Constituent Authority and Long-Run Collective Resilience

Constituent Authority and Long-Run Collective Resilience Anytos Angelis · Independent Researcher · Chalkida, Greece ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-9770-2329 Preprint · Version 1.0 · 22 October 2026 · Not peer reviewed Author correspondence: anytosaggelis@gmail.com Political Residuals, Constituent Dependency, and Historical Entrenchment Abstract How does the distribution of ultimate authority over the boundaries of the political affect long-run collective resilience? This article develops a constituent explanation centred on the historical fate of unrealized political possibilities. Where citizens lack continuing authority to reopen the politically decidable, reconsideration may depend on actors whose positions are sustained by existing institutional arrangements. Such constituent dependency can contribute to the cumulative entrenchment of consequential political residuals. Political entropy describes that historical foreclosure through reproduced barriers and increasing costs of revision, independently of the vulnerability it may help produce. The article traces how repeated exclusion can alter the material, institutional, and organizational conditions under which societies confront subsequent threats. By connecting constituent authority to the historical revisability of the political field and the conditions of collective reproduction, it identifies a conditional causal pathway between political autonomy, institutional entrenchment, and long-run resilience.