At the heart of institutional design is an evolutionary tension between stability and change (​North, 1991) – change too frequently and you risk destabilizing your institution, change too infrequently and you risk becoming so stable that you can never change again (ossification).

To build a future-proof institution, it is necessary to strike a balance between flexibility (the freedom to change) and legitimacy (the conformity of changes to an accepted ruleset, which is a prerequisite to maintaining stability).

We expressed this, and much more, in detail in our Lean  Governance thesis back in 2020.

This is where modularity comes in.

Modularity is a design approach in which a system is broken down into “loosely coupled” components that can be reconfigured while maintaining a standardized interface to communicate with each other.

In other words, modular systems are highly flexible yet conform to an underlying protocol that holds them together. By conforming to the protocol, the modules maintain their legitimacy while still having the freedom to evolve.

By building this way, we can find the evolutionary balance that will ensure our DAO endures.

The Proposed Modules in Our Modular Governance

These are the modules that we believe are critical in (most) good governance systems:

Rollout and Timings

The Foundation will present each of these modules independently, with the Metagovernance proposal tying everything together and being the full proposal that will allow us to make the updated governance system go-live.

We expect to have all modules shared, approved and implemented for a go-live date by mid-December.

We’ll bring it all home by Christmas.

‍