Governance Fatigue
A documented decline in voter participation in DAO governance over time, as token holders disengage from an ongoing stream of proposals.
Governance fatigue describes a documented pattern of declining voter participation in DAO governance over time, as token holders disengage from an ongoing, frequent stream of proposals, leaving actual voting outcomes decided by a shrinking, often more concentrated group of consistently active participants.
Governance fatigue is a real, practical limitation on the idealized vision of broad, distributed token-holder governance — low turnout can let a relatively small, committed group effectively control outcomes even in a nominally decentralized voting system. See Kaavon's "How On-Chain Governance Voting Works" guide for the broader governance mechanics this affects.
Examples
- Governance fatigue can let a small, consistently active group of token holders effectively decide outcomes, even when overall token distribution is broad.
- A DAO's low voter turnout on routine proposals is commonly cited as a real, documented example of governance fatigue in practice.