*Structural constraints.* Any acceptable representation design has to satisfy the constraint that population direction is recognized without systematic distortion by interposed filters. Wealth-filtering at the scale the US currently exhibits (campaign finance dominated by top-distribution donors, lobbying access stratified by capacity to fund, regulatory revolving doors, media-ownership concentration) violates that constraint, so the framework precludes it at the design level. The framing of representation-as-direction-recognition is itself contested by the epistocratic (Brennan 2016; Caplan 2007), Schumpeterian-elitist (Schumpeter 1942), and Burkean-trusteeship (Burke 1774; Pitkin 1967) traditions, which deny that representation is direction-recognition at all. Those traditions are engaged at section length in [§9.3.1](<9.3.1 What is Disputed.md>), and the constraint stated here applies under that engagement. Because recognition quality couples to deliberative infrastructure, representation cannot be designed without simultaneous attention to its deliberative-infrastructure inputs (informed publics, deliberation venues, expert-input filtering), so pure-aggregation designs such as raw-preference referenda on complex policy without deliberative input violate the coupling at the structural level. And voter access is itself collective-investment output (voter-registration infrastructure, polling infrastructure, ballot-access design, identification provision), so the framework precludes voter-suppression patterns at the design level on the same logic that precludes structural extraction generally, voter suppression being structural extraction directed specifically at the voter-registration infrastructure.

*Cross-domain couplings.* Representation couples constitutively to the information environment ([§9.4](<9.4 Information.md>)): the two domains are not independent, representation reform without information-environment reform produces smaller effects than reformers anticipate, and any representation-reform agenda that ignores the information-environment side will systematically underperform. It couples to economic structure ([§9.7](<9.7 Economy.md>)), where the wealth-filtering prediction means economic-structural reform (proportionate-to-stake taxation, structural-extraction reduction) and representation reform are mutually reinforcing: economic concentration produces representation capture, representation capture protects economic concentration, and reforming one without the other produces partial and reversible gains. And it sits structurally upstream of the other domain sections, because the recognized direction of the population determines which sufficiency-floor architecture, which justice design, which agricultural model, and which environmental policy gets selected from among framework-compatible alternatives; the framework leaves those specific designs to the downstream sections because it derives constraints rather than dictating outputs.

*Cross-border substrate extension.* The substrate-extension obligation [§9.2](<9.2 Belonging.md>) derives (that the face-to-face base be extended to those whose conditions the community comes to be accountable to) lands its open question here, since the pace, sequencing, and division of labor of that extension across receiving and originating communities is a direction-recognition question before it is an admission-policy one ([§9.2.5](<9.2.5 What is Concluded.md>)). The recognition requirement sets pressure on the pace from two sides. From above, extension is bounded by the productive-contact conditions ([§9.2.2](<9.2.2 What is Required.md>), [§9.2.3](<9.2.3 What is Predicted.md>)): a base extended faster than its institutions can hold equal-status, cooperative, sanctioned contact does not extend recognition but triggers the hardening the contact record documents ([§9.2.4](<9.2.4 What is Confirmed.md>)), so unstructured extension at volume defeats the obligation it was meant to discharge. From below, the obligation forecloses indefinite deferral: a community that declines extension altogether is not exercising discretion over a discretionary good but refusing a substrate the same recognition mechanism derives as owed. The division of labor follows the same logic: the obligation falls wherever the base can be extended under productive-contact conditions, across both the receiving community's civic infrastructure and the conditions sustained in originating communities, so that extension is a shared structural task rather than a unilateral receiving-side burden. This concedes the communitarian point [§9.2.1](<9.2.1 What is Disputed.md>) grants Walzer (that a community holds qualified self-determination over what membership means, since the shared meanings that constitute membership come from inside it) and parts from its strong form on the ground the dispute already held: self-determination over the meaning of membership is not discretion to refuse the substrate-extension the recognition mechanism derives as owed, any more than direction-recognition is discretion to read only the advantaged subset's direction. Who sets the pace is itself a recognition question: both the existing members whose base capacity is at stake and those whose conditions the community is accountable to have to be constituted as direction-bearers in the sequencing, on the equal-recognition and sufficient-access conditions [§9.3.2](<9.3.2 What is Required.md>) derives, rather than the sequencing being imposed by whichever party already holds the boundary. What the framework derives is the constraint at the design-pressure register: pace bounded above by productive-contact maintenance and below by the obligation, division of labor across both communities, sequencing adjudicated through recognition rather than imposed; what it leaves to the implementation literature and the recognized direction of the affected populations is the calibration: the specific rates, the integration-policy designs that supply productive-contact conditions, the balance of receiving-side and originating-side investment, and the admission architectures among those that satisfy the constraint.

*Field-engagement.* No specific electoral system is endorsed at the design-detail level: pure first-past-the-post at scale is precluded for its systematic minority-preference gap, but proportional representation, mixed-member proportional, single-transferable-vote, ranked-choice voting, and other alternatives remain available where they satisfy the direction-recognition constraint, the choice belonging to the implementation literature and the recognized direction of the population. No particular constitutional architecture is required either: presidential or parliamentary, federal or unitary, unicameral or bicameral, with various term-limit and judicial-review designs, can each satisfy the constraint under different calibrations, while configurations that violate it at scale (one-party states, hereditary aristocracies, plutocracies) are precluded. Reform paths are likewise open: the framework derives that representation reform is necessary if the political community is to maintain itself against extraction but leaves the specific path to the implementation literature and to the political processes its own representation derivation constitutes, supporting reform from inside an imperfect system with imperfect tools without prescribing it. Positive design remains possible within the constraints: the synthesis of continuous-participation recognition through technology with deliberative integration by representatives ([§9.3.3](<9.3.3 What is Predicted.md>) Prediction 9) is one worked-out case that routes around both direct democracy without deliberation and representation without continuous recognition, under which candidates run on integration capacity rather than ideology, campaigning shifts from defeating opponents to pitching genuine benefit, and proposals scale across districts by majority approval rather than top-down imposition: one possible design among others that satisfy the constraints, not the only one.

What remains open is the specific electoral system among compatible alternatives, campaign-finance regulation beyond the wealth-filtering-at-scale constraint, lobbying regulation beyond the structural-extraction constraint, term-limit, recall, or recall-equivalent designs, the balance of representative, deliberative, and direct-democratic systems in any given polity, judicial-review architecture beyond the direction-recognition constraint, and the reform path from current arrangements to compatible alternatives. Where multiple designs satisfy the constraints, the choice belongs to the design literatures, the empirical record, and the recognized direction of the population.

The [§9.3](<9.3 Representation.md>) derivation reaches institutional design through three doors and stops short of choosing among the options each admits. The structural-constraint door precludes patterns: wealth-filtering at the scale the US currently exhibits, pure first-past-the-post at scale, and voter-suppression at the design level. The cross-domain-coupling door names the dependencies: representation reform without information-environment reform underperforms, economic-structural reform and representation reform reinforce each other, and the recognized direction [§9.3](<9.3 Representation.md>) protects is what selects from the framework-compatible options the downstream domains leave open. The field-engagement door names the underdetermination: no specific electoral system, no particular constitutional architecture, and no single reform path is required; only the direction-recognition constraint is. The continuous-participation-plus-deliberative-integration design at [§9.3.3](<9.3.3 What is Predicted.md>) Prediction 9 is one worked-out instance of design inside that constraint, not the constraint's only solution. The framework's contribution at this section is the constraint; the institutional choice is where the constraint hands off.


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← [9.3.4 What is Confirmed](<9.3.4 What is Confirmed.md>) | [9.4 Information](<9.4 Information.md>) →
