This article has led me to Shapiro & Preguiça (2007) https://arxiv.org/pdf/0710.1784.pdf

The whole idea that commutativity gives you a better-behaved transition to consistency reminds me of how the theory of patches gives DARCS/Pijul better handling of branches than Git. Cf. Mimram & Giusto (2013) https://arxiv.org/pdf/1311.3903.pdf