Assessing Theorem-Driven Structural Accounts Through Qualitative Secondary Analysis

This preprint presents a theorem-driven qualitative secondary analysis of ten empirical or empirically grounded studies in order to assess three structural theorem papers at three distinct levels: analytical utility, empirical congruence, and prospective testability. The three assessed papers are Recognition, Consent, and Organizational Stability, Recognition, Consent, and Democratic Drift, and Post-Consent Governance Drift. They address related but distinct structural problems concerning recognition-based stability, democratic consent renewal, accountability attribution, procedural substitution, corrective capacity, and surface stability. The empirical corpus spans democratic legitimacy, participatory governance, transparency and trust, accountability, organisational decline, reputational contagion, and financial fragility. The analysis combines a fixed theorem-derived coding frame with recursive re-reading, explicit logging of supporting and burdening material, coding stabilisation at the document level, and theorem-wise comparative synthesis. The findings indicate strong analytical utility at the declarative level, substantial but uneven empirical congruence at the descriptive level, and limited yet meaningful prospective testability at the predictive level. The study does not claim verification of the theorem papers, estimate prevalence or effect size, or demonstrate prospective predictive success. Its contribution is to identify where the theorem family improves empirical interpretation, where its structural relations are supported or burdened by existing studies, and which propositions should be exposed to stronger future falsification-oriented research. The preprint includes the full study matrix, coding book, analytical memos, decision rules, article-level assessment matrix, and search-and-selection protocol.