Temporal Divergence in Institutional Representation: Institutional Drift Theorem

Institutional Drift formalizes the second foundational theorem of the SignalRupture (SR) framework, demonstrating that institutional representations diverge predictably from originating behavioural reality across procedural time. Drawing on longitudinal SR metrics across seven governance domains, the paper shows that Ground‑Truth Discrepancy Index (GTDI) values increase as cases move through administrative layers, oversight cycles, and procedural reiterations—even when no new behavioural information is introduced. Drift emerges from recursive re‑encoding, procedural layering, oversight reuse of prior summaries, and the self‑compressing nature of institutional memory. The theorem positions temporal divergence not as documentation failure or bias, but as a structural property of governance systems operating under temporal distance, audit dependency, and recursive abstraction.