Powers and Laws together allow communities to build any governance structure that fit their needs. It is possible to define the mechanisms through which a role is assigned, the power it has, how roles check and balance each other, and under what conditions this can change.
This is possible because laws provide a modular governance layer around the Powers.sol engine. Each governance action is initiated in reference to a law, and is executed in line with its role restriction, checks and allowed actions.
The following is a diagram of the governance flow in the Powers protocol:
Governance scenarios
Example A: Adopt a new law, conditional on a secondary governance check
Law 1 allows 'members' of a community to propose adopting a new law. Law 1 is subject to a vote, and the proposal will only be accepted if more than half of the community votes in favour.
Alice, as a community member, proposes a law that allows community members to create a grant program with a budget of 500 tokens X. Other community members vote in favor. The proposal passes.
Alice calls the execute function. Now nothing happens. Their proposal has been formalised but no executable call was send to the Powers protocol governing the community.
Law 2 allows governors in the community to accept and implement new laws. Law 2 is also subject to a vote and, crucially, needs the exact same proposal to have passed at Law 1.
David, who is a senior, notices that a proposal has passed at Law 1. He puts the proposal up for a vote among other seniors. Eve and Helen, the other seniors, vote in favour.
Following the vote, David calls the execute function and the Power protocol implements the action: the new law is adopted and community members will be able to apply to the new grant program.
Note that this is a basic example of a governance chain: Multiple laws that are linked together through child-parent relations where a proposal needs to pass a child law before it can executed by a parent law. This chain gave members the right of initiative and governors the right of implementation, creating a balance of power between the two roles.
Example B: Assign governor roles through Liquid Democracy
Law 1 allows 'members' of a community to nominate themselves for a 'governor' role in their community.
Alice, Bob and Charlotte each call the law through powers execute function and save their nomination in the law.
Law 2 assigns governor roles to accounts saved in Law 1. It does this on the basis of delegated tokens held by accounts. Any account can call the law, triggering (and paying gas costs for) an election.
In January, David obtains a large amount of tokens and delegates them to Bob. He calls law 2 and triggers an election. Alice and Bob are elected and assigned as governors. In the following weeks, he notices that bob is not responding to messages and not voting in elections.
In February, he re-delegates his tokens Charlotte and in the next block calls an election. Alice and Charlotte win the election and are assigned as governors. Bob per immediate effect loses his governor role and all of its privileges.
Note that this is an example of assigning roles through what can be called Liquid Democracy. Roles can also be assigned directly, through votes among peers, a council vote or through a minimal threshold of token holdings. Pretty much anything is possible.
