RIG-02 — The Democratic Recoverability Test (DRT): A Structural Criterion for When Voting Cannot Correct Policy Failure

This paper introduces the Democratic Recoverability Test (DRT), a structural diagnostic for assessing when democratic correction through voting and electoral turnover is no longer possible in practice, even while democratic form remains intact. The DRT evaluates recoverability rather than legitimacy. It asks whether citizens retain a realistic pathway to alter the operative rule-set after policy failure through elections, local enforcement discretion, jurisdictional exit, or policy reversibility. The test specifies four necessary conditions—authorship alignment, enforcement discretion, jurisdictional exit, and policy reversibility—and evaluates democratic recoverability based on their presence or absence. The paper does not assess legality, intent, or policy desirability. It explains how democratic non-recoverability can arise structurally through coordination, harmonisation, delegation, and standardisation, without requiring corruption, authoritarian intent, or unlawful conduct. Illustrative applications demonstrate the distinction between full democratic non-recoverability and partial recoverability across governance domains. The DRT is presented as a diagnostic tool, not a reform proposal, and identifies a functional limit on democratic correction capacity within otherwise lawful systems. This paper is part of the Recoverability & Institutional Governance series and represents the first applied diagnostic within that framework.