Governance theory has always presumed cognitive comparability between governors and governed. This paper identifies that unstated assumption, constructs a framework that makes it testable, and shows that it is load-bearing. The framework specifies necessary conditions along six dimensions (legitimacy, accountability, corrigibility, non-domination, subsidiarity, and institutional resilience), synthesized from political legitimacy theory, principal-agent models, republican political theory, and AI alignment research. Applied first to existing institutions and then to a prospective case of bounded superintelligent authority where capability asymmetry is radical, the framework finds structural failures on four of six dimensions. Among these, two are design-tractable and two are theory-requiring: the public reason problem under cognitive incomprehensibility and the non-domination problem under permanent capability asymmetry demand genuinely new normative frameworks, not better institutional design. A further finding is that dimensions which function as independent checks under bounded asymmetry become correlated failures under radical asymmetry. The analysis contributes to political theory by exposing foundational assumptions that have gone unexamined because, until now, they have always been satisfied.

翻译：治理理论始终预设治理者与被治理者之间的认知可比性。本文识别出这一未言明的假设，构建了一个使其可检验的框架，并证明该假设具有承重性。该框架综合政治合法性理论、委托-代理模型、共和政治理论与人工智能对齐研究，沿六个维度（合法性、问责性、可修正性、非支配性、辅助性与制度韧性）规定了必要充分条件。将该框架首先应用于现有制度，继而应用于能力不对称达到极端的有限超级智能权威假想案例后，发现其在六个维度中的四个维度上存在结构性失效。其中两个维度的失效可通过设计手段解决，另两个维度则依赖理论突破：因认知不可理解性产生的公共理性问题，以及因永久能力不对称产生的非支配问题，需要全新的规范性框架而非更优的制度设计。另一发现是：在有限不对称下充当独立制衡的维度，在极端不对称下会转化为相关性失效。本分析通过揭示因长期满足而未经审视的基础性假设，为政治理论领域做出贡献。