The Margin of Purpose: How Institutions Lose What They Claim to Value

Where purpose is lost is where allocation decisions are made. Institutions rarely abandon their mission explicitly—they lose it gradually. This paper shows how purpose thins as it is translated into capital allocation criteria and portfolio rules. As these representations stabilise, what is funded begins to diverge from what is claimed to matter. It introduces the Sovereign Window: the limited interval during which shifts in allocative logic remain visible before they become embedded in budgets and performance signals. Drift does not begin at failure—it begins at the point of translation into allocation. About the Coherence ProgrammeThe Coherence Programme studies why institutions drift despite appearing…