# Unwritten Constitution

> Unwritten Constitution is mapped as the frame: it places durable rules above ordinary political competition.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:constitutional-order:unwritten-constitution` |
| Family | Constitutional Order |
| Domain | Governance |
| Kind | institution |
| Archetypal function | The Frame |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Unwritten Constitution belongs to the **Constitutional Order** family. It is treated as a specific political object, role, institution, tactic, event, ideology, or mechanism before any symbolic transfer is made.

## What it does

Unwritten Constitution places durable rules above ordinary political competition, changing who can act, what becomes visible, and which costs are distributed to others.

## Who gains and who loses power

The mechanism can increase the capacity of actors able to use Unwritten Constitution, while shifting cost, delay, risk, exclusion, or dependence toward actors with less authority, information, organization, money, or safe access. The distribution is conditional, not an essence of the node.

## Archetypal function

**The Frame.** Unwritten Constitution is mapped as the frame: it places durable rules above ordinary political competition.

## Gift

constrains arbitrary power and enables legitimate self-change; through Unwritten Constitution, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

lets inherited rules entrench exclusion or block adaptation; Unwritten Constitution can then reproduce the very arrangement it claims to change.

## Conditions

- scale and jurisdiction are explicit
- affected people and absent stakeholders are named
- time horizon and countermoves are considered

## Strategic meaning

Use Unwritten Constitution to identify the operative target, resource, dependency, decision forum, and likely countermove. Ask what would make the mechanism stronger, weaker, more legitimate, or less necessary.

## Divinatory meaning

The Frame enters through Unwritten Constitution. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Unwritten Constitution becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**role.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Unwritten Constitution; another player names a countermove. Initiative 5.

## Relationships

- **amplifies — Constitutional Crisis:** Constitutional Crisis amplifies Unwritten Constitution by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **translates into — Constitutional Moment:** Unwritten Constitution translates into Constitutional Moment by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **distributes costs to — Paleoconservatism:** Unwritten Constitution distributes costs to Paleoconservatism by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **constrains — Sit-In Movement:** Sit-In Movement constrains Unwritten Constitution by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Unwritten Constitution from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Unwritten Constitution is an effect of the system it appears to drive?
- Change the clock: what looks different over a day, an election cycle, a generation, and a century?
- Ask when the Gift becomes the Wound through scale, secrecy, intensity, latency, or unequal reciprocity.

## Epistemic and Sentinel note

Claim layers: synthesis, interpretive, symbolic_divinatory. Scope, jurisdiction, period, and source perspective may change the claim.
No node-specific Sentinel factors were recorded; ordinary source, audience, and context checks still apply.

## Visual direction

A text-free enamel expression of Unwritten Constitution: one dominant mechanism, one counterforce, raised warm-metal linework, midnight field, restrained civic red, teal, ivory, and amber. No party logo, national flag, sacred symbol, or recognizable person.

## Research / provenance

- [Constitution of the United States](https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript) — National Archives, 1787. Federal structure, separated powers, amendment, elections, and rights.
- [The Federalist Papers](https://guides.loc.gov/federalist-papers/full-text) — Library of Congress, 1787–1788. Arguments for the U.S. constitutional design; read as advocacy, not neutral description.
- [Universal Declaration of Human Rights](https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights) — United Nations, 1948. International human-rights framework.

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Engine Output version 1.0.0; generated 2026-08-24T00:00:00Z. Sentinel annotations are stored separately in `sentinel/handoffs.json`.
