The Longitudinal Governance Panel
A standing socioeconomic-and-governance panel survey — the same people and institutions measured repeatedly, across years. The capability to run world-class longitudinal measurement already exists in Bangladesh; it has simply never been pointed at governance.
A claim about change over time can only be tested over time.
The convergence claim asserts that trust, civic participation and the governance of scarce resources are moving along a trajectory other societies will later follow. A claim of this form cannot be tested from a snapshot. It can be tested only by observing the same people and institutions repeatedly, across years, under a stable instrument.
We treat longitudinal measurement as the empirical condition of our central thesis. The thesis is scientific to the precise extent that we are willing to collect the data that could disconfirm it.
Pilot first. Then scale as the pilot earns the funding the full panel deserves.
One district, one wave
The pilot: instrument validated and published openly. Small, rigorous, and honest about what it can and cannot yet show.
Field & fund the full panel
Use the pilot to seek full-panel funding — pitched to infrastructure and longitudinal-research funders on the strength of a validated instrument.
Authority over measurement
The long road by which a measurement institution's standing over the evidence itself eventually becomes statutory — beyond routine political interference.
A fifteen-year clean panel is the cheapest durable moat an institute can own.
Narrative can be matched; the data cannot. We are funding the pilot now.