Computational Governance and Violable Contracts for Blockchain Applications

Source: DOI Authors: Munindar P. Singh, Amit K. Chopra Date: 2020

Core idea

Decentralized systems should use declarative, violable contracts and computational governance so participants remain autonomous while obligations, breaches, remedies, and institutional rules stay explicit.

Key claims

• Governance should be represented computationally rather than hidden in custom code and social guesswork.
• Contracts should be violable, because autonomy without the possibility of exception is merely choreography.
• Violations should trigger governed remedies and processes, not magical moral scores.

Harness takeaway

A sovereignty-preserving harness should represent obligations, waivers, breaches, appeals, and remedies as explicit governance objects rather than trying to compress social reality into one reputation scalar.