Extraordinary Power and Mandatory Departure: A Tenure Contingent Constraint Examined Through Cincinnatus and Rosas

Extraordinary executive powers should be temporary, and their exercise should carry a mandatory consequence for the tenure of the officeholder who benefits from them. This paper develops that proposal, previously formulated by the author in The Captured Renewer Problem, rather than substituting the weaker requirement that exceptional competences eventually expire. The earlier model links invocation to departure within three months, successor elections, and a bar on the outgoing president's candidacy in that election. Cincinnatus distinguishes voluntary relinquishment from an enforceable duty to leave; the Buenos Aires law of 1835 contrasts a five-year governorship with extraordinary power whose duration depended on the elected government's judgment. Argentine episodes from 1989 to 2024 identify different problems of authorization, extension, decree review, and persistent effects. The author’s Brazilian diagnosis of 1991, published in 1992, is examined alongside the anti-reissuance reform of 2001 and judicial application in 2019. Extended Phenotype Theory specifies how a rule linking exception to departure could acquire legal expression, organizational supports, and vulnerabilities to displacement. Evolutionary Game Theory examines the personal cost of invocation, coalition substitution, end-of-term incentives, and adjudicative evasion. A separate coalition calculation illustrates why procedural review alone can leave continuation cheaper than ordinary legislation. The contribution is a critical development of the author's existing tenure-contingent proposal, with implementation conditions and adverse tests. It establishes neither causal effectiveness nor evolutionary stability.