It is an issue that how information is channelled and how people consume information. The places that people grow their opinions are as much important as the places where they makes discourses with others so that their opinions are exchanged and they are to find others’ perspectives. For example, educational places such as school plays the role of making people interact, contrary to their private places where they consume their preferred information. Not necessarily in all places they have to make discussion with others to lose their originality, on the other hand they don’t have to always think alone. In the age after the Internet, some say that people are divided into different parts of the informational world which they prefer to see, to create the sphere which enables the discourses among people of different opinions is required to avoid further division of people and development of nation-state. With the preservation of free sphere in which one can grow themselves, the growth of diversity is maintained.

Community justifies things in the sense that “the only criterion we have for applying the word ‘true’ is justification, and justification is always relative to an audience”(2). The legitimacy comes from what the community believes. A conversation among persons with trust each other and another which do not have makes difference. In the smaller community of homogenous social groups, trust is maintained among them, which is different from the larger one of different social groups. The trust in this sense connotates the sense shared among people that the rule put in practice is more or less shared. The rules that peoples of diverse community practice could differ more than the homogenous as peoples in the former could practice their own culture within their own group.

Providing the environment by their society that people feel the necessity of driving themselves towards the social good is beneficial. It attached the notion of the good to the certain behaviours. If society make advertisements that it is better not to use the one-use plastic products as it harms the environment, the awareness among the public would be increased. In this respect, the movements by United Nations as well as non-governmental organisations have certain effects on their societies. Their campaign over the generations could enhance the awareness and more and more people might behave for the societal good. Having said that national sovereignty should of course not be violated, in United Nations level to have institutional framework that can facilitate discourse on specific matter in a country to make its situation better would be likely to work if that is well organised(3).

Inclusive model of education can foster the mutual understanding on persons. It is more likely to avoid the prejudices among peoples. On discrimination, peoples would not be more unlikely to say discriminating speech towards a group of people if they have a friend of the similar background.

In the world of being complex and unpredictable than ever, knowing how interesting to learn a new thing puts them into the cycle of learning. Learning here is a bit different from that education to enhance the productivity, for example factory workers. There should be community-driven learner who learns, importantly, being supported by their community though he/she tends not to learn by oneself but motivated by the community. Education seems like earning degree to certify. Curiosity and learning are closely related.

With the emergence of the Internet, aviation technology, and the like, globalization was in movement around the beginning of 21st century. Especially capitalism after the Internet is to allow persons on the edge to get empowered and create innovative businesses which needs voluntary actions of citizens are the source of energy for the practice.

Seeking the profit, that is what many corporations are doing in capitalism, doesn’t necessarily lead to the happiness. Of course, wealth can let people expand their activities, but presumably there were people feeling happiness more in previous age than some people of more wealth in the current capitalist society. With the emergence of NPOs and NGOs and their activities in society, people became aware of those goodness. Just seeking profits doesn’t so much have attractions for some people.

There some argument that the “human rights culture” emerged “as a new, welcome fact of the post-Holocaust world”(4). The world came to focus on the individuals and the protection of their rights. Presumably, the universal human rights that have universal importance to human beings are proposed. It is a progress to emphasise the importance of human rights, in the meantime has distance with peoples of each region. The distance is a matter to what extent peoples of each region feel intimacy to the principles. Even if it is defined, practicing it in a way identical in one country with another doesn’t necessarily have to be promoted as the circumstances of peoples who practice the concept is much more difficult to be recognised universally. They have different cultures and practices of their own to exercise their rights and freedom. The public attitude of what should be allowed and not in their own nation can be decided in different ways by their decisions suitable to their cultures and contexts. The invention of different democratic cultures in different nation-states enriches the democracy itself.

Community’s self-governance would signify the resilience and robustness on the basis that self-governance is based on the will of community wholly. Without having empathy in the community, it may not continue to exist. The resilience of its community depends on those who belong it, the quality of individuals, but also the community itself has the capacity to help others. Community is dynamic rather than static, in which some reactions are triggered by others’ behaviours. Even in that dynamic, it often has the established. Things are interrelated each other.

(2)Rorty, R. (1998). Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 4.

(3) For example, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

(4)Rorty, R. (1998). Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 170. Rorty refers to Eduardo Rabossi.

Culture can begin from a smaller scale and expand to a larger one. It can originate from a small community where like-minded people start cultivating the atmosphere they prefer, and with the acceptance of additional members, it can spread over a wider area of society. Culture can be recognised as big bubbles in a society, if some are powerful, it could affect the society significantly. The traits of community influence the members in it, for example fosters one’s intellectual aspect if the community as a whole emphasizes being intellectual.

Creating a context is related to creating a culture. Having the number of people who have the same culture is to have the people who are aware of the culture. As for the society of 21^st century, it is a matter of how we can create a society where the right things are spread than the extremes or things assembling attention. The unordinary often gets attention from the public as it is rare and unconventional. This creating context is applied to a number of cases as such that: one should look at how he can create the context in which more people feel the importance of freedom in society, the ways to do it is not necessarily their direct claim or display their opinions in public space without caring about people of the other opinion. It depends on circumstance people say certain things or refrain from doing so.

Norm is not what authority owns. Community has norms. In the state where authority has control over people, the norm is greatly influenced by authority. Depending on to what extent citizens are freely behave, it is decided that to what extent societal norms rely on citizens. Not only the oppressive aspect of norm which, for example, works that citizens look at each other for finding some who behaves irregularly from their norm. While focusing on the secure holding of freedom in maximum, norm works as another regulation with flexibility in society. If norm becomes intensified, it could narrow the range of actions among people. This is the case of more narrowing norm, however the fermentation of the norm which work towards outside, in other words the norm of expanding the sphere of the actions of citizens can be tried to be installed. It is also expressed as the culture which society prefers for their life.

The creation of culture contributes to the transformation of norm. The progress of culture contributes to the progress of civilisation. Undevelopped culture of former generations are replaced by the newer. The cultivation of culture enriches a community. Various standards save persons who weren’t evaluated well in one criterion. Small communities within the large one maintains the diversity. It is too distant to have an architecture that one is connected to the large nation-state directly without accessing to the intermediary type of community. It is because the direct connection towards the large makes difficult to grasp the enough aspects of the nation, compared with the smaller. Not directly connected to the national level, the intermediary such as local levels are necessary and helpful to create the culture of political participation.

The social structure values people who are talkative enough to participate. Actions are needed to be done by active behaviours of persons. If a country seeks participatory politics, some encourage others to participate. Even so, there would be those who are not much interested in the participation. When they feel the necessity they would participate in it. But when feeling the unrightness to their politics they could act by voting but also some could act in a way, not for example voting.

While securing the universal suffrage, leaving it to those who engage in politics makes it a type of the politics with limited range of people participating, which is those who are eager to participate. In a larger community, people would be harder to have the actual consciousness of joining politics. Their vote is one of the numerous votes. Recognition could work in small community recognising each other as democratic. In order to have a society where “a legitimate government is one whose authority citizens can recognize while still regarding themselves as equal, autonomous, rational agents”(1).

(1)Scanlon, T. M. (2003). The Difficulty of Tolerance. New York: Cambridge University Press. pp. 14-15.

Published 17 July 2023, Last updated 18 July 2023

Hopefully, in order to have the stability in the governance, the architecture of politics which doesn’t much depend on the quality of the ruler and the ruled and systematically prevent the occurrence of negative sides is what needs to be considered.

When it comes to the negative aspects, think of the citizens gained power thanks to decentralisation, there could be a situation in which the masses go to the wrong direction which cannot be redirected into the right by a few; contrarily when power is centred to a few and when they are corrupt, it is difficult to get it right by the rest of people. Furthermore, if a platform is owned by a person in influence, the turnover has significant impact on its ecosystem. The stability of society may be maintained by the decentralisation of power into the edge which could prevent the sudden instability caused by the transfer of power from a person in power to another, and the empowerment of the citizens in society constantly.

The concept of consent requires the care about coercion. For example, submission and consent are different in the perspective that “both involve acceptance, but only the latter is valorized by free agency”(8). Forcing one to give his consent cannot be said free consent. The importance of free consent is that “Force cannot convince the mind of anything. We can enforce outward behaviour, but not inward conviction”(9). Making governance by consent could face the problem of coercion. It could cause social pressures to oppress one’s opinion.

In order to have resilience in governance as well as suitability to a wider variety of people, the flexibility might work better if it is incorporated. People are different as some are more inclined to individualism and others are not. If it could be flexibly changed depending on the characteristics of the people, it could be adaptable to wider range of citizens and situations. For example, those who prefer individualism would as much as they can represent their own ideas by themselves although, as a citizen, there is going to be a certain limit of self-representation. That is because without such limitation people would participate as in direct democracy. There’s certain sort of harmonization with the concept of indirect democracy in the consent governance as the latter chooses the representatives. In terms of practicing, there would be communities in any size for governance, otherwise complete individualism and complete direct democracy which go to unstable when the public is influenced in large scale to the wrong direction.

Another domain of importance is the rights of citizens. Even in terms of protecting the rights of citizens, the model of consent is supposed to work. In order to ensure the “unalienable Rights”(8) of citizens, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”(11). In the history of US context, it was argued that “the vigor of government is essential to the security of liberty”(12). It doesn’t violate people’s liberty and rights. To incorporate these ideas is consentocracy which is a form of governance based on consent and puts the concept of consent to the front.

However, in the perspective of the rights, they are not limited to those of citizens’ end. Around 20th and 21st centuries, the rights of citizens and minorities have been often claimed. Due to that movement, society has progressed towards protecting them, which is a remarkable advancement. In this context, it often is talked from the perspective of citizens however, it may better to assume that rights are not limited to citizens, and it is what authority also can have. For the sake of maintaining the stability of a community, people are required to serve at least some portions to the community. If people are obliged to follow what authority orders which is for the benefits of community and its happiness, their duty could be ranged a variety of things. When they are at danger such as war, in order to preserve the existence of that state, they may be given the order to join the war for the sake of preservation. While one country takes action for their preservation against another, another would be also at danger. At the time, for instance, when facing war, the right of life and of death — its history dates back to patria potestas — can be exercised(13). One country to preserve their existence, they kill the people of another(14). The power which authority has could put the lives of person the end. It is that “those who are a sort of biological danger towards the others”(15) can be killed by the exercise of power(16).

Going back to the paradigm of consent, in order to be a member of a political community, consent model is used and it has the mechanism of justification of authority of a state. Without having a state mechanism, it could be chaotic that people of different interests often collide each other, even the danger of life may be caused. For the stability and safety of life, to create community and have a set of rules based on consent is an option. In the situation that states are established, states of different interests would be at war. When facing war with another state, their state is put at danger. For preserving their state, they have to be at war with another, otherwise they are defeated, that means that their members need to be had in war. If the reasons that members of a political community first gave their consent was to preserve the safety of their life, without it they are more likely to be in conflict one another, they will become under danger, even if they belonged to the community, at the time war broke out. This may be called dilemma. Without having balance of power among states, it is difficult to avoid war.

Compact could be a form of mutual understanding that lets society work. Based on the concept, people make agreement which would make the frequency of conflict less happen. The agreement given by their free consent makes a sort of paradigm that people rely on for the organisation of a state. Even in the technological context of the late 20th and the beginning of 21st century, the robust concept of compact has been influential and it is one of the key components in governance.

(8) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. NewYork: Oxford University Press. p. xii.

(9) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. NewYork: Oxford University Press. p. xxv.

(10) Lessig, L., 2019. Fidelity & Constraint: How the Suprime Court Has Read the American Constitution. NewYork: Oxford University Press. p.13. Lessig referred to Thomas Jefferson. The words come from what Jefferson had written.

(11) Lessig, L., 2019. Fidelity & Constraint: How the Suprime Court Has Read the American Constitution. NewYork: Oxford University Press. p.13. Lessig referred to Thomas Jefferson. The words come from what Jefferson had written.

(12) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. NewYork: Oxford University Press. p.13.

(13) Foucault, M., 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard. pp.177-178.

(14) Foucault, M., 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard. p.180.

(15) Foucault, M., 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard. p.181. The original text is French.

(16) Foucault, M., 1976. Histoire de la sexualité I: La volonté de savoir. Paris: Gallimard. p.181.

In the paradigm of consent-based society, new generations of persons which are continually born lives within the model of nation-state or consent-based society from the beginning of their life. The continuing history makes the situation that people are not so much aware of the concept which had been put in practice. As time passes, the influence of the concept may become less powerful. Even if so, people of not aware continue to be born and live in the world. For this issue, it matters how they are put into the model of the previous generations. Even if the state is surely founded on the notion of consent for example, a few groups of people such as intellectuals would be well aware of it, and others would not care that much. The paradigm of the consent which can apply to the peoples of the later generations would be required, which could include them indirectly or any other ways. The consent from the following generations would be necessary to justify that paradigm if trying to persist in it.

In thinking about that mechanism, there will be certain people who do not (want to) join the community. If nation-state is particularly the model representing the theory of consent, there’s a border among people, between those who gave consent and not. The boundary between people who are member and not, that is to say that it has the framework of inclusion and exclusion. When not a member of community means that they are not under the authority of the community. If one wants to care the reluctance of persons who do not want to join, creating the situation that a person needs to belong to a state by which the benefits one gets needs to be more than his reluctance. If the difficulties caused by not being a member of a state is greater, people would be more likely to join it.

In terms of the internal governance of the community, the paradigm of consent might work better. Looking at the specific case, election is to give consent to representative who is going to represent the opinions of persons. Representatives are those who are authorized to represent, agreed by people. The political power is transferred from ordinary citizens to representatives. In the domain which requires expertise giving own consent is common in the daily life, for example, one who has private land and wants to build a house would ask those who are professional in building house. It is often that they do not build by themselves without having expertise and skills, or do not ask others who are not skillful. Giving consent to those who are expert and ask them to do the best in the domain is often seen.

Even in the context of empowerment which the Internet gave to the persons, the paradigm of consent seems powerfull in its concept. Though some have argued closer to the sense of direct democracy before, given the dense population and the expertise which is required in each specific domain, asking every citizen to participate in each decision directly is not that much desirable. It is also vulnerable to when the public is hugely influenced by the temporary ups and downs of the popular movements, and the society may lose their stability. Before diving into the descriptions on consent which would work in the technologically advanced society, the following paragraph look at the concept of decentralisation.

When it comes to decentralisation which has been often paid attention to often with the appearance of the Internet,  decentralisation is to distribute the power from the centre to the edge. It empowers people and is not the traditional top-down structure. Traditionally in political context the distribution of powers is famously a topic of US politics. In earlier days, the “regular distribution of power into distinct departments” was believed to work(5) since “The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny”(6). In terms of liberty too, “the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct”(7). The distribution of power is beneficial to the preventive effect of abuse of the power. Apart from the political and in economic and innovative sense, it may better work that just creating the framework and let people do their work at the edges, that is to allow them to generate innovation without strict regulation.

Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) has been getting focused with the rise of web3. DAO is more to enjoy the process of decision-making by letting people who are curious be involved. It entertains the process of decision-making. In this sense, DAO may have potential in creating small communities within a large one, and ideally creates the culture of political participation of the members. Plus they can try experimenting the new methods of governance which are harder to implement in national scale. Even if one supposed the community is decentralised, not necessarily all decision-making have to be direct democratic. For example, as explained previously the domain which requires expertise in the decision-making, it would be better to create the architecture in which those who represents the people who gave consent to him have responsibility to represent them. Decision-making which requires technical knowledge can be depended on experts as people authorise them to represent their ideas. And it is a sort of opinion leader who takes care of the opinions of the people. This structure makes small communities within a large one. That can even make a small society by which one’s imagination would better work, which is against the idea that in democratic governance it is often said that it is difficult to keep society work well when its population becomes dense. The population and the size of a community has been a topic discussed for a long time. If it becomes too large, people in the same community cannot comprehend the community enough to make democracy work. It is to create a small community in which people are more aware of each other than being in a large community where their imagination doesn’t work. In small community, people recognise each other more often, and may strengthen the tie of people. By that practice, the potential of taking care of each other would more frequently happen than the larger nation with dense population.

(5) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 45.

(6) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.239.

(7) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.239.

The governance of community has been a central topic for civilisation. With the change of social surrounding such as advancement of technology, the ways in which community is governed has repeatedly been appearing in the discussion.

For example, in the US context, the difference of democratic and republic governance was focused. A democracy and a republic are different: “first, the delegation of government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater number of citizens and greater sphere of country over which the latter may be extended”(1). In other words, “It is that in a democracy the people meet and exercise the government in person; in a republic they assemble and administer it by their representatives and agents. A democracy, consequently, must be confined to a small spot. A republic may be extended over a large region” (2).

Later days, look at the technological context, in the early days of web1.0 and web2.0, the notion of emergence and decentralisation were focused. Some believed it makes the political sphere better, contrarily the negative aspects appeared too influential than predicted. The web3 poses the concept of Decentralised Autonomous Organisation (DAO) as one of the key concepts and some try to improve governance again.

When it comes to governance, the notion of consent-based governance has been powerful and a key concept in political theory. Citizens give their consent to become member of the community, and it creates the solidarity as a nation. However as time passes, it seems that people, except intellectuals and political theory scholars, do not so much consciously think of governance from the perspective of consent. This essay puts the notion of consent to the front in considering the form of governance. Thinking of governance in terms of consent demonstrates the robustness of the concept. Also, putting that concept in centre of organisation of a community seems causing less trouble and enhance efficiency as well as protection of rights and liberty, that is the reason that this essay rethinks about the governance from that perspective.

Politics is required as people have different interests. Without somewhat of organisation among them, they would be in conflict each other for their own interests. In order to have safety of life and stability in their life without having war or conflict with others, people give their consent to a state, by which the stability in where they live in would be maintained. The compact is a form of paradigm which can maintain the stability. Even having said that, one cannot say that no conflict occurs. It is less probability of conflict. When internal conflict took place, authority intervenes for the sake of the people and the community in which people of different interests live.

As for authority, the authority authorised by the consent of its people intervenes in the conflicts taking place in the community. Consent from the people makes legitimacy of government(3). Giving consent is similar to admitting it as authority, by which authority can keep themselves. Since they are given consent from the people, they are authorised and have legitimacy to exercise their power over the community and people. Importantly, persons “are not obliged unless they so sanction by their free consent”(4). From another perspective, consent and trust is interrelated as without trust people would not like to give one’s trust to them. Plus, respect may work similarly towards authority.

On the consent which people give, it needs to be a variety of types, not just the explicit consent to make it work. It is because merely explicit consent cannot deal with the reality fully in detail. One of the aspects that is difficult to cope with is the mortality. The same people cannot live perpetually, the generation changes from one to another over time, and people do not share the concept in the same intensity. To make the political community work based on the notion for a longer period of time, the paradigm has to be kept in force even if the generation changes from one to another successively. Meeting this requirement could not be fulfilled with just explicit consent. Considering the situation that the people of a political community is not so much conscious of consent after having passed a long time since the implementation, the indirect consent or logic in  paradigm of consent is required if it wants to sustain.

(1) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.52.

(2) Hamilton, A., Madison, J. & Jay, J., 2008. The Federalist Papers. New York: Oxford University Press. p.68.

(3) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. New York: Oxford University Press. p. viii.

(4) Locke, J., 2016. Second Treatise of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration. New York: Oxford University Press. p. xvi.