RIG-01 — Recoverability Is Closed: A Structural Diagnosis of Modern Governance

This paper provides the series overview and diagnostic frame for the Recoverability & Institutional Governance series. It introduces recoverability as a structural property of governance systems: the practical capacity to alter the operative rule-set after policy failure using internal democratic and administrative mechanisms. The paper distinguishes recoverability from legitimacy, accountability, participation, and democratic form, and explains how systems may remain lawful and procedurally democratic while losing the capacity to correct persistent failures. RIG-01 is explicitly non-prescriptive. It does not propose reforms, policies, or alternative governance arrangements. Its purpose is diagnostic: to determine whether democratic correction remains structurally possible at all before any consideration of solutions. The paper establishes the conceptual scope, exclusions, and reading logic for the full series, and explains how subsequent papers examine the closure of specific correction pathways, including electoral correction, institutional memory, fiduciary role alignment, financial stewardship, and structural exit. This overview is intended to be read prior to the other papers in the series and serves as the anchor document for cross-reference, citation, and archival clarity.