Article: 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.
Keywords
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