Computable·Authority
← Module 2 · Policy Engineering

Lecture 2.7

Contradiction and Conflict

A decomposition can be complete and still be incoherent. This lecture covers the failure modes that appear only once a policy is expressed as structure — the conflicts prose was able to conceal — and treats their detection as a required step before any artifact is issued.

Learning objectives

After this lesson, the reader should understand:

  • 01Name the recurring classes of conflict in a decomposed policy.
  • 02Explain why prose conceals conflicts that structure exposes.
  • 03Resolve a conflict by amendment rather than by silent precedence.

Concept framework

Five classes of conflict

  1. 01Threshold conflict — two rules set different limits on the same field
  2. 02Role conflict — two provisions assign one decision to different holders
  3. 03Ghost term — a rule depends on a definition the instrument never provides
  4. 04Rule collision — two rules match the same facts and produce different outcomes
  5. 05Layer divergence — a local instrument contradicts the one it sits under

Case study

The two limits

A delegation schedule sets a manager's approval limit at £25,000. A procurement annexe, drafted two years later, refers to "the standard managerial limit of £20,000". Both are in force. What does the artifact encode?

It cannot encode both, and that is the value of the exercise. As prose, the two figures sat in separate documents and never met; the institution operated for two years without anyone holding both sentences in mind at once. Structure forces the meeting. The resolution is not for the engineer to take the lower figure as a safe default — that would be a new rule, authored by whoever happened to be compiling, with no mandate behind it. It is to escalate the conflict to whoever holds the authority to amend, record what they decide, and issue the artifact only once one of the two figures has been withdrawn.

Discussion questions

  • Who resolves a conflict discovered during decomposition?
  • Is a conflict that has stood for years a defect, or a de facto rule?
  • Should an artifact be issuable while a known conflict stands unresolved?
  • How should precedence between two instruments be recorded?

Exercise

Run a conflict scan on one instrument.

  1. 01List every rule with its field, operator, and threshold.
  2. 02Flag any field carrying more than one threshold.
  3. 03List every term the rules use, and mark those the instrument never defines.
  4. 04Identify any two rules that could match the same set of facts.
  5. 05For each conflict found, name the person with authority to resolve it.

Research notes

  • Formal verification — consistency checking and satisfiability.
  • Legal theory — lex specialis, lex posterior, and conflict of norms.
  • Knowledge representation — defeasible reasoning and rule priority.
  • Requirements engineering — inconsistency management.
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