 Now, whilst a consent theory need not “resolve” allegiance into a promise—there may also be non-promissory conditions on obedience—, it must explain why it should be conditional on it. Three sorts of arguments have been popular. First, there are instrumental reasons for wanting deliberate control over the liability to legal duties. In political authority, where the stakes are as high as they come, the power to give and withhold consent serves an ultimate protective function beyond what we could expect from the fallible institutions of limited government. Second, consent enables people to establish political allegiances by creating new political societies or joining existing ones without awaiting the gradual emergence of bonds of community and reciprocity; consent is an immediate passport to “perfect membership” in a commonwealth (Locke, Second Treatise, § 119). Third, though consent is defined by its performative character, ancillary non-performative features naturally accompany it: consent also expresses the acceptability, or at least tolerability, of the government. This may mark consented-to rulers as salient from among a number of possible contenders, and it may signal that they stand a good chance of being effective, which is itself a necessary condition for the justification of any political authority.