Authority Capacity

ACIJThe Preconditions of Judgment

Authorityload-bearing — the argument runs through it

SSRNpublished record

4topics

Institutions are described as having authority or lacking it, as though it were a status. That cannot account for the commonest failure: an institution that unambiguously holds authority and does not exercise it. Authority capacity is a finite stock, not a status — it depletes under repeated pressure, distorts behaviour as it becomes scarce, and does not restore itself. Two conditions set it: insulation and capitalisation.

Where it sits. Defines authority capacity as the stock variable that subsequent papers model.

The long-form argument for this work still lives on the existing explainer at /explainer/authority-capacity. This page carries the abstract and the corpus metadata — the frame the argument would move into unchanged.

Key termsAuthority Architecture · Institutional Design · Governance Preconditions · Institutional Judgment

In the canonspineload-bearing — the argument runs through it

The paperAuthority Capacity: Insulation, Capitalisation, and the Preconditions of Institutional Judgment — read it on SSRN →

Nearby in the corpus

Also in Authority

The works either side of this one in the canon order — what it builds on and what builds on it.

Authority Capacity CollapseACCSystems Theory of Regulatory Failure→Administrative PanicAPGoverning the Panic Window→Capital–Legitimacy SubstitutionCLSFailure Mode→

Where to go next

Three directions out

Where to go once you have the argument — the paper it comes from, the instrument that measures it, or the next thing it depends on.

Measure itinstrumentsRun the measurement this argument implies against your own institution.→The library65 worksEvery work, by layer, with the argument and the paper side by side.→In the field2 liveWhere the argument has met real money and published dates.→