The Governance Stack

In 1816, the French frigate Medusa ran aground off the West African coast - not due to the fury of nature, but the hubris of man. The ship's captain, Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, had secured his position through political favoritism rather than merit.

The ships' limited lifeboats became a microcosm of societal inequality: officers and aristocrats claimed the seaworthy vessels, while the rest were abandoned to a makeshift raft of ad-hoc wood.

History echoes with the consequences of systems that prioritise status over safety. Nearly a century after the Medusa, the Titanic's tragedy would mirror the same fatal flaws: inadequate lifeboats, preferential treatment based on passenger class, and leadership decisions driven by prestige rather than prudence. In both disasters, artificial hierarchies and misaligned incentives laid bare deep structural chasms.

Today's decentralised communities stand at a crucial juncture especially those who wish to govern. These historical failures offer stark lessons about the danger of systems that concentrate power in the hands of a privileged few.

At Lighthouse, we've developed a framework through extensive experience: indexing EVM-based governance systems, participating in grant rounds, leading governance initiatives, and engaging with users across the governance spectrum. What began as an internal tool for product discussions has evolved into a comprehensive model for understanding governance challenges.

Our framework is loosely inspired by the OSI model. Here, we share our mental model of what we call the Governance Stack to help analysts, delegates, community members, and researchers pinpoint governance challenges.

From the spark of new ideas to their final execution, each layer of the stack addresses a crucial aspect of governance. Whether examining how quality proposals are generated (Ideation), how communities deliberate (Discourse), how decisions are made (Voting), how resources are deployed (Allocation), or how commitments are enforced (Accountability) - this framework helps identify weaknesses before they become failures.

The Governance Stack offers a systematic approach to thinking about resilient systems that distribute power effectively and the necessary checks and balances required at each layer.

💡 Ideation: Where new initiatives, proposals and policies originate.

At this layer, stakeholders generate creative solutions, identify issues, and lay out potential pathways for action. Ideation is akin to the application layer in the OSI model—it’s what the end participants interact with directly, shaping the future direction and agenda of the community or organisation.

💬 Discourse: Deliberation and refinement, where raw ideas are turned into clearly articulated proposals.

Here, participants debate, provide feedback, and negotiate. This layer encourages transparency, logical reasoning, and persuasion, ensuring that proposals are scrutinised, clarified, and improved before any formal decision-making. Much like how presentation and session layers in networking handle the preparation and management of communication, the discourse layer manages the flow of ideas and perspectives among stakeholders.

🗳 Voting: Formal decision-making, where validated proposals are put to a formal test of support.

At this layer, stakeholders cast votes, employ consensus mechanisms, or follow predefined rules to finalise which proposals move forward. This is analogous to the transport layer in networking, which ensures reliable, orderly interaction. The voting layer guarantees that outcomes reflect the collective will and that processes remain fair, authoritative, and decisive.

🌾 Allocation: Resource distribution and implementation, where decisions are transform into actions.

Once a proposal passes through the voting layer, the allocation layer determines how resources—funds, personnel, attention—are deployed. Like the network layer in OSI, it figures out “how” the result will be routed into real-world operations. It ensures that approved initiatives are properly funded, assigned owners, and set into motion.

🔍 Accountability: Oversight and enforcement layer, ensuring that executed actions meet their objectives.

This final layer monitors performance, audits results, and enforces consequences if agreements are not honoured. Similar to how the data link and physical layers in OSI ensure error-checking and signal integrity, the accountability layer validates that decisions lead to the intended outcomes and that participants remain responsible for their commitments.

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Thinking about Governance using this mental model has consistently helped our team align on product decisions. This coupled with our long term ideas on network economies shape our product roadmap.

It is important to note that unlike the OSI model where a user is typically only interfacing with the Application layer, here we would expect that users are interfacing voluntarily at each layer of the Governance stack.

We share this in good faith and welcome feedback; knowing that in any networked system, its topology is continuously evolving. 

[1] The Raft of the Medusa, 1818-19, Theodore Gericault., Musee du Louvre, Paris.

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Raft_of_the_Medusa

Dear Reader, Thank you for taking the time. If you care about governance and can help by connecting us to people who may be interested in our work, please don't hesitate to email us at hello@lighthouse.cx