing Department can shut its own desk, but cannot shut the ombudsman's door. This is not capture. This judgment goes only as far as capture; whether Apple City needs a further position of being questioned not in the Housing Department's hands is, by Paper 4, G26, taken up in Paper 3, §8.
Suppose that the ordinance laid down that complaints about the subsidy could be made only through the Housing Department's desk, that the desk could close cases itself, and that referral to the state ombudsman required the Housing Department's consent. The three together: the only door, closing its own cases, and referral out needing its nod. The party questioned can seal off review of itself on its own: this is the first kind of capture.
The desk in the two branches carries the same sign and sits in the same place. What divides them is whether the door is the only one, who can close cases, and whether matters can be referred out. Structure is not certified by the name of a body: sitting in the department complained against does not prove capture; being named an oversight office or a review office does not prove independence.
Within the latter supposition, the first kind of capture can be layered over hollowing-out. The assessment post for the subsidy later stood empty for three years, and the backlog of applications went unprocessed (the opening of Paper 3); this is first registered as hollowing-out; there is no material here on why the post was never filled, and it is not read as capture. Suppose that, at that time, complaints could also go only through that controlled door: with the position of the subsidy hollowed out, and the door for questioning it in the Housing Department's hands, the hollowed-out place is kept behind the door, invisible from outside. The two layered together are harder to question than either appearing alone.
There is one more common confusion. Someone sues the City Police Department, and the judge hearing the case was nominated by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council; Paper 2, §10, has said that this does not automatically prove capture, in the words of How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible (Foundational Paper 5; cited as F5): "that a third party was nominated by one side does not by itself prove it has been captured by that side; what must be examined is whether it still acts solely on that side's will, and whether it holds independent procedure and applicable authority" (F5 v2 §5.4). In the supposition of §4, belonging to the same party does not itself count as evidence, and is checked by this same sentence.
Institution Theory Paper 5 has said that arrangements left for cultivation between one another "can also be captured" (Z32). With a government that holds compulsion, what is captured is the door of questioning and the position of a right; behind the door there is compulsion, and the consequences are heavier.
G38 Capture. Institutions can be captured (Economics P2 §5.4). This series focuses on two readings, and does not claim them to be exhaustive: the channel of questioning controlled by the party questioned, which can then seal off review of itself on its own (Institution Theory Z34); the party questioned controlling delivery, the position of a right being hollowed out as a result, the embedding remaining and the delivery gone (Paper 3, G19). Capture can cause hollowing-out; hollowing-out by itself does not certify capture: where delivery has fallen below threshold, it is first registered as hollowing-out, and only with material showing the party questioned controlling delivery is it read as capture. The two can be present in one and the same matter. Capture is judged by structure, not by the name of a body or where it sits: a complaints desk set up in the department complained against is not in itself capture; suppose that it is the only door, can close cases itself, and that referral out needs its consent: then the party questioned can seal off review of itself on its own, and that is the first kind of capture. Relations of nomination and of party membership do not automatically prove capture either. The examples of Economics P2 §5.4 are read, by the division of Z34 and Rights Theory P3, as a controlled channel and as hollowing-out, with de-righting listed separately only where it fits; this division is this series' reading.
§6 The Cost of Exit
The lease for Apple City's public housing says: a tenant who leaves early must pay twelve months' rent. A tenant has found a job in Willow Ferry and wants to move there. She cannot afford twelve months' rent.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: this tenant. Which line: the line of not sealing off the channel of exit (Rights Theory P5 F21); in form she can leave, in fact she cannot afford to leave. Baseline: being able to leave after a reasonable period of notice.
This section answers the item "exit" in the overall table, and also takes up the item Action Theory handed over: offering exit in form while in fact sealing it off at a ruinous cost (Introduction).
The criterion is already there. Rights Theory says that a constraint, to count as a limit, must be one that "does not seal the subject's structural channel for exiting, refusing, or revoking a standing bond"; "Whatever crosses these is violation" (Rights Theory P5 F21). On Accountability · Wei, when it reached this point, said that the criterion had already been given upstream, and that "this study need only cite it, and waits neither on a separate establishing here nor on some further paper downstream" (On Accountability, Reserved item three). This paper cites it too, and does not establish it anew.
But "sealing off" in the criterion must be read precisely. Rights Theory says in the same place: "Sealing the exit channel likewise: it is not the presence in a relation of terms, procedures, conditions, or costs of exit; it is the subject no longer holding a structural channel for refusing, revoking a standing bond, or passing into a reviewable procedure" (Rights Theory P5 §III, F21 elaboration). Having to pay an early-termination penalty to leave is not in itself sealing off; that there is a cost does not mean she cannot leave.
"Possible in principle" does not mean "affordable." Economics speaks very directly to the same question: "'possible in principle' does not mean 'affordable.'" Exit costs, it says, "can be high enough to be practically equivalent to lock-in" (Economics P2 §5.1). It breaks exit costs into three components, retaliation risk, evidence and verifiability constraints, and economic lock-in; the three form a closed loop: "retaliation makes you afraid to leave, evidence difficulty makes you unable to leave effectively, economic lock-in makes you unable to afford leaving" (§5.2). That section speaks of getting out of economic relations; here it is cited as concurring.
Put the two together, and what has to be asked becomes clear. Not whether there is a cost, but whether the cost is so high that she no longer holds a structural channel: being able to leave, or, when she cannot, a route that passes her situation into a reviewable procedure. Twelve months' rent is, for her, of the economic lock-in kind. Which side this case falls on must be checked against the actual configuration of public housing: who sets the early-termination penalty, whether it can be reduced, waived or paid in installments, and whether there is a route of review that can take the matter, a job found in Willow Ferry and a penalty she cannot pay, to a place the Housing Department cannot close by itself. None of this is set in this paper, nor does this paper make a complete adjudication on anyone's behalf. What must be made clear is what is checked: not why she did not save, but whether she can leave, and, when she cannot, whether there is a route.
Exit, by the three questions of §2. Activation: in the hands of the one who leaves. Efficacy: it acts on the relation itself; the lease ends, and she can go to Willow Ferry and take up that job. Not being cancelled: what must be checked is whether the party being left can cancel it on its own, by pricing or by approval. The lease is administered by the Housing Department; if the penalty is set so that she cannot afford to leave, and there is no route of appeal, the function of exit has been cancelled in the Housing Department's hands, while remaining in form.
For the clause of the residential complex, only the third question is added here. Paper 4 has already read how the line is to be read: requiring consent is not yet sealing off in itself; what must be looked at is what route an owner still has after being refused (Paper 4, §6). What is added here is this: an owner's sale of a home requires the owners' committee's written consent, and the committee can refuse "to maintain harmony in the complex"; approval of the function of exit is held by the party being left, and it can withhold approval on a reason whose bounds cannot be stated. Whether the party being left can cancel exit on its own by approval is exactly the point that must be checked. This is close in shape to the capture of §5, only what is shut is not the door for asking but the door for leaving.
This paper takes up only the question of whether exit is actually usable. How protective arrangements are to be designed so that an exit on paper is actually usable in operation, how high the penalty is set, how reductions are reviewed, and how the procedure for passing matters out is set up, are handed to specific theories of institutions.
A difference in restatement, registered here. Action Theory Paper 0 writes that this concern "has already been handed over from On Accountability to the Theory of Government"; the original text of On Accountability, Reserved item three, does not name the Theory of Government, and says only that it leaves the matter to "the later papers that handle that layer expressly," and what it hands on is only the design half. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already registered a reading of this point (§10.2): it does not judge that reassignment void because the original text does not write "the Theory of Government," nor does it reconcile the two sides. This paper follows it: it takes up the question of whether exit is actually usable, and hands the design half to specific theories of institutions.
With Hirschman. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with Hirschman on the side of voice (§7); here this paper only points back to it, and takes up the side of exit. Hirschman says: "The voice option is the only way in which dissatisfied customers or members can react whenever the exit option is unavailable"; "This is very nearly the situation in such basic social organizations as the family, the state, or the church" (Exit, Voice, and Loyalty, ch. 3, p. 33, per the Harvard University Press edition of 1970; tier B).
The common question: the availability and cost of exit. That at the level of the state exit is almost unavailable, the two sides see alike; How Is Institution Possible (Foundational Paper 6; cited as F6) also says that at the layer of the nation-state "Exit is constrained, so the check of voting with one's feet fails and the check must come from elsewhere" (F6 §3.1b).
Where they part must be written against his question. What Hirschman asks is how, when an organization declines, exit and voice bring it back (recorded in Institution Theory Paper 0, §7). What this section asks is how exit is kept from being offered in form and sealed off in fact. The former question looks at effects; the latter looks at the line: sealing off exit is a violation, whether or not sealing it off helps the organization recover. That this series keeps exit is its normative choice, not Hirschman's judgment of effects; nor can one infer from his book, from exit being possible, that it is affordable.
The strongest objection from the other side (drafted by this paper). In his book he describes a difficulty: when public schools deteriorate, the parents who care most about the quality of education are the first to move their children to private schools, and what the public schools lose is exactly those most willing to fight for them (ch. 4, pp. 45–46, same source, paraphrased). By this reasoning, if the cost of leaving public housing is lowered, the tenants with the most means leave first, and those who remain have even fewer people to speak for them. If exit is too cheap, voice is emptied.
Reply. Three points.
- This series does not require exit to be costless. The threshold of the criterion is sealing off, not having a cost; where the penalty is set is design, and effects can enter the judgment there.
- Voice is not kept up by locking people in. The channel of being questioned is there for every government, and does not presuppose that exit is hard (§1; Paper 4, G26, first step).
- Sealing off one person's exit in order to preserve the organization's voice is trading her line for the organization's recovery; the first ought is not discounted for reasons of this kind.
G39 The cost of exit. For exit offered in form and sealed off in fact, the criterion is already in Rights Theory P5 F21: not sealing off the subject's structural channel for exiting, refusing, or revoking a standing bond, and whatever crosses this is violation; sealing off is not the presence in a relation of terms, procedures, conditions or costs of exit, but the subject's no longer holding a structural channel for refusing, revoking a standing bond, or passing into a reviewable procedure (F21 elaboration). "Possible in principle" does not mean "affordable": exit costs can be high enough to be practically equivalent to lock-in; retaliation, evidence difficulty and economic lock-in are the three points to be checked item by item (Economics P2 §5.1, §5.2, cited as concurring). Exit, as one function of control, is activated by the one who leaves and acts on the relation itself; what must be checked is whether the party being left can cancel it on its own, by pricing or by approval. This paper takes up only the question of whether it is actually usable; how protective arrangements are to be designed is handed to specific theories of institutions.
§7 The Position of the Interrupt-Right Standing
Apple City's mayor is elected for a four-year term, and an election is held as soon as the term ends. Residents can initiate a recall under the ordinance: once signatures from a set proportion of the voters are gathered, a recall vote is held.
Three things first. Whom it concerns: the voters; the mayor. Which line: no one person's line is involved; what is involved is the structural position of the interrupt-right standing. Baseline: no such arrangement.
This section answers the item "interruption" in the overall table.
Power Theory, at its close, stops at a position called the voting-position: "the institutionalized position at which a subject retains the interrupt-right standing within a group pressure field" (Power Theory P7 §IX.3). One and the same position has two readings: against the common outcome it is power, "my one vote takes part in changing the common outcome"; against group pressure it is a right, "the majority of others cannot fold my position into an uninterrupted forward conduction" (ibid.). Criterion J7 takes up exactly this position.
This series takes only its structure. Power Theory itself says so clearly: "Whether and how an actual institution approaches this structural position is not within this paper's evaluation; the anchor is a structural type, not an institutional instance." "The anchor does not serve as an argument that democracy is the natural terminus of power." And "this paper evaluates no institution's merit, gives no institutional recommendation" (ibid.). This section is the same. Apple City's elections and recall are a fictional arrangement, used to demonstrate the structure; they do not prove any electoral system good, nor do they presuppose that actual democracy has been realized.
What the word "forward conduction" originally says must first be stated precisely. In Power Theory it means a power passing on down the line through the silence and operational recognition of others, meeting no resistance, "with silence as zero-resistance forward transmission" (Power Theory P3 §V (R4)). The voting-position lets each person, under group pressure, keep the standing to interrupt it. This series applies this position to the construct's acts: an act is made through the Mayor's Office and passed on by the tacit acceptance of others; at the end of a term or in a recall, the voters re-register their positions at this point, and the bearer of the acts can be replaced as a result. The original speaks of interruption in a group pressure field; here what is spoken of is the interruption of the construct's acts, and the object has changed (extension; own undertaking). The grounds are the other reading of the same position: my one vote takes part in changing the common outcome. Interruption here means only that the tacit forward acknowledgment, and the incumbent's continued occupation of the position, are broken off; it does not mean making an act under way stop.
Interruption, by the three questions of §2.
Activation: periodic elections need no one to activate them; when the term ends, the election is held; a recall is activated by voters gathering signatures.
Efficacy: on the holding of office, replacement or removal from office; this is the efficacy of revocation of authorization (§4). On the forward conduction of acts: at the point of voting, the voters' positions are re-registered and are not folded in by the majority; this registration is a matter on the voters' side, and what it lands on in the construct is that the bearer of the acts can be replaced as a result, which takes us back to the item of the holding of office. Voting does not make acts stop; an emergency order does not stop because election day has come. On particular decisions it has no direct efficacy: a vote does not reverse the requisition of Levee Street High School.
Not being cancelled: once there are enough signatures, the recall vote is held, without waiting for the mayor's consent; the party being recalled cannot by itself prevent it from happening.
One and the same act can fall in two slots. What a recall revokes is the holding of office, which is the revocation of authorization of §4; it is also in the slot of interruption, because the voters have re-registered their positions at this point. The slots are divided by what they act on, and do not require that each act fall in only one slot.
So, checked by the three questions, in the slot of interruption activation and not being cancelled can be stated; on the question of efficacy, what can be stated all falls elsewhere: replacement and removal are the efficacy of revocation of authorization (§4), and the re-registration of positions is a matter on the voters' side. By §2, where these cannot be stated, that function is there in name only (G36a). Interruption has a structural position in this paper: the voting-position. On this restricted sense, actions have already been excluded; its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found. This differs from rectification and reopening the agenda: for those two, Apple City has not set up a configuration; for interruption, once the restricted sense has narrowed it, its own efficacy finds nowhere to land. §8 registers it accordingly.
This reading has two limits, which must be stated up front.
One is that voting does not issue legitimacy to every decision of the one elected. That the mayor is elected does not mean that every emergency order he renews has the voters' consent. A government's decisions do not take effect by consent in the first place (Paper 1, G6); being elected does not exempt anyone from questioning either.
The other is that interruption is periodic, while questioning is always open. Elections come every four years, and a recall needs signatures to be gathered; meanwhile the emergency order is renewed again and again, and the parent cannot wait for the next vote: what she needs is the channel of §1. Having the voting-position does not replace being open to questioning; being open to questioning does not replace the voting-position either.
In its comparison with Pettit, Institution Theory Paper 0 handed one question on: of the channel, "how it is set up, and whether it is democratic, belongs to specific theories of institutions and to the Theory of Government" (Institution Theory Paper 0, §4.2). This paper answers as far as the structural layer: the voting-position is one structural position that retains the interrupt-right standing, and among the functions of control it occupies the slot of interruption; how it is set up is handed to specific theories of institutions; the merits of actual institutions are not in this series.
G40 The position of the interrupt-right standing. The voting-position is the institutionalized position at which a subject retains the interrupt-right standing within a group pressure field (Power Theory P7 §IX.3; J7 takes up this position). This series takes only its structure and makes no judgment of the merits of institutions; the structural position does not presuppose that actual democracy has been realized. The voting-position is read as the interruption item of control, acting on the forward conduction of the construct's acts: what is interrupted is the tacit forward acknowledgment and the incumbent's continued occupation of the position, not the act, which is not made to stop; the voters, periodically or through a recall, re-register their positions at this point, the bearer of the acts can be replaced as a result, and activation does not wait for the consent of the party questioned (extension; own undertaking). Voting does not issue legitimacy to every decision of the one elected, nor does it replace questioning, which is always open. On whether something is democratic, this series answers as far as the structural layer; the merits of actual institutions are not in this series. Interruption has been given a structural position in this paper; on this restricted sense, the efficacy that can be stated all falls in other slots, and its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found; by G36a it is registered as nominal (§8).
§8 The Close
This paper is the last of the series. The close has three parts: what has been answered, and how far; the work that remains, and where it is sent; back to the main line.
What has been answered, and how far. In the Prequel, this series registered the two slots it has taken on (the Prequel, §9). Neither was handed by name to the Theory of Government by the upstream; both are slots this series has taken on.
One slot is "control within the line." It comes from a research candidate of Institution Theory Paper 0: "The line is not crossed and the channel is there: do those affected have actual control over the relevant power? Wide discretion within authority is one instance." (Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the fourth slot) Paper 1 posed the question on Levee Street (G5), and this paper has answered it (G36a). It has answered this far: the functions of control, classed by what they act on, are four candidates; of each, it must be possible to state who can activate it, what it has efficacy on, and how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own; for reversal, the three things have all been laid out on the Levee Street case and its supposition: activation and efficacy are written down, and whether the procedure can be withdrawn, and whether there will be retaliation, are, as the case stands, marked as not set; revocation of authorization and exit have each been walked through once on a case; interruption has been given a structural position (the voting-position), and on the restricted sense its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found; rectification and reopening the agenda have been taken only as far as what must be asked, since Apple City has not set up a configuration for them. By G36a's own standard, rectification, reopening the agenda and interruption remain nominal in this paper. The connection between control and the three conditions of the channel is written as an extension within the fifth ought: the three conditions are extended from being questioned to efficacy (extension; own undertaking); it says only that on the side of efficacy at least these three must be guarded; whether this is sufficient has not been judged. It goes this far and no further: the four are not claimed to be exhaustive; beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), which of these every level and kind of decision must at least have has not been proved; for how far control must go to count as actual, there is no scale; nor is it certified that any actual government has achieved it.
The other slot is the one within "the guardian network" that belongs to the government as a construct. Value Theory sent how a guardian ought to act, and what duties a guardian network bears at a subject-to-be, to the practical critique (Value Theory P3 V38 and §VIII). What The Second Critique actually registers is this: if the question of how a guardian ought to act is addressed to others, it is lateral, and is not discussed; the inside-out face falls within the own law of whoever has adopted, and The Second Critique writes that "this is a reading, not a delivery taken on Value Theory's behalf"; the guardian network belongs to the group and institutional layer, and is entered as no address yet (The Second Critique, Ch. 5 §3, Appendix II; Ch. 6 §7). This series takes on only the slot within it that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch, because what the upstream sent was guardianship at a subject-to-be; Paper 2 answers it (G12a): entry into the slot is by function, not by the name of the setting, and the need for substitute exercise is not determined by the person's own disagreement; the three items to be proved stay in the proof-task chain: which function, why substitute exercise is needed at this moment, and who exercises it for the time being, under what authority; the root is in the standing of the person in whose stead it is exercised; the limits are that it is oriented toward return, is not drawn once and for all by a binary threshold externally fixed, non-rebuttable, and used uniformly across situations, and does not decide for him what he is to become; caregivers, the guardian network and review nodes are kept apart. The branch of those whose gate already self-exercises but who for a time cannot exercise it themselves is something this series has derived further from the upstream (extension; own undertaking), and is not within what it has taken on. It goes this far and no further: it does not take on the guardian's personal ought; what duties the guardian network as a whole bears it does not settle on the Critiques' behalf; states in which it cannot be judged whether recovery is possible, Paper 2 does not judge.
The work that remains, and where it is sent. Following the practice of Value Theory Paper 0, registration is in six slots: identities are sorted first, then registered (Value Theory Paper 0, §6). Institution Theory Paper 0 has a sentence that is used here as it stands: "What the six slots distinguish is the nature of what was not continued; they are not six blanks that every series is to fill" (Institution Theory Paper 0, §11).
The first slot, the remainder this construct has itself left this time. Five items.
- Control has no scale. The three questions can state whether a function is there; they cannot state whether it is enough.
- The connection between control and the three conditions this paper answers only within the fifth ought (§2, extension). This series adds no sixth heading (Paper 3, G17), and whether a further ought is needed beyond the fifth it cannot itself judge; this is left by the constraint of this construct, and is also what remains of the original question of the slot taken on, after it has been answered (Institution Theory Paper 0, §11, the fourth slot).
- For three instances of compulsion, the retracing reads only as far as "the maintenance of co-constructive space," and is not complete: the reading of the land requisition in Paper 2, §4; the candidate for compensation in Paper 2, §5; and the part of taxation levied for conditions on the side of striving for in Paper 3, §7 (providing conditions goes one step further than maintaining; Paper 3, G20a). The land requisition is Paper 2's reading, the compensation has only been set up as a candidate, and the step for the taxation is marked (extension; own undertaking); none of the three claims to have been answered. Until the retracing is complete, this series gives no warrant for the qualification of these three instances of compulsion; they are left as a remainder.
- "From the city level up" and "a residential complex that enforces its own covenant reaches the threshold" are this series' normative undertaking; how far "the outer layer is out of reach" holds in fact from place to place, this series has given no general method of checking, and this does not change the conclusion of that undertaking (Paper 4, G26).
- The grouping under "holding to." This series groups under "holding to" the things that are not discounted for lack of resources and do not stop in an emergency, a grouping wider than Institution Theory's word (the Prequel, §8); this grouping is itself a division, and what it leaves has not been counted item by item.
The second slot, objects adjacent to the jurisdiction and not handled here. Two items.
- Distributive justice (Paper 3). This series does not set up one of its own.
- Whether machines can be participants in institutions. That question belongs to the layer of "what an institution is and on what grounds it stands" (F6 §7, first open question), and is not in the Theory of Government; Paper 1 took up only the side of tools and contracting (Paper 1, G8).
The third slot, conclusions that have reached their limit. Three items.
- Rules cannot do judgment in anyone's place (Paper 1, G3, following Action Theory Paper 1, D6). So this series will never be a manual of judgment: the kind that substitutes rules for judgment cannot be written, by D6; the kind that teaches judgment this series does not write (Paper 1, §3).
- The guarantee is not a sufficient condition (Paper 3, G22): this series will not give a list of the form "guaranteed, therefore legitimate."
- Exemption from questioning cannot be made final (G36). It is not that the final person has not yet been found; this series does not set up such a position, and does not want one (G36; Paper 5, §4).
The fourth slot, research candidates this series proposes without handing them over. One item: whether there are functions beyond the four functions of control; and, beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), which of these every level and kind of decision must at least have.
The fifth slot, handovers whose address is already fixed. The Theory of the State; specific theories of institutions and jurisprudence; the Critiques; the critique of judgment. See the Interfaces at the end, item by item. An address being fixed is not the same as being settled.
The sixth slot, questions that came to light only on looking back. One item: Pettit hands the unconditioned element to the character of the citizens, while this series places the third question on the construct's configuration (§2). Whether the two answer the same question has not been judged; what this rests on goes only as far as the abstract.
By the rule of Value Theory Paper 0, of the six slots only the fifth is a forward assignment; the registrations in the other slots are not promises about future writing (Value Theory Paper 0, §7).
Back to the main line. The main line of the whole series is one sentence (the Prequel, §8):
Toward its internal subjects, a government holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; its judgments cross no line, must be explained, and remain open to questioning.
Holding to, in this series, groups the things that are not discounted for lack of resources and do not stop in an emergency; the grouping is wider than Institution Theory's word, and is undertaken by this series (the Prequel, §8): its acts cross no line, it guards the lines between its internal subjects, and compulsion itself is a limit too (Paper 2); for the recognition-based rights it has embedded, no de-righting, no empty shell, withdrawal or amendment made in public and open to questioning (Paper 3); the channel of being questioned is not withdrawn (Paper 3, §8; §1 of this paper); the channels of exit and refusal are not sealed off (Paper 2; Paper 4; §6 of this paper); in an emergency these hold as before (Paper 5). Striving for is providing conditions for cultivation according to relational thickness, concerned with conditions, not with outcomes, and leaving room for cultivation between one another (Papers 3 and 4). Its judgments cross no line, must be explained, and remain open to questioning: judgments are made by the people who sit in positions, and answering is stated in three layers, to the construct, to the position, and to the person, to whom no ought is written (Paper 1, G2); every level is open to questioning, and when the level changes, independence must be checked again (Paper 4; §1 of this paper); once the question has been asked, one must still see whether anything can be moved (§2 of this paper).
The direction is the Kingdom of Ends. Institution Theory Paper 0 has already conversed with Kant on this name of his (§3.1); here this paper only points back to it. What this series takes is the layer Institution Theory takes: the Kingdom of Ends is a direction, not an ought, nor a state to be signed off as achieved; "it is made by persons; an institution cannot make it on their behalf, nor does it count as made because an institution declares it" (Z39). So it is with a government: it cannot make it on persons' behalf, nor can it declare it made.
Here this series undertakes one sentence once more, as in Paper 1, §8: a government can never be perfect. Wherever perfection is claimed, the claim itself is a place where questioning is due. So the close of this series lies not in having made it, but in remaining open to questioning.
The state Apple City lies in is called the Kingdom State. That a state is called "Kingdom" does not mean that the kingdom has arrived; a name does not testify for a direction.
The river still runs past Apple City, and downstream lies Willow Ferry. Levee Street High School was returned long ago. The hotline is still in the Mayor's Office, and the Office of the State Ombudsman is still in the Kingdom State. Of the seven papers of this series, not one can turn Apple City into a good person; it has no first person. What they have written down are the few things the constructs along this river must observe: judgments have someone to make them, and once made, someone to answer for them; compulsion has a root, and a limit too; embedded rights leave no empty shell; levels do not swallow one another; emergency measures are re-examined when conditions change, and do not go on on the strength of their origin; when the question can be asked and has been answered, one still has to ask whether there is a route not in the hands of the party questioned. Whether these have been achieved has to be asked, place by place.
G41 The close. Of "control within the line," which this series has taken on, the answer reaches the functions of control and the three questions, and its connection with the three conditions of the channel (extension; own undertaking: the three conditions are extended from being questioned to efficacy, within the fifth ought; whether this is sufficient has not been judged); for reversal, the three things have been laid out on one case (whether the procedure can be withdrawn, and whether there will be retaliation, are marked as not set); revocation of authorization and exit have each been walked through once on a case; interruption has been given a structural position (the voting-position), and on the restricted sense its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found; by G36a's own standard, rectification, reopening the agenda and interruption remain nominal in this paper; what is not proved is whether the functions are exhaustive, which of them every level and kind of decision must at least have beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), and the scale of control. Of the slot within "the guardian network" that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch, the answer reaches the entry into the slot of substitute exercise, the three items to be proved, the root and the limits (Paper 2, G12a); the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises is an extension, and is not within what has been taken on; the guardian's personal ought is not taken on, and nothing is settled on the Critiques' behalf. Where this series stops is registered in six slots, and what the six slots distinguish is the nature of what was not continued; only the handovers whose address is already fixed are forward assignments, and an address being fixed is not the same as being settled. The direction is the Kingdom of Ends: a government cannot make it on persons' behalf, nor can it declare it made. A government can never be perfect; wherever perfection is claimed, the claim itself is a place where questioning is due; so the close lies not in having made it, but in remaining open to questioning. Toward its internal subjects, a government holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; its judgments cross no line, must be explained, and remain open to questioning.
Where This Paper Stops
This paper has proved only these things: the channel of questioning is there at every level of government, meets the three conditions, and has its independence checked again as the level changes, and the separation of powers may be weak while openness to questioning is not; the functions of control are four candidates, of each of which the conditions of activation, efficacy and not being cancelled must be statable, and their connection with the three conditions of the channel is the extension of the three conditions to efficacy (extension; own undertaking, within the fifth ought; whether this is sufficient has not been judged); decisions can be closed, positions cannot be final, and bearing can be located; a public grant must retain the function of revocability, the route that falls on the grant itself must be able to have efficacy on the scope, conditions or continued existence of the grant, revocation goes through procedure, and when the position of revocation is seized, the corresponding function is made up jointly by positions that do not depend on the party questioned and by the outer layer; capture is read with a focus on two kinds, by structure and not by name, and hollowing-out by itself does not certify capture; the sealing off of exit is read by Rights Theory's criterion, and this paper takes up only the question of whether exit is actually usable; of the voting-position only the structure is taken, reading it as the interruption item is an extension, and interruption means only that the tacit forward acknowledgment and the incumbent's continued occupation of the position are broken off.
What it has not proved: how particular systems of election, recall and oversight are to be set up, how protective arrangements are to be designed, and how rectification, reopening the agenda and interruption are to be configured, are handed to specific theories of institutions; interruption has been given a structural position, but its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found, and it stands in the nominal column together with rectification and reopening the agenda; whether the four functions are exhaustive, the minimum configuration for every level and kind of decision beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), and the scale, are registered in §8; what actual governments and actual democracies have achieved this series does not judge.
The series stops here. On what grounds an institution stands is the work of How Is Institution Possible; what an institution is for is the work of Institution Theory; how officeholders and internal subjects are to be is each person's own law, and how one person is to treat another is the work of the Critiques; external relations, borders, membership and war are the work of the Theory of the State. What this series has written is this: to whom, and for what, a government's judgments in concrete situations must answer.
The Eight Propositions of This Paper
G35 At the layer of government, the channel of questioning is there at every level. The channel meets the three conditions of Institution Theory Z34: it is independent of the party questioned, internal subjects can actually initiate it, and initiating it brings no retaliation; independence is functional, is checked against the party actually questioned, and must be checked again when the level changes (Paper 4, G25). Every government, whatever its size, ought to be open to questioning; the separation of powers may weaken with conditions, but this does not. "Open to questioning" means that the channel is always open, for every government and at every time, and being questioned is no evidence of illegitimacy; "must be questioned" means that a verified lapse owes an explanation and a correction, and providing a channel is no certificate of repair. That a channel is independent and within reach does not mean that it has efficacy on decisions; efficacy is checked separately.
G36 Bearing can be located; exemption from questioning cannot be made final. Decisions can be final: a particular matter can be answered and closed. Positions cannot be final: no position may monopolize the power to shut the door; after a case is closed, it can be questioned again under new evidence or new problems, an original item not answered at the time remains, and whether it can be asked again is not decided by the place that made the decision on its own. Bearing falls on the several positions, as in Institution Theory Z6, and is booked separately by source, authority, registration and the facts of conduct (Paper 1, G2). If "a final bearer" means a position where the accounts are all gathered in and the door is shut, this series does not have it; if it means that every account lands on a position that can be named, it does (this split reading is undertaken by this series). Questioning does not need an unquestionable endpoint (own undertaking): a construct's configuration ought to place every position under some channel it cannot itself close. Nor does questioning settle division.
G36a The functions of control (following Paper 1, G5). Classed by what they act on, there are four candidates: on decisions and rules, reversal, rectification and reopening the agenda; on positions (grant and the holding of office), revocation of authorization (G37); on the relation itself, exit (G39); on the forward conduction of acts, interruption (G40). Of each, three things must be statable: who can activate it; what actual efficacy it has on reasons, actions, rules, or the holding of office; how the party questioned cannot cancel it on its own. Where these cannot be stated, that function is there in name only. The connection between control and the three conditions of the channel is the extension of the three conditions of the correction half of the fifth ought from being questioned to efficacy: whether efficacy comes into play is not monopolized by the party questioned; the step that activates the efficacy is within reach of those affected, or they can reach a position that can activate it without waiting for the consent of the party questioned; using it brings no retaliation (extension; own undertaking). These three are conditions for determining that a control stands; they say only that on the side of efficacy at least these must be guarded, not that with them control is sufficient; it is a reading within the fifth ought, not a further ought. The functions of control can be carried jointly by several positions. Control does not mean that every person affected has a veto, nor that each time a change must be made as someone wishes; that no decision has been reversed does not by itself diagnose a failure of control, and a reversal does not by itself prove that control is there. The four are candidates and are not claimed to be exhaustive; beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), which of these every level and kind of decision must at least have is not proved; nothing here certifies that any actual democracy has been achieved.
G37 Authorization is revocable. The revocable authorization of which Rights Theory P5 §III speaks is a subject disposing of its own exercise under its own law; a bridge is still owed before it reaches public power (extension; own undertaking): every public grant must be able to state who grants the authorization, what is granted, and who terminates or alters it, by what procedure. A public grant must retain the function of revocability; the reason lies not in the criterion of line-crossing but in this: the party questioned may not monopolize the power to shut the door (extension; own undertaking). Revocation can fall on a single exercise, on the grant itself, or on the holding of office. This does not mean that every person affected is a direct grantor of every public power, nor that an individual can render a decision void at will; revocation goes through procedure, and the procedure too is open to questioning. If the position on which revocation falls is held by a majority standing on the same side as the party questioned, the corresponding function of confirmation or termination must be carried jointly by positions that do not depend on the party questioned and by the outer layer; only the function is established, and whether this makes up enough is checked separately, case by case. What form revocation takes is not fixed; a single exercise, the grant itself and the holding of office must each have a route that can be questioned and can alter it, and of these, the route that falls on the grant itself must be able to have efficacy on the scope, conditions or continued existence of the grant, and may re-grant it elsewhere, without its being required that this public function itself can be abolished as a whole; being able to revoke only a single exercise, or only to replace the person who holds the office, does not by itself satisfy the layer of the grant.
G38 Capture. Institutions can be captured (Economics P2 §5.4). This series focuses on two readings, and does not claim them to be exhaustive: the channel of questioning controlled by the party questioned, which can then seal off review of itself on its own (Institution Theory Z34); the party questioned controlling delivery, the position of a right being hollowed out as a result, the embedding remaining and the delivery gone (Paper 3, G19). Capture can cause hollowing-out; hollowing-out by itself does not certify capture: where delivery has fallen below threshold, it is first registered as hollowing-out, and only with material showing the party questioned controlling delivery is it read as capture. The two can be present in one and the same matter. Capture is judged by structure, not by the name of a body or where it sits: a complaints desk set up in the department complained against is not in itself capture; suppose that it is the only door, can close cases itself, and that referral out needs its consent: then the party questioned can seal off review of itself on its own, and that is the first kind of capture. Relations of nomination and of party membership do not automatically prove capture either. The examples of Economics P2 §5.4 are read, by the division of Z34 and Rights Theory P3, as a controlled channel and as hollowing-out, with de-righting listed separately only where it fits; this division is this series' reading.
G39 The cost of exit. For exit offered in form and sealed off in fact, the criterion is already in Rights Theory P5 F21: not sealing off the subject's structural channel for exiting, refusing, or revoking a standing bond, and whatever crosses this is violation; sealing off is not the presence in a relation of terms, procedures, conditions or costs of exit, but the subject's no longer holding a structural channel for refusing, revoking a standing bond, or passing into a reviewable procedure (F21 elaboration). "Possible in principle" does not mean "affordable": exit costs can be high enough to be practically equivalent to lock-in; retaliation, evidence difficulty and economic lock-in are the three points to be checked item by item (Economics P2 §5.1, §5.2, cited as concurring). Exit, as one function of control, is activated by the one who leaves and acts on the relation itself; what must be checked is whether the party being left can cancel it on its own, by pricing or by approval. This paper takes up only the question of whether it is actually usable; how protective arrangements are to be designed is handed to specific theories of institutions.
G40 The position of the interrupt-right standing. The voting-position is the institutionalized position at which a subject retains the interrupt-right standing within a group pressure field (Power Theory P7 §IX.3; J7 takes up this position). This series takes only its structure and makes no judgment of the merits of institutions; the structural position does not presuppose that actual democracy has been realized. The voting-position is read as the interruption item of control, acting on the forward conduction of the construct's acts: what is interrupted is the tacit forward acknowledgment and the incumbent's continued occupation of the position, not the act, which is not made to stop; the voters, periodically or through a recall, re-register their positions at this point, the bearer of the acts can be replaced as a result, and activation does not wait for the consent of the party questioned (extension; own undertaking). Voting does not issue legitimacy to every decision of the one elected, nor does it replace questioning, which is always open. On whether something is democratic, this series answers as far as the structural layer; the merits of actual institutions are not in this series. Interruption has been given a structural position in this paper; on this restricted sense, the efficacy that can be stated all falls in other slots, and its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found; by G36a it is registered as nominal (§8).
G41 The close. Of "control within the line," which this series has taken on, the answer reaches the functions of control and the three questions, and its connection with the three conditions of the channel (extension; own undertaking: the three conditions are extended from being questioned to efficacy, within the fifth ought; whether this is sufficient has not been judged); for reversal, the three things have been laid out on one case (whether the procedure can be withdrawn, and whether there will be retaliation, are marked as not set); revocation of authorization and exit have each been walked through once on a case; interruption has been given a structural position (the voting-position), and on the restricted sense its own efficacy would have to fall on reasons or rules, which this paper has not found; by G36a's own standard, rectification, reopening the agenda and interruption remain nominal in this paper; what is not proved is whether the functions are exhaustive, which of them every level and kind of decision must at least have beyond the requirement that a public grant retain revocability (G37) and that the confirmation and termination of an emergency not be monopolized by the party taking the measures (Paper 5, G32), and the scale of control. Of the slot within "the guardian network" that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch, the answer reaches the entry into the slot of substitute exercise, the three items to be proved, the root and the limits (Paper 2, G12a); the branch of those whose gate already self-exercises is an extension, and is not within what has been taken on; the guardian's personal ought is not taken on, and nothing is settled on the Critiques' behalf. Where this series stops is registered in six slots, and what the six slots distinguish is the nature of what was not continued; only the handovers whose address is already fixed are forward assignments, and an address being fixed is not the same as being settled. The direction is the Kingdom of Ends: a government cannot make it on persons' behalf, nor can it declare it made. A government can never be perfect; wherever perfection is claimed, the claim itself is a place where questioning is due; so the close lies not in having made it, but in remaining open to questioning. Toward its internal subjects, a government holds to anti-colonization and strives for cultivation; its judgments cross no line, must be explained, and remain open to questioning.
References
All SAE works below are cited by concept DOI, which always resolves to the latest version. The version records used for sentence-by-sentence verification are given in the accompanying audit table.
Qin, H. (2026). The Place of Judgment (SAE Action Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22974154
Qin, H. (2026). How Is the Inter-Ontological Possible: The Subjective Conditions and Emergent Structure of Freedom (SAE Foundational Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19297847
Qin, H. (2026). How Is Institution Possible: From Inter-Ontological Remainder to Co-Constructive Framework (SAE Foundational Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19328662
Qin, H. (2026). To Whom the Ought Is Addressed (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 1) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23269635
Qin, H. (2026). Between One Another (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271072
Qin, H. (2026). Open to Questioning (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 6) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23271324
Qin, H. (2026). Institution Theory and the Tradition: The Address of the Ought (SAE Institution Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23272468
Qin, H. (2026). SAE Conflict Treatise: How Subjecthood Is Not Swallowed by Conflict Itself [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22313628
Qin, H. (2026). The Constitution and Withdrawal of Recognition-Based Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20993658
Qin, H. (2026). On the Limitation and Violation of Basic Rights (SAE Rights Theory, Paper 5) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21212595
Qin, H. (2026). On Accountability · Wei (SAE Rights Theory, Specialist Paper) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22853810
Qin, H. (2026). On the Recognition of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20480134
Qin, H. (2026). On the Dissolution of Power · Shi (SAE Power Theory, Paper 7) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20685290
Qin, H. (2026). The Other End of the Bridge: Economic Rationality When 15DD Faces a Party Who Does Not Enter 15DD (SAE Economics, Paper 2) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19381666
Qin, H. (2026). Interfacing with Existing Traditions, and the Prospect (SAE Value Theory, Paper 0) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22265396
Qin, H. (2026). On the Colonization of Value (SAE Value Theory, Paper 3) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21611154
Qin, H. (2026). SAE: The Second Critique [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23250387
Qin, H. (2026). A Posterior Dialogue with Western Jurisprudence (SAE Law Series, Supplement) [Preprint]. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19551526
Rousseau, J.-J. (1913). The Social Contract and Discourses. Trans. G. D. H. Cole. London: J. M. Dent & Sons (Everyman's Library). Project Gutenberg, EBook #46333. https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46333
Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pettit, P. (2012). On the People's Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapter 5 abstract: https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/on-the-peoples-terms/democratic-control/A569C01A3E111B4CA3C53EB3834AEEF4
Interfaces
- Main upstream: Institution Theory (Paper 6, Z34, Z35, Z35a, Z36, Z37, Z39; Paper 1, Z6; Paper 0, §4.2, §10.2, §11, the fourth and sixth slots, and the practice of the six slots); Rights Theory (P5 F21, §III; P3 F11); On Accountability, Reserved item three; Power Theory P7 §IX.3, J7; Action Theory Paper 0, §9.4, second and third items.
- Also used: Institution Theory Paper 6, §3 (the cases excluded from non-response); Institution Theory Z32; Economics P2 §5.1, §5.2, §5.4; F5 v2 §5.4; F6 §3.1b; Power Theory P3 §V (R4); Conflict Treatise §24; Value Theory Paper 0, §§6–7 (the six slots and forward assignment); The Second Critique, Ch. 5 §3, Appendix II, Ch. 6 §7.
- Interfacing: Rousseau (commission and revocation, The Social Contract III.1 and III.18, tier A; a different topic from the same author); Hirschman (exit, tier B); Pettit (On the People's Terms, Chapter 5 abstract, tier C). Pointing back: Pettit (Institution Theory Paper 0, §4.2); Hobbes (Law Series Supplement §2); Rousseau (the social contract and the general will, Law Series Supplement §7); Hirschman (voice, Institution Theory Paper 0, §7); Kant (the Kingdom of Ends, Institution Theory Paper 0, §3.1).
- This series: takes on "control within the line," posed in Paper 1, G5, and answered in G36a of this paper; takes on the slot within "the guardian network" that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch, answered in Paper 2, G12a; both slots are registered in the Prequel, §9. How far they are answered: see G41 of this paper. If branch 24-B of Paper 5, §4, is checked and found to be of that kind, who makes it up is answered in §4 of this paper (G37). The three instances of compulsion for which the retracing reads only as far as the maintenance of co-constructive space and is not complete (the reading of the land requisition in Paper 2, §4, and the candidate for compensation in its §5; the tax levied for the side of striving for in Paper 3, §7) are registered together in §8 of this paper, the first slot, and their qualification is left as a remainder. The question left when Paper 5, §4, answered Schmitt (why no final judge is needed) is answered in §3 of this paper (G36).
- Handovers downstream (the series' final paper):
| Handed to | What is handed | Where in this series |
|---|---|---|
| The Theory of the State | External relations and borders, membership; war; exceptions bearing on survival at the level of the state; the strong form of dismantling after the war on one's own initiative | The Prequel; Paper 2 (war); Paper 3, §5 (membership); Paper 4, §2 (external relations); Paper 5, §4, G31 |
| Specific theories of institutions; jurisprudence | The design of procedures, channels, protective arrangements, and of election, recall and oversight; the configuration of rectification, reopening the agenda and interruption; the design of federalism; the concrete list of the powers of compulsion; the text of emergency law; what to provide and how, and how the levels share the burden of conditions; the quantity of accountability | "Where This Paper Stops" in Papers 2, 3, 4 and 5; Paper 4, §7; §§1, 2, 6 and 7 of this paper |
| The Critiques | The person's side: how officeholders and internal subjects treat others (no ought is written for persons). The guardianship slot is not a handover; it is recorded here as The Second Critique actually registers it: if the question of how a guardian ought to act is addressed to others, it is lateral and is not discussed; the inside-out face falls within the own law of whoever has adopted, and The Second Critique writes that this is a reading and does not take the item on Value Theory's behalf (Ch. 5 §3; Appendix II); the guardian network belongs to the group and institutional layer, no address yet (Ch. 6 §7). This series has partly taken on the slot that belongs to the government as a construct, limited to the subject-to-be branch (Paper 2, G12a); the rest is neither written as already taken up by the other side nor sent on by this series | The Prequel, §§3 and 9; Paper 2, G12a |
| The critique of judgment | The standing to pass a verdict on another's case and claim his assent; the standard of good judgment | Paper 1, §7, and "Where This Paper Stops" |