This paper proposes a core proposition: the effectiveness of power constraint mechanisms fundamentally depends on "power reversibility"—the ability of social members to revoke authorized power at low cost and high efficiency. By tracing the historical context of power operation, it reveals a structural dilemma of "easy authorization, difficult revocation" that exists from ancient monarchies to modern representative democracies, leading to institutional rigidity, accountability failure, and the recurrence of corruption cycles. In the digital age, the algorithmic governance mechanism built by blockchain and DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) has, for the first time, achieved "reversible authorization" at the technical level, transforming power revocation from a major political event into a routine procedural operation. This paper innovatively constructs a "Power Reversibility Index (PRI)" to quantitatively assess governance effectiveness from four dimensions: time cost, economic cost, execution certainty, and social destructiveness. Through empirical comparison of historical institutions and contemporary algorithms, this study verifies the revolutionary breakthroughs of DAOs in terms of the cost of power revocation, execution certainty, and social destructiveness. The research shows that "programmable constitutionalism," by encoding power relations into automatically executed contracts, reconstructs the temporal structure of power and the logic of accountability, providing a technological paradigm and engineering path for solving the millennia-old governance dilemma. Keywords: Power taming; Reversible authorization; Algorithmic governance; DAO; Programmable constitutionalism; Power reversibility index (PRI) From Hobbes's metaphor of "necessary evil" in *Leviathan*, to Madison's concept of the separation of powers as "ambition against ambition," traditional governance paradigms focus on horizontal checks and balances in the exercise of power, but neglect the technical feasibility of power revocation mechanisms—the core value of this "vertical constraint." 1.1 Structural Blind Spots in Traditional Paradigms Locke (1689), in *Two Treatises of Government*, proposed that "government power derives from the mandate of the people, and can be revoked if the trust is broken," laying the theoretical foundation for "authorization-revocation," but failing to address the technical problem of "how to implement revocation at low cost." Montesquieu's (1748) separation of powers and Buchanan's (1962) public choice theory both focus on the power allocation and oversight process, but avoid the decisive impact of revocation costs on the effectiveness of the mechanism. According to World Bank data (2024), 43% of constitutional crises worldwide stem from “legally mandated revocation mechanisms failing due to excessive costs.” For example, in 2023, the impeachment proceedings in the Brazilian Congress were hampered by political maneuvering and took 11 months to reach a conclusion. 1.3 Research Methods and Innovations This paper adopts a "three-dimensional fusion" methodology: Theoretical dimension: tracing the evolution of power subjugation paradigms (sacred order → constitutional order → algorithmic order), and combining institutional change theory to demonstrate the legitimacy of reversible authorization; Model dimension: constructing a quantifiable PRI index to achieve cross-institutional governance effectiveness comparison; Empirical dimension: comparative analysis of different governance models to verify the breakthrough of algorithmic governance. The research innovation is reflected in three aspects: Conceptual innovation: transforming the implicit assumption of "power reversibility" into an explicit metric; Methodological innovation: constructing a multi-dimensional PRI index to achieve quantitative comparison of governance effectiveness; Practical innovation: revealing how algorithmic governance can transform "political problems" into "engineering problems" through technological means.
02Theoretical Framework:Theoretical Foundation of Power Reversibility and Construction of the PRI Model
2.1 Theoretical Lineage and Paradigm Shift of Power Constraints
2.1.1 Evolutionary Limitations of Traditional Power Constraint Theories
The theory of power taming can be traced back to the origins of Western political thought. Aristotle's theory of mixed government in *Politics* already contained the idea of achieving checks and balances through the balance of power.
Since the modern era, Locke (1689) explicitly proposed that government power originates from the mandate of the people, and that the people have the right to reclaim the mandate when the government violates this mandate, thus establishing the rudimentary theory of mandate-revocation. Montesquieu (1748) systematically expounded the theory of the separation of powers, which became the core framework of modern constitutional systems. Federalist Madison (1788) revealed the humanistic basis of checks and balances through the concept of "ambition against ambition." In modern studies, Foucault's (1975) theory of "micro-power," while breaking through macro-analysis, did not address the technical implementation of revocation; Ostrom's (1990) theory of self-governance, while focusing on the distribution of power in public affairs, still failed to solve the revocation problem under the dilemma of collective action. These theories all face a "high-cost trap"—elections incur cyclical costs, judicial review presents procedural barriers, and revolutionary subversion is accompanied by social unrest, leading to a situation where "theory is feasible, but practice is difficult." Table 1. Core Viewpoints and Defects of Traditional Theories of Power Constraints Unclear execution path. Public choice theory: Governance is a "political marketplace" (Buchanan, 1962). Transaction costs have changed dramatically in the digital age. Legal realism: Legal effectiveness depends on the enforcement mechanism. (Holmes, 1897) 2.1.2 Paradigm Shift in Blockchain Governance Research Blockchain governance research has undergone a paradigm shift from technology to society. Satoshi Nakamoto (2008) proposed distributed ledger technology, providing a technological possibility for the decentralization of power. Buterin (2014) positioned Ethereum as a "decentralized application platform," promoting the transformation of blockchain from a monetary tool to a governance vehicle. Reijers et al. (2016) first linked blockchain governance with social contract theory, proposing that smart contracts are the technological implementation of social contracts. Recent research has presented two main branches: the technological governance approach focuses on issues such as consensus algorithm optimization and smart contract security; the institutional governance approach, with Weyl et al. (2022) proposing the concept of a "decentralized society," incorporating soul-bound tokens (SBTs) into the reputation governance framework, enriching the supervisory dimension of power operation. However, existing research still has significant gaps: the power constraint value of blockchain mostly remains at the level of theoretical deduction and qualitative description, lacking a systematic theoretical construction that takes "reversible authorization" as a core analytical concept, making it difficult to effectively separate its governance advantages from traditional paradigms and obtain empirical measurement. 2.2 Construction and Operation of the Power Reversibility Index (PRI) 2.2.1 Indicator Dimension Design Based on the "cost-efficiency-security" triangle framework, PRI includes 4 core dimensions, covering the entire process characteristics of power revocation: Table 2 Indicator Dimensions and Measurement Methods of the Power Reversibility Index (PRI) leaf="">Theoretical Meaning
Measurement Methods | Indicator Direction | Time Cost (T) | Time from Discovery of Abuse of Power to Completion of Revocation | Case Tracking Method (e.g., Impeachment Proceedings Days, On-Chain Voting Cycle) | Negative |
Economic Costs (C) Total Resources Invested in the Revocation Process (Human Resources, Capital) Cost Accounting Methods (e.g., Election Expenses, Gas Fees) Negative Factors Execution Determinism (E) Can the Revocation Procedure Be Completed Automatically and Without Dispute? leaf="">Success Rate Statistics (e.g., judicial judgment enforcement rate, smart contract trigger rate) | Positive |
Social Disruption (D) | Social Unrest Caused by Revocation (e.g., protests, economic fluctuations) | Volatility Coefficient Method (e.g., GDP volatility, frequency of social conflicts) | Negative |
Absolute autocracy,
Totalitarian system
Revocation depends on subversion, extremely high risk | 03Historical dilemma: The dual origin of power, the logic of alienation and the limitations of the traditional path of subjugation
3.1 The dual origin of power and the paradox of legitimacy
Power originates from two intertwined dimensions:
Society
Destructive
PRI | Democracy Election | High | Medium | 中 | 中 | ⭐⭐ |
Violence Revolution | Low | High | Low | Extremely high | ⭐ |
Judiciary Accountability | medium | high | medium | Low | ⭐⭐ |
Algorithm Governance (DAO) | Extremely low | Extremely low | High | Extremely low | ⭐⭐⭐ ⭐⭐ |
Morality (Negotiation) Restraint | High | Low | Low | Low | ⭐ |
4.2.1 Typical Case Verification: MakerDAO's "Black Thursday" Response In March 2020, the market crashed on "Black Thursday," with the price of ETH plummeting by 58%, and MakerDAO facing the risk of insufficient collateral. The community completed three key operations within 48 hours through on-chain governance: Revoking the original "Single Collateral" authorization; Granting "Multi-Collateral Dai (MCD)" permissions; Adjusting the liquidation rate parameter (from 150% to 175%). Compared to similar operations by traditional central banks (such as the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing in 2008, which took 30 days and cost approximately $200 million), MakerDAO reduces the time cost of power restructuring by 97% and the economic cost by 99.99% (only $12,000 in gas fees). 4.2.2 Industry Data Supporting the Claims According to DeepDAO (2024) statistics, as of Q2 2024, the top 50 DAOs by market capitalization processed an average of 5.7 major governance proposals per month, of which 15% were rejected by community votes due to "risk of power abuse"—this means that power adjustment and revocation have become high-frequency and routine operations in the DAO ecosystem, in stark contrast to the "election change every 4-6 years" in traditional politics. 4.2.3 Core Findings Accountability Model Transformation: Traditional politics relies on "event-based accountability" (discrete and cyclical), while algorithmic governance constructs "process-based accountability" (real-time and continuous), transforming Locke's "right to resist" from a high-cost natural right into a low-cost procedural right; Reconstruction of the Concept of Sovereignty: "Programmable constitutionalism" transforms sovereignty from "centralized rule" to "distributed revocable consensus," such as Optimism Collective's two-tiered architecture of "Citizen's House + Token House," which balances the influence of capital and contribution through SBT reputation weights. 5. Challenges and Countermeasures in Algorithmic Governance 5.1 Risks of Rule Rigidity and Flexible Mechanisms The certainty of "code is law" may sacrifice the system's flexibility in responding to black swan events. Countermeasures include: Upgradeable contracts: allowing governance rules to be iterated through community voting (such as Aave V3's "dynamic adjustment module for governance parameters"); Emergency switches: setting up a "circuit breaker mechanism" controlled by a multi-signature committee to suspend power execution under extreme risks (such as Compound's "Guardian role"). 5.2 Technological Eliteism and Monopoly Risks The technical barriers to code development and auditing may lead to power being concentrated in the hands of a few teams. Solutions: Multi-entity auditing: Mandating that smart contracts be audited by at least 3 independent institutions (such as OpenZeppelin, Trail of Bits); Open source transparency: Fully open source core code, encouraging community vulnerability submissions (such as MakerDAO's "code bounty program"). 5.3 Risks of Plutocratic Rule and Fairness Mechanisms Concentrated holding of governance tokens may lead to "capital dictatorship". Response Paths: Quadratic Voting: Suppressing manipulation by large holders by ensuring that "voting costs are proportional to the square of the number of votes" (e.g., Gitcoin Grants' funded voting); SBT Reputation Weighting: Binding governance weight to non-transferable contribution records (code submissions, community services) to balance capital and ability (e.g., Optimism's "citizenship score"). 5.4 Legal Uncertainty and Compliance Adaptation The issues of ambiguous legal status of the DAO and the unconfirmed legal validity of smart contracts can be resolved through a "hybrid model": Off-chain entity anchoring: Referring to the DAO Act of Wyoming, USA, a "DAO LLC" is established as the legal entity; Compliance plugin: Smart contracts have built-in modules for adapting to regional regulations (such as EU users triggering GDPR data deletion clauses). 5.5 Insufficient Participation and Incentive Mechanisms The problem of low governance voting rates (most DAOs have voting rates <20%) can be improved through the following methods: Delegated Voting: Allow users to delegate their voting rights to professional representatives (such as the DAO delegation marketplace on Delegates.app); Participation Rewards: Reward voters with governance tokens (such as Uniswap's "Voting Incentive Pool"). Aragon data shows that this mechanism can increase voting rates by more than 30%.
06Conclusions and Future Prospects
6.1 Research Conclusions
Theoretical Breakthrough: Power reversibility is a core indicator for measuring governance effectiveness. Traditional paradigms are hampered by "high revocation costs," while algorithmic governance achieves "low-cost, high-certainty" reversible authorization through technological means, reconstructing the logic of power constraints;
Empirical Findings: The 'Power Revocation Spectrum' model constructed in this paper, starting from the 'termination mechanism' of power operation, provides a new scientific benchmark for diagnosing and designing governance systems;
Practical Value: "Programmable Constitutionalism" for AI This research offers solutions to emerging issues such as governance and transnational digital sovereignty—for example, by controlling AI decision-making authority through reversible authorization to avoid algorithmic tyranny. 6.2 Research Limitations and Future Directions This research still has two limitations: first, the weight of the PRI indicator needs to be quantified using big data to achieve quantitative analysis of the governance model; second, the case studies are concentrated in the Web3 ecosystem, with insufficient coverage of traditional government scenarios. Future research can focus on three main directions: Cross-chain governance interoperability: exploring PRI collaboration mechanisms between different blockchain systems to achieve cross-network unification of power reversibility; AI-human hybrid governance: researching the power authorization and revocation rules of AI agents to construct a reversible governance framework of "human-machine collaboration"; and ethical coding technology: developing "ethical modules" that can be embedded in smart contracts to resolve value conflicts (such as the priority of the right to life in the allocation of medical resources). 6.3 Governance Implications The revolutionary significance of algorithmic governance lies not only in the improved efficiency at the technical level, but also in the reconstruction of the relationship between "power and the people"—from "one-time authorization" to "continuous verification," from "passive supervision" to "active revocation." As Madison said, "If people were angels, there would be no need for any government." In the algorithmic era, humanity has finally acquired a technological tool capable of responding in real time to the reality of "human nature not being angelic"—a reversible authorization mechanism. This mechanism allows "taming Leviathan" to no longer rely on ambition against ambition, but on code against the alienation of power, opening up a new technological path for humanity's eternal pursuit of freedom and good governance.
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