Micro-Cults: Intimate Governance as a Mechanism of Allegiance, Aurora Mizutani's thought-provoking research
When Love Governs: Rethinking Power Inside Intimate Relationships Get it on Amazon We are comfortable talking about power in politics. We are comfortable talking about authority in organizations. We are far less comfortable asking whether governance operates inside our closest relationships. The default vocabulary for relational strain is psychological: communication problems, attachment styles, and emotional dysfunction. That language captures experience, but it often misses structure. What if some relationships function not simply as emotional partnerships - but as small governance systems? In Micro-Cults: Intimate Governance as a Mechanism of Allegiance, I introduce the concept of the micro-cult to describe intimate systems in which belonging becomes regulated through three mechanisms: loyalty extraction, epistemic control, and exit-cost inflation. Get it on Amazon This does not mean families are cults. It does not mean intense love is pathological. It means that under certain con...