The Translation Trap: A Governance System for Strategic Drift and Institutional Alignment

How do formal representations displace institutional intent? This paper examines how institutions can appear aligned and high-performing while drifting from their stated purpose. It argues that this condition arises because intent does not enter decision-making directly: to guide action, it must be translated into criteria, metrics, and allocation rules. In this process, what begins as a representation of intent can come to replace it. The paper identifies the Double Translation Trap: a condition in which a proxy both guides allocation and serves as the standard by which success is judged. As a result, the system can no longer detect whether it is diverging from its original purpose. The paper introduces Translation Drift as the condition in which decision systems optimise for these representations rather than for the intent they were meant to serve. Once embedded through allocation, the institution learns to succeed on its own representations rather than on its intended purpose. The paper contributes a diagnostic framework that makes translation drift observable, actionable, and correctable at the point of allocation, enabling institutions to maintain alignment between intent and what they fund. This paper is part of the Coherence Programme.