Protological Governance. Between Sovereignty and Entanglement

Abstract

This paper proposes the concept of protocological governance, an account of the interplay in the enactment of protocols between sovereignty and entanglement. Protocols, understood as patterns that organize interactions among agents, are increasingly central to social and technical systems, ranging from digital networks and climate accords to Indigenous cultural practices. While protocols offer a means of sovereignty through decentralization and resistance to capture by external entities such as states or corporations, their entanglement with other systems introduces both vulnerabilities and conditions for their usefulness. The paper takes current developments in Web3 as a starting point, clarifies the distinctions between mere protocols and the protocological, and explores how protocols can assert sovereignty while being embedded in social life through a series of encounters in practice between protocols and other systems – in religious and anthropological history, Internet standards, and diplomatic agreements. Drawing on media philosophy, media anthropology, and performativity, the analysis shows how protocols can become tools for generative, relational governance through the tension between sovereignty and entanglement. The paper concludes by introducing the concept of protocological chiasm, which describes the dynamic tension between abstract patterns of protocol and their material instantiations, re-introducing the human body as a key element for resistance against capture. Protocological governance thus represents an emergent organizational form with the potential to reshape power structures.