Observatory · Scenario map
Futures of the state
Scenarios are tools for thinking, not predictions. Each lists its drivers and the early indicators that would make it more or less plausible. Several may unfold at once.
Power distributed ↑↓ Power concentratedTerritorialNetworked →
Positions are qualitative and editorial. Dashed outlines mark ◇ forecasts.Scenario 13◇ Forecast · horizon 2030s
Corporate-sovereign enclaves
Private companies or investor groups govern territories with their own law, courts and security under agreements with host states, approaching sovereignty in practice while remaining legally dependent on the host.
Likelihood: unlikelyDriversInvestor interest in regulatory predictabilityInvestment-treaty protection for zone investorsNetwork-state and charter-city advocacyHost states seeking investment without national reformLibertarian theories of competing private governance
Early indicatorsStatutes delegating legislative or judicial power to private entitiesOutcomes of investor-state arbitration over reversed zonesHost-state agreements conferring legal status on private communitiesResident governance rights in enclave chartersDomestic court rulings on the constitutionality of delegations
Claims this scenario depends onPaul Romer proposed charter cities in 2009: new cities on uninhabited land, governed by a charter that differs from host-country rules, which people could choose to move to.In 2024 the Supreme Court of Honduras ruled the ZEDE framework, under which Próspera was created, unconstitutional.Whether charter-city zones benefit host-country residents or mainly serve outside investors is disputed; in Honduras opponents argued that ZEDEs ceded national sovereignty.On 27 July 2026 Kazakhstan's Ministry of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Development signed a memorandum with Balaji Srinivasan's Network School on establishing it in Kazakhstan; the Prime Minister's office stated that the projects are privately funded, without state financing.
The central question is not “what replaces the nation-state?” but who holds power, and on what terms, when intelligence is no longer exclusively human.