Abstract. A sustained reading of how institutions inherit, defend, and occasionally vacate the rhetorical center of public discourse. Drawing on twelve years of editorial archives, the report proposes a four-axis model of centrality: temporal, spatial, procedural, and moral.
Methodology. Mixed corpus analysis (n=1,842 published articles), structured interviews with 24 institutional editors, and longitudinal review of citation graphs across three policy domains.
Findings. Centrality, when measured against accountability, is a posture rather than a position. Institutions that perform centrality without accepting its obligations tend toward decay within three publication cycles.