Democratic Regime

Telcoin is a Democracy

Definition

Democracy can be defined more intuitively at the extremes as a continuum ranging from autocracy, where one person, e.g. a dictator, holds all power and control over all decisions made for some group, and direct democracy with unanimous consent rules, where every member of a group must approve every decision made.

Summary

Within the range from autocracy to democracy, the Telcoin governance regime can be classified as a representative democracy, a democratic system of self-governance, and a Constitutional democracy organized under a Swiss Verein Association structure.

Representative Democracy: During annual election and ongoing liquid delegation processes, each Miner Group selects a set of miners into Council Member positions on Miner Councils to represent their interests. Miner Councils participate in democratic decision-making processes that provide for improvements to the Platform, including the construction of new and the maintenance of existing components, the allocation of the flow of TEL units from the TEL treasury and within networks, and set the operational rules for interacting with the system and between actors.

Council Member Selection: Miner Groups select other miners in periodic elections and on-going delegation processes to represent their interests on Miner Councils.
Representation Rights: Every Miner Group has representation rights on every Miner Council.
Basis for Representation
- Functional: Each Miner Group, which are collectives made up of individual stakers, developers, liquidity miners and validators, selects delegates to every Miner Council to represent their functionally-based interests which vary based on their productive function and the issuance allocation from which they harvest from the system.
Representation Rights
- Balanced: Balanced representation across miner groups on system-wide governing bodies that regulate the primary TEL inventory, the TEL treasury, and balanced on special purpose governing bodies such as the Compliance Council, and
- Asymmetrical: Fully inclusive on local Councils, where local miners possess rights to enough representatives to ensure all proposals receive consent of at least one representative from every local Miner Group and miners from other sub-systems possess at least one representative on every Council.

Miner Council Authority and Decision-making Rules

Authority: Miner Councils, nested globally, locally, and cross-jurisdictionally, participate in collective choice decision making processes that serve to determine and enforce operational rules for interacting with the system and between each other.
Decision-making Rules: All Miner Council Members can make proposals over their policy domains and voting rules range from a super-majority (75% or higher) to fully unanimous consent.

Democratic System of Self Governance: Miners, the major appropriators of TEL issuance possess ultimate, shared, collective authority over and within the governance system.

Miners: Governance Authority

Miners are involved over time in making and adapting rules within collective-choice situations regarding the inclusion or exclusion of participants, appropriation strategies, obligations of participants, monitoring and sanctioning, and conflict resolution. Through democratic processes of constitutional and collective choice, Miners possess the authority to:

Alter the Governance System
Select (and remove) other miners to represent their interests in decision-making processes on Miner Councils.
Serve as a Council Member and participate in decision-making processes that provide for the construction and maintenance of the Platform, regulate the flow of TEL issuance, and determine and enforce operational rules structuring interactions with the system and between each other.

Constitutional Democracy: The Telcoin Platform governance is conducted through a legal entity called a Swiss Verein (”Telcoin Association”), changes to the governance system require consent from all four Miner Groups (or “the Miner Assembly”) over an identical proposal, and individual Miner Groups maintain autonomy to determine their representatives special duties on Miner Councils.

Constitutional Order: Telcoin governance is implemented through a Swiss Verein Association (the “Telcoin Association”), which operates pursuant to the Telcoin Association Constitution. Adopted and ratified by the community in Telcoin Governance Improvement Proposal number 1 (“TGIP1”), the Telcoin Association Constitution articulates a Mission, Vision, and set of Values to serve as a guidepost for the community to ethically order its behavior towards a common cause with a vision for the future in line with community standards.
Altering the Governance System: In order to alter the governance system, all four Miner Groups, or “the Miner Assembly”, must consent to an identical Telcoin Governance Improvement Proposal (“TGIP”) with a minimum 80% approval vote from a minimum 20% quorum required from each Miner Group.
Altering Representatives Duties: Miner Groups, such as Stakers, may alter their representatives’ special duties and other selection criteria without having to consult with or get approval from other Miner Groups.

Additional Attributes of Democracy

Informed Consent: Each Miner Group has rights to representation on every Council and may replace their council members at any time. In other words, every interest group has a voice in every matter that may affect their functionally-differentiated interests.
Separation of Powers: Each Miner Council is empowered with authority over a specific jurisdictional domain of the Telcoin Platform and governance system, ranging from global organizations with nested authority over the Telcoin Platform and the TEL Treasury, local organizations with authority over sub-systems of the Telcoin Platform (e.g. the TAN Council and the Telcoin Application Network).
Local Autonomy: Each Miner Group, based on their functional location, has the right to elect enough members to their own local Miner Councils, and, at least one of their representatives must consent to rules changes structuring interactions in their domain.
Balanced, Functional Representation: Global, system-wide Miner Councils that govern the Telcoin Platform as one indivisible system and the TEL treasury (the Platform and Treasury Councils) and special-purpose Miner Councils (the Compliance Council) are made up of a balanced representation from each Miner Group.
Inclusive Decision-making Rules: All decisions regarding improvements to the Platform, regulating the flow of TEL units, and the governance system require at least a super-majority of a minimum positive vote of 75% to approve.
Equal Voting Rights: Each Miner Group has equal power and control in constitutional-choice processes and Miner Group representatives (or “Council Members”) have equal voting rights on Miner Councils in collective-choice processes.