Fragmented Responsibility Disjunction

When recognized risk fails to produce action because no authority can legitimately act

Edge of Knowledge · Governance-Driven Failure Modes

Preface

Governance failures are often attributed to ignorance, incompetence, or unwillingness. Such explanations fail to account for a distinct and recurrent failure mode: situations in which risk is explicitly recognized and adequately signaled, yet no accountable intervention occurs because responsibility itself is structurally fragmented.

In these regimes, failure does not arise from absence of awareness, intent, or capability, but from the absence of executable authority.

Abstract

Fragmented Responsibility Disjunction is a governance failure mode that arises after risk acknowledgment and signaling sufficiency, when authority for response is distributed across multiple actors with overlapping, partial, or non-hierarchical mandates. No single entity is empowered to act unilaterally, and no enforceable collective mechanism exists to compel coordinated action.

The failure is structural, not epistemic or procedural: risk is known, capability exists, but responsibility cannot be executed without violating legitimacy constraints.

Failure Mode Definition

Fragmented Responsibility Disjunction is present only when all of the following conditions hold simultaneously:

• Risk is formally recognized and acknowledged
• Signaling is timely, credible, and sufficient
• Capability to respond exists across the system
• Authority is divided among multiple entities with overlapping, partial, or non-hierarchical mandates
• No single actor is institutionally authorized to act unilaterally without exceeding its legitimate scope
• No binding mechanism exists to compel coordinated action

Distinction From Adjacent Failure Modes

• Epistemic Lock-In: Interpretation fails to update; here, interpretive consensus exists
• Action Threshold Collapse: Action itself is net-negative; here, action is beneficial but not executable
• Procedural Entrenchment: Rules block action; here, authority itself is misaligned
• Neglect or Omission: Risk is unrecognized; here, recognition is explicit

Invariant Framework Declaration

Symmetry group (𝑮): Redistributions of authority, mandate reassignments, and role re-labelings that preserve the total set of actors while allowing responsibility to be reconfigured.

Conserved quantity (𝑸): Aggregate system capability to respond to the recognized risk.

Invariant spectrum (𝑺): The set of executable authority paths—actors or coalitions that can legitimately initiate and carry out a response without exceeding mandate or requiring external permission.

Failure signature on 𝑺: The invariant spectrum is empty. No legitimate authority path exists despite preserved system capability and acknowledged risk.

Why More Data Cannot Resolve It

Additional information does not create executable authority. When the invariant spectrum is empty, further signaling only reinforces awareness without enabling action. The constraint is institutional, not informational.

Ethical Risk of Misuse

This concept must not be used to diffuse responsibility or absolve actors of bad faith. Diagnosing Fragmented Responsibility Disjunction requires explicit demonstration that no legitimate authority path exists—not merely that coordination is difficult.

Final Judgment

DOCTRINALLY VALID — REGIME-BOUNDED

Fragmented Responsibility Disjunction identifies a structural failure in governance legitimacy: capability exists, risk is known, but no actor can act without overstepping authority. The diagnosis forbids claims of control, safety, or stewardship until authority is explicitly realigned.

Version 1.1 · Public doctrine · Edge of Knowledge · Moral Clarity AI