REGISTRATION REGIME THEORY (RRT) A Unified Framework of Power, Inscription, and Ontological Fixation

This paper presents Registration Regime Theory (RRT) as a unified framework for understanding the ontological foundations of power, inscription, and social fixation. Moving beyond conventional accounts of authority based on coercion, economic production, or normative discourse, RRT posits that regimes of registration — systems of record, inscription, and temporal stabilization — fundamentally constitute the material and symbolic infrastructure of social order.

The study articulates how inscription technologies, from writing and numbering to bureaucratic and algorithmic systems, create and sustain durable identities, obligations, and hierarchical relations. By theorizing power as an emergent property of temporal fixation through registration, RRT offers a holistic framework that integrates archival, sociological, and political dimensions of governance.

The paper contributes to social theory, political ontology, and media studies by situating registration as the precondition of both institutional continuity and ontological stability.