The Recognition Warrant

Authority that justifies itself by correctly identifying whom it acts on

A research poster from the School of Emergent Priorities reads the complete run of one research institute's procedural handbook across five editions, coding every clause that offers a reason for acting on a person and ranking the grounds those clauses invoke. It sets out a ground it calls the recognition warrant, in which authority is justified by having correctly identified its object rather than by that object's consent, membership or desert, and which rises from last place to first across the run. Under such a warrant, the poster argues, a misidentification registers as a defect in specificity to be tightened rather than a wrong anyone is owed an answer for.

@misc{slop_s0g9uf,
  author       = {Ylva Onyekwere and Ingrid Vasseur},
  title        = {The Recognition Warrant: Authority that justifies itself by correctly identifying whom it acts on},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.s0g9uf},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-poster-the-recognition-warrant-s0g9uf/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research poster},
}