Definition
The effective capacity of the people an arrangement decides about to make it change when its demands become unreasonable: to force reconsideration, reversal, or rule revision, not merely to complain. It is the exercised form of corrective standing — standing names the right; corrective power names whether exercising it can alter the system's governing state.
It matters because it is the second term in the discipline's evaluation formula, alongside outcome and burden: what an arrangement accomplishes, what accomplishing it requires from people, and what power those people hold over those requirements. A system whose corrections are nominal scores high on the first term and low on the third, which what outcomes hide argues is exactly the failure a pure outcome orientation cannot see.
Tests that show it is in place
- The people it decides about can produce a state transition in the arrangement, not only a recorded complaint.
- The cost of exercising correction is measured against the capacity of those who must bear it.
- Corrective power survives the dependence that justified it being engineered away.
References
- What outcomes hide · Theory
- Corrective standing · Term