Glossary entry

Jurisdictional Path Dependence

Glossary entry in Failure modes (why Ethotechnics exists). Definitions, checks, and evidence for Jurisdictional Path Dependence.

Quick takeaways

The condition in which the questions an institution asks about a system's scope, and the terms it asks them in, have come to track the system that answered the last one.

Definition

The condition in which the questions an institution asks about a system's scope, and the terms it asks them in, have come to track the system that answered the last one. The system's categories become the institution's categories; the cases it handles well become the typical cases and the rest become edge cases; a neighbouring class of decisions is described in the system's vocabulary before anyone asks whether the system should decide it.

It matters because it makes the automation ratchet self-sustaining. Each widening produces evidence, in the incumbent's terms, that supports the next, and a review body that could reject an expansion evaluates it on criteria the incumbent supplied. The countermeasures are a record of the original jurisdiction kept outside the system, so current scope is compared with the first authorization rather than the previous step, and evaluation independence with access to the cases the system classes as edge cases.

PatternsDiagnostic

Scale: Organizational · Phases: Deployment, Audit · Measurability: Semi-quantitative · Maturity: Core concept

Scope
B. Failure modes (why Ethotechnics exists). Common patterns where responsibility dissolves and harm accelerates.
Genealogy
Names the evidentiary form of the Law XI failure and the reason Law XII protects the capacities that let an institution ask a question in terms the incumbent did not supply.

Adjacent terms

Automation Ratchet Authority Drift Institutional Capture Expansion Decision Evaluation Independence Legitimacy Laundering

Related concepts

Also tagged: Patterns

Authority Drift Automation Ratchet Institutional Capture Rubber-Stamp Review Normalized Dependence Closure Without Remainder

Also tagged: Diagnostic

Moral Latency Accountability Diffusion Extraction Extraction by Endurance Drift (System Drift) Externalization

References

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Cite this glossary entry Formats: APA, MLA, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS

Version

v1.4.0

Last updated

Sep 18, 2026

DOI

Pending Zenodo deposit

APA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. (2026). Jurisdictional Path Dependence. Ethotechnics glossary. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/jurisdictional-path-dependence

MLA

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Jurisdictional Path Dependence." Ethotechnics glossary, 2026, https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/jurisdictional-path-dependence.

Chicago

Ethotechnics Institute Research Team. "Jurisdictional Path Dependence." Ethotechnics glossary. Sep 18, 2026. https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/jurisdictional-path-dependence.

BibTeX

@misc{glossary_jurisdictional-path-dependence,
  title={Jurisdictional Path Dependence},
  author={Ethotechnics Institute Research Team},
  year={2026},
  howpublished={Ethotechnics glossary},
  url={https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/jurisdictional-path-dependence},
  version={v1.4.0}
}

RIS

TY  - WEB
TI  - Jurisdictional Path Dependence
AU  - Ethotechnics Institute Research Team
PY  - 2026
UR  - https://ethotechnics.org/glossary/jurisdictional-path-dependence
ER  -

Scholarly metadata

Authorship

Contact: research@ethotechnics.org

Publication details

  • Published: Dec 3, 2025
  • Last updated: Sep 18, 2026
  • Version: v1.4.0
  • DOI: Pending Zenodo deposit

License: CC BY-SA 4.0

Credit Ethotechnics Institute, include the term title + version, and link to the glossary permalink.

Archive: Wayback Machine history

Changelog

  • v1.7.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Non-Finality, Consequential Contradiction, and The Excluded Case, and generalized the falsified denominator into the falsified ledger — completing the five concerns and the fallibilist ground they stand on.
  • v1.6.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Human Non-Substitutability, Safe Incompleteness, Anti-Conversion Rights, Abstention, Constitutional Debt, Discretion Migration, and Corrigibility Rent — the person-side principles, the three abstentions, and the rent concept.
  • v1.5.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Exception Absorption, Exception Learning, Case Corrigibility, Structural Corrigibility, Institutional Learning, Corrective Debt, and the Workaround Presumption, formalizing the historical turn: reading institutions through their failure trajectories rather than their stated controls.
  • v1.4.0 · 2026-09-18 — Added Residual Complexity, Complexity Displacement, Falsified Denominator, Closure Without Remainder, Constitutional Governance, and Post-Optimization Rigor, embedding the foundational contention of burden redistribution.
  • v1.3.0 · 2026-09-11 — Added Attestation, Liability Record, Carve-Out, Delegation Chain, Composed Latency, and Silent-Harm Discovery, each bound to the standard clause that requires it.
  • v1.2.0 · 2026-09-08 — Added The Non-Conversion Principle, Exit Cost, and Jurisdictional Path Dependence, each linked to the theory essay that argues for it.
  • v1.1.0 · 2026-01-09 — Expanded scholarly metadata, operational tests, and provenance notes.
  • v1.0.0 · 2025-12-03 — Initial glossary release with stable permalinks.