# Co-optation

> Co-optation is mapped as the distortion: it shows how political capacities deform through scale, opacity, feedback failure, exclusion, or self-protection.

| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Stable ID | `node:kiduna:political-change:pathologies:co-optation` |
| Family | System Pathologies |
| Domain | Power |
| Kind | pathology |
| Archetypal function | The Distortion |
| Epistemic status | synthesis; supported |

## Concrete anchor

Co-optation belongs to the **System Pathologies** 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

Co-optation shows how political capacities deform through scale, opacity, feedback failure, exclusion, or self-protection, 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 Co-optation, 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 Distortion.** Co-optation is mapped as the distortion: it shows how political capacities deform through scale, opacity, feedback failure, exclusion, or self-protection.

## Gift

names mechanisms that otherwise masquerade as inevitability; through Co-optation, that capacity becomes available for deliberate use.

## Wound / Shadow

becomes a cynical label that replaces causal analysis; Co-optation 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 Co-optation 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 Distortion enters through Co-optation. Read for the capacity seeking expression, the cost displaced from view, and the relationship that changes if the frame moves.

**Question:** What changes when Co-optation becomes the unit of analysis rather than background?

## Game function

**leverage.** Reveal one hidden dependency connected to Co-optation; another player names a countermove. Initiative 1.

## Relationships

- **counteracts — Movement Capture:** Movement Capture counteracts Co-optation by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **amplifies — Astroturfing:** Co-optation amplifies Astroturfing by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(synthesis; supported)_
- **enables — Two-Round System:** Co-optation enables Two-Round System by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_
- **counteracts — Unintended Consequence:** Unintended Consequence counteracts Co-optation by changing authority, participation, resources, information, legitimacy, timing, or the cost of cooperation. _(interpretive; tentative)_

## Countermaps and polarity prompts

- Read Co-optation from the viewpoint of the actor who bears its cost.
- Reverse cause and symptom: what if Co-optation 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 Co-optation: 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

- [Preventing Policy Capture](https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/preventing-policy-capture_9789264065239-en.html) — OECD, 2017. Mechanisms and safeguards concerning capture of public decision-making.
- [V-Dem Dataset and Codebook](https://www.v-dem.net/data/the-v-dem-dataset/) — V-Dem Institute, 2026. Comparative measurement of democratic institutions; indicators remain model-based measures.
- [Guidance for Regulation of Digital Platforms](https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000387339) — UNESCO, 2023. Platform governance, expression, information integrity, and rights.

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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`.
