We thank our partners in the city-region, who are the kinds of good faith actors needed for better local participatory structures. Policy@manchester supported our activities in a key phase. Comments on early drafts from Catherine Durose and Dave Richards helped shape the paper. Our appreciation to Stephen Greasley and others in the Public Policy and Administration Specialist Group of the UK Political Studies Association. Thanks to the reviewers for their help in sharpening the messages and contribution of the paper.

Introduction

1Calls to engage citizens and civil society in local governance have long antecedence, following arguments for a ‘participatory turn’ in policy work (Dryzek & Ripley, 1988; Durose & Richardson, 2016). A distinction has been made between ‘participation for design’ where the focus is on how participation improves the design of policies and services, and ‘design for participation’ (Saguin & Cashore, 2022), where the focus is on governance arrangements themselves. Design for participation is central to the success of participation for design. For example, why listen to community representatives’ views if policy-makers are not convinced of their representativeness? However, many designs for participation in local governance structures have often been perceived as dysfunctional by those involved. How, then, can participatory initiatives be redesigned?

2There are many possible forms of participation in local governance; here, we focus on local corporatist arrangements. Corporatism refers to sets of formal arrangements for interest group representation and intermediation. Local corporatism will be familiar in its operational forms, such as neighbourhood forums, area committees, youth councils, and so on. What might also be familiar are the litany of complaints from those engaging in such arrangements about their efficacy and legitimacy, alongside strident critiques found in the academic literature.

3Participatory practices can have a ‘dark side’ (Flinders et al., 2016; Oliver et al., 2019). For example, organisations may deliberately try to co-opt ‘difficult’ groups and stifle dissent. In such instances, tokenistic structures and processes are not unfortunate operational flaws, but are part of the design. Dark sides of participation do exist. However, even with good faith actors, there remain serious challenges. We were interested in instances where those involved want to facilitate participation effectively but are hindered by poor designs and practices (Williams et al., 2020). Local corporatism requires considerable time and effort from civil society groups and public services alike. It introduces an element of reputational risk for all parties involved. Expectations can be raised and the stakes of the decisions are high. Under such conditions – willing and well-intentioned participants, making an effort in risky circumstances – our research question was: what have been some of the conditions in which corporatist structures have been redesigned?

4This paper defines our key terms – corporatism in local governance – and explains their rationale in theory and their dysfunctions in practice. We then examine the opportunities for the redesign of failing arrangements using new institutionalist theory as our theoretical positioning (Koning, 2016). An institutional lens suggests that the reform of governing arrangements can create opportunities for innovation in institutional rules (Gains & Lowndes, 2014; Waylen, 2015). The literature suggests that the dynamics of change are shaped by disruptions in the institutional context, when new rules could be formed.

5We describe a redesign of different rules in a specific empirical case. The paper discusses the methodology for the research. We selected a case based on the presence of conditions that we theorised shape the possibilities of change in corporatism, that is, institutional disruption in sub-national governance. Developments were tracked over four years based on written documentation. The authors worked with stakeholders involved in the case, which provided valuable insight and access, but also posed challenges in terms of maintaining criticality.

6The paper then sets out the empirical findings. We found that the dynamics of the case were less narrowly about one big institutional ‘bang’ at the political level. Rather, they were a diffuse series of different rule changes by diverse actors. Macro-level disruption did not lead to rule change per se; rather, a series of attempts were made by actors to create spaces in which rules could evolve further. In the discussion section, we expand on our reflections about the conditions for redesign in this case. The mobilisation efforts of different actors included the proactive generation of further disruptions on a smaller scale through a series of invited external challenges.

7Our paper tests the expectation, based on institutionalist theory, that the dynamics of change would be shaped by disruptions in the institutional context when new rules might be formed. This expectation was met, albeit not in the ways suggested by some existing literature. Macro-level disruption alone – such as the introduction of a metro mayor – did not automatically generate participatory redesign. Instead, redesign was mobilised through the agency of multiple actors creating and amending rule specifications. Therefore, a core intellectual contribution of the paper is to refine existing understandings of the contingent nature of redesign in conditions of institutional disruption. We highlight that institutional change may take the form of a series of iterative ‘mini-disruptions’. Our research suggests that there is a need to refine expectations about critical junctures to incorporate a more nuanced model of layered, incremental institutional redesign.

8In the conclusion, we discuss the broader issue of the existence of fundamentally incompatible sets of institutional rules at the national level that act as barriers to genuine participation. However, such a focus creates an overly-pessimistic outlook on the potential for change. Instead, we conclude that a focus on local variation may offer a cautiously optimistic account of reform in a context often seen as resistant to innovation.

Corporatism in local governance, and its failings

9Leaving aside the usual issues of conceptual clarity (Baudin, 1942, p. 4–5 cited in Schmitter, 1974, p. 88; Jordan, 1984, p. 138, p. 141; Siaroff, 1999; Kenworthy, 2003, p.11), we understand corporatism as a set of formal arrangements for interest group representation and intermediation. Policy-makers and bureaucrats invite selected organised interest, issue, and identity groups to participate in officially recognised governance structures and offer them privileged status as bodies whose views are taken into consideration in decision-making (Siaroff, 1999; Lijphart, 2012, p. 158–159; Lehmbruch & van Waarden, 2003, p.104).

10Well-established corporatist approaches to local governance include local neighbourhood committees, business forums, multi-agency partnership working groups, youth ‘Parliaments’ or councils, and networks of organisations advocating for minoritised groups that sit on advisory structures for local decision- and policy-making (e.g. ‘the X Place Older People’s Panel’). Participants vary widely, ranging from self-selecting individual citizens to paid professionals working for third sector advocacy groups, as well as volunteer members of informal neighbourhood and identity groups. Many people wear more than one hat (Richardson, 2008). Here we distinguish between interests (including place-based interests), affinities, e.g. activity-based groups, and identities. However, in reality, these categories are blurry.

11Corporatism is an ideal type. It is set on one end of a continuum, with pluralism at the other (Schmitter, 1974, p. 96; Streeck & Kenworthy, 2003, p. 448). Pluralism, as an ideal type, is where a range of non-privileged interest groups compete for decision-makers’ attention (Streeck & Kenworthy, 2003, p. 441). Pluralism and corporatism are focused on organised interests and groups, while direct democracy allows individual citizens to make direct representations, e.g. through referenda (Vatter, 2009). Corporatist, pluralist, direct, and electoral arrangements supposedly complement each other, with the antonym of electoral representation being not participation, but exclusion (Plotke, 1997).

12Elected decision-makers can no longer act as “elected kings” (Sørensen & Torfing, 2019, p. 1), and corporatism has been used as a means of reconfiguring relationships with citizen groups. Local democratic institutions at the sub-national level are motivated to set up corporatist structures as part of this complementary eco-system of decision-making. Their motivations are driven by the inherently partial and blunt nature of electoral signals. Such shortfalls can leave elected decision-makers at risk of misjudging their constituents’ specific preferences (Fung, 2006). A lack of additional intelligence increases decision-makers’ vulnerabilities. Second-guessing citizens’ views is easy to get wrong; evidence suggests that politicians are inaccurate estimators of people’s preferences and regularly misperceive what voters want, including their own partisan electorate (Walgrave et al., 2022; Butler, 2025).

13Corporatism is one response to bureaucratic and political vulnerabilities, as well as the limits of second-guessing citizen preferences. It is a means of gathering information-rich intelligence (Urbinati & Warren, 2008). Interest groups are highly likely to form lobbies and make claims in any case. Decision-makers must adjudicate between a proliferation of highly fragmented claims. Corporatism’s attempts to structure lobbying arrangements are a means of filtering out some of the ‘noise’. In theory, corporatism enables decision-makers to sift between competing claims, identify the most reliable sources of intelligence, and reduce unnecessary transaction costs with unrepresentative groups. However, the reality is far from the hypothetical ideal type.

14Corporatist structures are intended to select individuals and/or networks and organisations that can speak on behalf of a wider constituency (Mansbridge 2003; Saward, 2006). Representatives of “peak associations” (Jahn, 2016) are assumed to “enjoy a representational monopoly” (Jahn, 2016, p. 51). Self-appointed representatives could, in principle, provide democratically legitimate representation, conditional on them being a presence for affected constituencies, authorised by and held accountable to them (Montanaro, 2012).

15Assumptions about self-selecting representatives are often not borne out. Some peak associations lack sufficient links with their members or wider constituencies (Jahn, 2016, p. 51). This leaves non-elected interest group representatives without effective channels through which to ensure authorisation and accountability (Purdue et al., 2000). Peak organisations have been criticised for becoming gatekeepers and restricting other voices from being represented (Pearce, 2010). As a consequence, non-elected representatives are deemed insufficiently representative or lacking authenticity (Lowndes & Sullivan, 2004; Montanaro, 2012; Richardson, Durose, & Perry, 2019), resulting in pejorative references to the usual suspects (Richardson, 2008; Taylor, 2012; Richardson, Durose, & Perry, 2019). The least powerful minority groups are also under-represented, including by those claiming to wear the ‘community’ hat’ but who do not promote the interests of the most socially disadvantaged groups (Purdue et al., 2000; Lowndes & Sullivan, 2004).

16Overall, better designs for participation in sub-national governance are underdeveloped (Roberts, 2020), with many “shortcomings of the classic corporatist model” (Lowndes & Sullivan, 2004) in English local government. Corporatism in local governance to date has been, in large parts, dysfunctional, closed and lacking in transparency, with challenges over the legitimacy of participants and the credibility of their claims to speak for a wider group. Interest group representatives have expressed dissatisfaction with the responsiveness of corporatist arrangements. Some criticisms have gone further, with some attempts at engagement accused of tokenism and cynically used to placate public criticism or scepticism (Lowndes & Sullivan, 2004).

Designs for participation: stability and change

17In the context of persistent dissatisfaction with local corporatist arrangements in sub-national government, we are interested in ‘designs for participation’, and how they might be redesigned. In a public policy context, the term ‘design’ has distinct meanings and associated literatures depending on the particular lineage (e.g. see Richardson, et. al., 2026). Policy design can be thought of as: “the deliberate and conscious attempt to define policy goals and to connect them to instruments or tools expected to realize those objections” (Howlett et al., 2015, p. 291). Following from the discussion of rationales in the previous section, the policy goals of local corporatism are to enhance decision-making by incorporating relevant intelligence and interests. Corporatist arrangements can therefore be understood as one of the policy tools used to achieve these goals, which, as we have seen, often with disappointing results.

18More specifically, in relation to policy design and participation, participation for design refers to stakeholder participation to assist with the design of a specific service or process. Design for participation (Saguin & Cashore, 2022) refers to the ways in which participation happens. The term design includes the processes, structures, policies, and arrangements through which people can get involved in shaping decisions, policies, and resources. In our context, we are considering sub-national governments with some devolved control over budgets and decisions within an entire administrative jurisdiction. Therefore, design for participation is also about design for polity, concerning the design arrangements for the processes of governance themselves (Saward, 2021).

19Local corporatist structures are a minority sport (Richardson, 2008) in terms of the number of citizens involved, but their importance lies not in the numbers involved but in the distinct form of design for participation compared to many other forms. This is because of the type of participants involved (non-elected ‘representatives’ of identifiable interests) and what those participants are intended to represent (wider constituencies of those interests). This form of design has its own rules and, compared to other forms of lobbying, has a relatively high degree of formalisation in its structures and processes. Such arrangements are accorded a designated status in formal governance systems and have a potentially privileged role in influencing decisions, even if that status has low leverage, weak authority, or little control. Corporatist structures have been a dominant feature of participatory practices in the UK for decades, embedded in local governance decision-making (Stoker & Wilson, 1991; Lowndes et al., 2001; Sullivan, 2022).

20We use an institutionalist lens to gain insight into the processes of design and redesign. Recognising that designs are comprised of many elements, including ideas, emotions, practices, and objects (Sullivan, 2022, p.31), we place particular emphasis on the role of rules. Governance arrangements at whatever spatial setting essentially represent the institutionalised rules of the game in different political arenas (March & Olsen, 1984; Ostrom, 1999). The literature on corporatism already steers us in the direction of institutional rules and practices (Vatter, 2009, p.126), and “standard operating procedures constituting […] decision-making” (Howlett & Tosun, 2021, p. 17). These rules can range from formal, legalistic, statutory, or constitutional rules that govern the granting of political, legal, or financial powers for authoritative decisions, to a more informal ‘way things are done around here’ (Lowndes & Lemprière, 2018, p. 227-228; Gains & Lowndes, 2022).

21A key analytical advantage of focusing on rules is understanding both stability and change. Arrangements between governments and interest groups have a “relatively enduring nature” (Howlett & Tosun, 2021, p.15). Indeed, corporatist designs for participation are deliberately aimed at providing consistency in the membership and terms of reference of decision-making forums. Unfortunately, where designs are sub-optimal, this also means that much-needed reform is a challenge. Institutional designs for corporatism have been stably dysfunctional in English local governance over several decades. Change has been blocked by the path-dependent properties of formal institutions and “surprisingly resilient” formal rules (Blanco et al., 2022, p.204).

22While stable systems have much to commend them in a governance context, they can sometimes militate against change when change is needed. Institutionalist analyses have identified the relative stability and stickiness (Pierson, 2004) of institutional rules. However, they have been criticised for their inability to explain change (Koning, 2016, p.639). Counter to this critique, a well-established body of new institutionalist analysis now suggests that despite long-standing path dependences in governance institutions, rules are fundamentally malleable and can be constructed by actors with agency. Change can also be facilitated by critical junctures (Gains, John, & Stoker, 2005), where institutional changes generate space for redesign (Waylen, 2015; Gains & Lowndes, 2014). The way that institutional change helps shift existing rules is that disruptions in governance systems give legitimacy to new actors. Some of those new actors will bring different agendas and interests. They can use their legitimacy to challenge the agendas of existing institutional players. Therefore, the theory suggests that we can expect to see shifts in designs for participation and/or designs for polity when significant disruption occurs.

23Changes to existing institutional governance rules have been associated with reforms such as the adoption of new council constitutions in England and Wales (Gains, John, & Stoker, 2005), the devolution of powers to the Scottish Parliament in the UK (Mackay, 2014), and the creation of the South African Parliament (Waylen, 2011).There has been an increasing adoption of sub-national governance arrangements (Connell et al., 2022) and an expansion of various forms of political leadership, including the directly elected mayoral model (Gains, 2016; Sørensen & Torfing, 2019; Hambleton et al., 2022). At the sub-national level, institutional redesign has been observed following the establishment of directly elected police and crime commissioners in English regions (Gains & Lowndes, 2022). The general British context is one of centralised power hoarding, with limited freedom of movement for local governments. Hence, the introduction of area-specific arrangements to devolve some powers and budgets to city-regions potentially offers a different set of opportunities.

24Since 2017, the introduction of combined authorities in the UK headed by directly elected ‘metro mayors’ has provided an opportunity to disrupt institutional rules and, in some cases, evolve new ‘set[s] of practices’ (Gains, 2016; Roberts, 2020). The strength of the directly elected mayoral political leadership model derives from the legitimacy and political authority that direct election confers on political actors and provides justification for disruption to existing institutional rules (Gains & Lowndes, 2022). However, disruption does not necessarily lead to change and could result in less participatory politics. Whilst research on local mayors in Italy finds that directly elected mayors vary in how they engage and can operate in very centralised leadership styles, they also note the development of multi-actor leadership (Sancino et al., 2022).

25Based on a new institutionalist analysis focusing on the rules for designs for participation, we expect to see attempts to redesign rules for corporatist structures and processes in a context of institutional disruption. We now set out how we explored these expectations through a specific empirical case.

Methodology

26The literature suggests that disruptions to governance arenas creates opportunities for changes in designs for participation, which may then facilitate participation in policy or service design. We selected a case study based on the presence of the conditions we theorise to shape possibilities of change in corporatism, that is, an institutional disruption in sub-national governance, with sufficient attention paid to specific corporatist arrangements for the case to yield substantive findings. Our case study focuses on (what eventually became) the Women and Girls’ Panel of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) in the UK. It was selected because of its alignment with the literature above, that is: a context of institutional disruption; an organisation with an explicit political commitment from a key actor with authority to introduce corporatist practices; and specific efforts to design and redesign corporatist structures. Building on a wider literature, we explore the effects on gender equality of rule changes in local governance (e.g. see Gains & Lowndes, 2014; Durose & Lowndes, 2024).

27The background to the case is that, since 2017, English devolution arrangements have been introduced into the UK’s centralised Parliamentary system, and the GMCA was the first of a series of city-regional authorities in England with devolved economic and social portfolios attached to sub-national governance institutions (Gains, 2016). In Greater Manchester (GM), direct mayoral elections at city-regional level were a condition of the deal, despite this not being a typical feature of English regional government (Gains, 2016; Roberts, 2020; Hambleton et al., 2022). As a city-region, Greater Manchester is a significant policy actor in its own right, home to over 2.8 million people, around two million of whom are registered voters. Ten local councils (called districts) in GM each have one vote on the GMCA, with one elected representative, usually the leader, per local council. A city-regional Mayor is elected by all citizens in a separate ballot, with a 50 percent or more majority, has separate GM-wide powers, and works with the leaders of the ten councils to set region-wide priorities.

28GM was the first deal between central and city-regional government and is also seen by commentators as an “undisputed pioneer[s] of English devolution” (LGA, 2022, p.3). GMCA was also at the forefront of the development of a city-regional level ‘equalities architecture’ within its governance structures in England. The organisation set up a series of official structures for interest group representation at the city-regional level, including those relating to gender equality that became the Women and Girls’ Panel.

29Private and public written documentation are appropriate sources of evidence to surface formal and informal rules, as rules necessarily become codified to some extent. The data for this case comprises 16 sets of associated substantive policy and related documents. These documents comprise all those that made explicit reference, during the study period, to the design and redesign of the Women and Girls’ Panel.

30The full list of documents is as follows: seven published official reports and press releases from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority covering the creation of the Women and Girls’ Panel, the Panel’s annual reports, details of the Mayor’s visit to the Panel, the set up of the IIC, the IIC report, the GM Strategy Refresh, and a response to the LGA peer review report (GMCA 1 – 7); two published reports from the Local Government Association (LGA 1 – 2) one on their peer review of GM, one on an LGA national inquiry that referenced GM’s equalities work; a publication summarising findings of the work by the authors on designs for participation in GM (Policy@Manchester 1); and six sets of unpublished documents (Unpublished Papers 1 – 6) which included the research brief from GMCA to the authors, materials (agendas, reports, background briefings) created for research workshops about redesigning participation structures in GM, and minutes of meetings of a network of officials across GM public sector organisations responsible for participation. Evidence supporting the findings is labelled in brackets in the text (e.g. GMCA1) and also cross-referenced in Table 1.

31We analysed the documents by applying the framework shown in Table 1 about different kinds of rule changes. Table 1 is based on the underpinning theoretical work concerning institutional rules. This framework provided a structured analytical protocol for coding and analysis. Both authors coded the material to ensure reliability. We ‘member checked’ (Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Birt et al., 2016) our draft analysis with some key stakeholders involved in the case, who provided robust feedback on alternative explanations. These explanations were subsequently incorporated into the revised analysis and interpretation.

32We tracked activities in the case over a four-year period. We selected a timeframe beginning after the creation of the first iteration of corporatist structures, continuing through a round of redesign, and ending with the conclusion of that round of work. This period included one mayoral election, in which the incumbent mayor was re-elected.

33Our university’s ethics criteria did not require formal ethical approval for this work. We adopted a process of negotiated ethics to guarantee an ethical approach with the people involved in the case. For example, our engagement in the case was initiated by people in the case study organisation, on the basis of a written brief led by their organisation. We received explicit permission to use unpublished documents in our research. Other documents were publicly available. We shared draft versions of the findings with research partners in the organisation before publication.

34In terms of the broader ethical dilemmas of this work and our positionality, as detailed below, both authors were actively involved in advising the city-regional authority throughout the period covered. This included serving as a member of the Women and Girls’ Panel and conducting a commissioned research project for GMCA. There are always pros and cons from this kind of deep embeddedness in a case. We have written elsewhere (Elliott, et.al., 2026) about concerns where academics act as critical friends to governments, including the risks of co-option. A lack of distance, driven by a desire to generate impact from research, may incentivise a “Faustian bargain” (Flinders, 2024) whereby scholars tone-down their traditional criticality and independence as the price they pay for access to decision-makers. We were keenly aware of such dangers.

35We reflected on how to maintain criticality while also maintaining an active, constructive relationship with our local government partners. For example, the choice of data type – written documents – was partly driven by our awareness of our positionality. We felt that standard alternatives, such as conducting qualitative interviews, were a poor choice, as we had also been involved in the activities being discussed. Written documents allow our analysis and claims to be scrutinised in a transparent way.

36However, our situatedness in the process also gave us insights, access to internal materials, and background context we may not otherwise have had. The explicit brief for our work with the authority was to ask challenging questions and offer an external perspective. The analysis below demonstrates our ability to maintain criticality. While this was not action research, we were also somewhat involved in the redesign efforts, producing the data that we then used and trying to create change in practice. Such work forms part of our normative commitment as academics to useable social science and research that supports better policy-making (Cairney et al., 2024). Our stance aligns with international moves towards ‘positive public policy’ (Douglas et al., 2021)

Findings

37Dysfunctional local corporatism suggests that new rules of the game are needed, but existing structures have been largely stable. Critical junctures might assist in creating a shift where old institutional rules have proven to be ‘sticky’ (Pierson, 2004; Koning, 2016, p. 641). We theorised that one kind of institutional disruption that could generate a redesign of rules might be the creation of new institutional arenas, with new actors with authority. Would the political legitimacy granted to the GM Mayor by virtue of a separate independent ballot be able to over-ride the path dependency of existing rules? In this section, we describe what happened in the case study example, summarised in Table 1.

Table 1: Rule changes relating to designs for participation

Type of rule change	What changed about designs	Type of disruption	Limits of designs	Documents used for evidence
Legislative rule change creating new design for city-regional polity	Generation of institutional change through creation of new institution Gave authority to new actors to shape further rule change in designs for participation New designs for participation within the local polity created	Top down, centrally determined, large-scale (metro mayors/city deal)	New designs replicated some dysfunctions of corporatism	LGA1 policy@manchester1
Institution-wide change in rules for designs for participation	Shift in designs for participation from Task and Finish groups to Equalities Panels Additional scrutiny of designs and challenge to institution	External challenge; initiated by the organisation (IIC)	Challenge needed to be translated into action	GMCA1 GMCA2
Local adaptions to institution-wide rules	Changes in accountability and membership for a specific instance of design for participation	Specific to one area; internally generated and organised (open recruitment)	Small-scale of application	GMCA1 GMCA4 GMCA5 GMCA7
Attempts to transfer local rule change into re-design for the city-regional polity	Local design changes made explicit Exemplification promoted within institution and to city-region	External challenge; initiated by specific actors (research) External challenge; initiated by whole organisation (peer review)	Extent of institution-wide re-design unclear	GMCA3 GMCA6 LGA1 LGA2 Unpublished papers 1-6

Source: the Authors

Legislative rule change

38Row one shows legislative rule changes introducing the directly elected mayoral model, a design for a new city-regional polity that introduced a new form of ‘interactive political leadership’ (Sørensen & Torfing, 2019). A combination of the size and scope of the Combined Authority with direct election by citizens across the city-region, contributed to giving the metro Mayor visibility (LGA1, p.3, p.12) and authority, and convening power to prioritise equalities (LGA1, p.10).

39However, the results of this rule change were, arguably, to re-create from scratch similar kinds of sub-optimal corporatist designs for participation to those that exist elsewhere. Between 2017 and 2019, GMCA created the first iteration of structures for interest group representation via ad hoc, closed, or invited membership ‘task and finish groups’. While these structures and processes were new to the new organisation, they also aped many of the classic, old dysfunctions of corporatism found elsewhere.

40For example, the Task and Finish group relating to gender and women’s issues was chaired by the local councillor for GMCA leading on equalities issues, so it was embedded in the routine operations of the organisation to some extent. However, the extent to which the Task and Finish group had a clear remit to scrutinise and challenge decisions made by GMCA was unclear. With invited membership, the group also lacked transparency and openness in its recruitment, and the invited members lacked diversity, being dominated by people internal to the organisation, i.e., elected politicians and officers from the Authority, with only two external members (Policy@Manchester 1).

Institution-wide rule changes

41In the second row of Table 1, we highlight changes to institution-wide formal rules for its designs for participation. A second iteration of the corporatist structures redesigned the Task and Finish groups into standing structures called Equality Panels (GMCA1). Five Equalities Panels were launched in mid-2020 and were later expanded to seven Panels, with a focus on various dimensions of inequality: LGBTQ+ people and organisations; older people; younger people; faith communities; women and girls; d/Disabled people; and people from racially minoritised groups. Their purpose was to advise on the equalities dimensions of GMCA and other city-regional policies.

42Key to this rule change was the degree of routinisation of the structures within the organisation’s decision-making processes. The Panels represented a shift to a permanent embedded structure. Embeddedness and routinisation were strengthened by additional resources, e.g., a switch from being supported by GMCA officers to being convened by specialist gender equalities charities.

43Despite this redesign, key limitations remained (GMCA2), including continued lack of control over decisions, with Panels acting in an advisory capacity without the authority to make decisions or to compel compliance with their recommendations. Panels had small budgets but lacked influence over major resource decisions. It was these limitations that were then surfaced by a specially commissioned Independent Inequalities Commission (IIC). The Mayor used his authority to create this additional layer of scrutiny to deliberately elicit challenges to the work of GMCA.

44What happened was that GMCA had been working towards a May 2020 election date, but the election was delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. During the hiatus, and in response to inequalities revealed by COVID, the Mayor established an Independent Inequalities Commission (IIC) for Greater Manchester in Autumn 2020, with the aim of producing a report ahead of the delayed mayoral election in 2021 (GMCA2).

45The IIC was a group of independent actors, with high status and profiles in their respective fields, explicitly charged to review progress on social justice (GMCA2). From this rule change, some of the dysfunctions in designs for participation were made explicit. For example, despite the changes that had already taken place, stakeholders remained deeply dissatisfied, frustrated by the lack of mechanisms to hold decision-makers to account. One study of Panel members suggested that they often felt left out of decision making and struggled to hold policymakers to account (Pontz, 2021). The IIC concluded that improvements to ‘people power’ were needed (GMCA2, p. 36), including giving the Panels “more teeth” with “more power and resources to constructively challenge public bodies”. It emphasised the need for a “pivot”, signalling the desire for a radical shift, beyond better consultation on decisions towards devolved power. However, surfacing issues is only one step towards addressing those issues; acknowledging their existence does not resolve them.

Local adaptations to institution-wide rules

46A third set of rule changes involved local adaptations of the rules, driven by a smaller group of actors directly connected to the Women and Girls’ Panel (GMCA4). One key adaption was to negotiate direct access to senior decision-makers to address the lack of levers to enforce recommendations. Arrangements were established for the Mayor to personally attend the Women and Girls’ Panel bi-annually, where he provided feedback on how the changed design for participation in the Panel had strengthened participation in the design process. He listed concrete policy changes relating to gender resulting from Panel recommendations (GMCA5). He also committed to further co-design of policy (GMCA7).

47Another local shift was on the selection processes for membership. As documented earlier, corporatist structures stand, and often fall, on their ability to provide a route for the representation and negotiation of special interests via credible representatives. The first iteration of designs did not achieve this goal; for example, the majority of Task and Finish group members were internal to the organisation and arguably lacked sufficient connection to the wider constituencies of women and girls. In contrast, the Panel had an open membership selection process with a transparent application process advertised across the city-region (GMCA1).

48Eighteen Panellists appointed for an initial two-year period were selected purposively to reflect a range of backgrounds and forms of expertise of different women. However, the changes were restricted to a small part of the designs for participation.

Attempts to transfer local rule changes into redesign of wider local polity

49The fourth row of Table 1 describes how attempts were subsequently made to promote the local rule adaptions into rule changes across the organisation as a whole, i.e., a redesign for the wider local polity. One way to understand these moves is as part of a “process of active institution-building” (Goodin, 1996, p. 67). Institutions of governance are “structures with attitude” (Hood, 1998, p. 10), therefore surfacing what kinds of attitudes underlie designs can be seen as part of a redesign process. Institutional design is an inescapably normative process (Lowndes & Sullivan, 2004, p. 71), demanding “attention to […] higher level principles relevant to the design of future local partnerships” (Goodin, 1996, p. 71). Purely ‘rational’ justifications for partnership working are unlikely to create robust or innovative institutions (Goodin, 1996). In the literature review, we set out a theoretical proposition that a focus on rules helps understand change because rules are malleable and can be constructed by actors with agency. What was seen in the case were attempts at active institution-building, based on normative ideas, by local actors with agency.

50A small number of specific institutional actors actively promoted and attempted to formalise rule change. They did this by codifying local adaptations and writing down changes in the ‘rules in use’ (Ostrom, 1999). In late autumn 2021, one institutional entrepreneur commissioned the authors to articulate the local adaptions to institutional rules (Unpublished Papers 1& 2). This work was made possible by paid officials being formally charged by senior leaders (including the Mayor) with responsibility for responding to the IIC recommendations. For example, the updated GM Strategy would specifically draw on “insight from equality and community representatives to help frame a collective response” to tackling inequalities (GMCA3). Processes of articulating what had been tacit understandings are crucial, as rules: “provide the essential scaffolding for public policy design […] recorded guides to action [and] formal codifications provide clarity, predictability, and reliability for actors as part of a wider system of governance” (Sullivan, 2022, p. 71).

51Adopting an abductive approach using theory and practice, the academics elaborated the local adaptations to rules in the Women and Girls’ Panel to produce a series of working documents that compared some of the design principles underpinning the more dysfunctional corporatist structures with those underpinning the reformed structures (Unpublished papers 1, 2, & 3). Changes to the Women and Girls’ Panel were used as an example to model how these principles were being translated into practice, and therefore how they could be implemented more widely. For example, the principle of transparency in open recruitment by application, embeddedness by the negotiated attendance of the Mayor, and representativeness via purposive selection of participants based on a diverse range of experiences, and geographical and demographic characteristics. Discussion of the design principles took place over the course of a year, from March 2022, through four events and a number of bilateral meetings, including with senior officers and politicians (Unpublished papers 4, 5, and 6). A small group of advocates created a Community of Practice to influence the practices of a wider group of local actors and organisations in the city-region.

52While we make no claims here about the degree to which the principles and amended rules were adopted across the organisation, we found examples of the organisational credit-claiming based on the rule changes. GMCA volunteered to take part in a prestigious, sector-led peer review scheme run by the Local Government Association. Documents from the authors’ research were used as evidence of internal improvement by GMCA in their submission for the peer review (Unpublished Paper 5). Feedback from the peer review documented: “positive developments in the engagement of specific communities, stakeholders, and individuals in the development of strategies and plans” (LGA1, p.22). It described how more opportunities for “co-design” of services and “more scrutiny of the impact of policies and delivery” were being welcomed (LGA1, p. 12).

53The design principles documented in the research were also cited in a national report examining the wider remit of local government to ‘level up’ outcomes and tackle inequalities (LGA2). Key institutional actors reported that calls to strengthen participation were growing louder, highlighting this as a key way of working to make and sustain the necessary changes (Unpublished paper 4). Documents also showed progress in “strengthening the impact of GM Equality Panels” (GMCA6, p.4)

Discussion of conditions for redesign in the case

54Long-standing issues exist with corporatist structures for the representation and intermediation of interests in local governance. Institutionalist literature helps to explain the stability of sometimes dysfunctional or sub-optimal systems, but it also provides a framework to understand processes of change. We focused on the role played by institutional rules in designs for participation. We expected to see change being shaped by disruptions in the institutional context, through the setting up of new governance spaces, where new institutional rules could be formed. A case study of novel devolved city-regional governance arrangements represented disruptions in macro-level constitutional arrangements that – we hypothesised – would open up further opportunities for institutional rule change for the designs for participation in local governance. There was an explicit commitment by the organisation to corporatist ideals, with many ‘good faith’ actors engaged in attempts to enact designs for participation.

55As shown in Table 1, we found that the dynamics in the case were less narrowly about one big institutional ‘bang’ at the political level, such as through the direct election of the mayor. Rather, they were a diffuse series of different rule changes by diverse actors. Although legislative rule change created new corporatist structures, these new structures exhibited old problems. Hence, the macro-level disruption did not lead to rule change per se. However, we also saw a further series of attempts to create spaces to further evolve rules. Local actors within the organisation adapted formal rules into new informal rules. They amplified the change by subsequently re-codifying the adapted rules into new semi-formal rules. They also used their agency to generate mini-disruptions via external challenge. For example, the metro mayor used his role to authorise an external body to critique participation designs in the organisation.

56Our findings suggest that the conditions for rule change were as follows. While some experimentation was facilitated by top-down legislative change, the initial disruption did not create sufficient change. New designs re-created old dysfunctions. Two key sets of factors generated space for redesign. First, the mobilisation role of policy actors. The additional use of the agency of specific groups of actors within the institution to mobilise other actors and act as institutional entrepreneurs, connecting institutions to communities (Durose, 2011; van Hulst et al., 2024), created other spaces for different kinds of rule changes. Particularly, there were efforts to strengthen corporatist designs for participation through a more explicit articulation of rules in use (Ostrom, 1999). The form this took was that local actors worked with the authors to theorise and document emerging practices in publications and guidance documents. Second, some of the mobilisation efforts of the actors generated their own institutional disruptions at different scales. These took the form of external challenges invited by the organisation and its officials (see Table 1). For example, the creation of the Independent Inequalities Commission at institutional level by the metro mayor was a conscious elicitation of an external challenge. At a smaller scale, another invited external challenge was the authors’ research. A subsequent challenge at the organisational level was the invitation to a national body (LGA) to conduct a peer review. Each of these created further mini-disruptions that generated further scope for redesign. The institutional actors used the challenge as a further form of disruption to enhance their efforts to actively build the institution.

57Some of the redesign represented relatively innovative changes to practices, such as introducing open competition for panel representation. However, as shown in Table 1, each kind of change had limitations. Initially, these included the relatively narrow scope of the changes. Subsequently it was not clear how far innovations had been spread across the organisation or been fully embedded in other practices.

58These reflections on the findings have implications for institutionalist theory. We tested theoretical expectations, derived from institutionalist theory, that the dynamics of change would be shaped by critical junctures in the institutional context when new rules might be formed. The expectation was met, but not in the ways suggested by some existing literature. As Guy Peters has rightly pointed out (2018), if we want to study policy design, we need to think about the designers, both individual and institutional. Macro-level disruption did not automatically lead to participatory redesign. Instead, redesign was highly contingent on the agency of multiple actors creating and re-shaping institutional rules. Therefore, a core intellectual contribution of the paper is to refine and expand existing understandings of the contingent and iterative nature of redesign in conditions of institutional disruption. We highlight that institutional change may take the form of a series of iterative ‘mini-disruptions’. Our research suggests that there is a need to refine expectations about critical junctures to incorporate a more nuanced model of layered, incremental institutional redesign.

Conclusion

59What conclusions can we draw, especially given the path dependency of corporatist arrangements? Are corporatists on a mission doomed from the start by the presence of competing sets of rules and fundamentally incompatible policy styles?

60Corporatism is a specific manifestation of a particular conjunction of key policy style dimensions (Richardson, Gustafsson, & Jordan, 1982; Howlett & Tosun, 2021). Put differently, it is a government’s approach to problem-solving and its relationship with other actors (Richardson, Gustafsson, & Jordan, 1982, p. 13). Hybrid corporatism is one of “only four” ideal types of governance relationships (Howlett & Ramesh, 2016, p. 303). Looking across 36 democracies, Lijphart has been pessimistic about the prospects for democratic corporatism in a majoritarian system where the: “typical interest group system […] is a competitive and uncoordinated pluralism of independent groups in contrast with the coordinated and compromise-oriented system of corporatism that is typical of the consensus model” (2012, p. 158). Similarly, others have identified potential incompatibilities between representative democracy and participatory or consultative democracies (Howlett & Tosun, 2021, p. 21).

61Beyond the English context, the literature acknowledges an uneasy co-existence of competing modes for the involvement of interest groups in local governance (Skelcher et al., 2011), including – again – a possibility of a fundamental incompatibility mode. “Representative democracy and governance networks conflict because each is predicated on a different set of institutional rules” (Skelcher et al., 2011, p.9). Some of the problems are created by a mess of contradictory policy styles, such as “constrained consultation” (Richardson, 2018, p.216), as well as the empirical muddle and mix of ‘corporate pluralism’ (Jordan, 1984).

62A combination of a majoritarian, Westminster-model democracy with centralised, power-hoarding tendencies (Whitehead, 2013, p. 11; Richards & Smith, 2015), coupled with “weak associationalism”, can result in a dominant mode at the local government level of the “instrumentalisation” of civil society groups to reinforce existing agendas of government (Skelcher et al., 2011, p. 13). Worse, in what might be described as institutional gas-lighting, instrumentalisation co-exists with “complementary” modes. This combination “is not accidental” (op cit, p. 20). Where instrumentalisation co-exists with efforts to engage associations in governance, structures are designed to legitimise institutions (op cit, p.20). In such ‘non-accidental’ situations, one implication is that flaws in corporatism are not actually flaws, but part of the design. It is plausible that conventional and co-productive policy designs simply operate on fundamentally incompatible design logics or epistemologies (Durose & Richardson, 2016). In such circumstances, redesign efforts would be considered naïve.

63There has been debate about whether the dysfunctions commonly identified across many forms of participation are inherent flaws, bad practices, or poor designs (Williams et al., 2020). Of course, some so-called ‘flaws’ in designs for participation may indeed reflect a deliberate design for tokenism, representing some of the dark sides of participation (Flinders et al., 2016; Oliver et al., 2019). One interesting question from our findings is how far, or in what ways, any of the implications are transferable to contexts where sub-optimal design is less a result of unintended consequences in disjointed systems, but of more consciously malicious intent by designers acting in bad faith. In these cases, relying on the agency of actors in the system would arguably be a mistake.

64Should local corporatists give up and go home then? We conclude not. One result of a dominant focus on the broader context at national level is to create an overly-deterministic framework for understanding the possibilities of change. There is a relative dearth of literature about interest groups at the local compared to the national level, for example, identified in the North American context (Anzia, 2022). A greater focus on local variation reveals different potential outcomes within the same competing national policy styles.

65Alongside cynical attempts at manipulation, there are also many officials and politicians in public organisations who – while versed in the realities – remain committed to the ideals of better participatory practices in local governance. These policy actors are by no means naïve (Boswell, 2023) but have not lapsed into a jaded view of the possibilities. It is this kind of optimistic setting, possible along the more benign end of the spectrum, that this paper speaks to. Dark sides of participation do exist. However, other situations are arguably equally corrosive, such as the slow attrition of goodwill from the sub-optimal results of poorly designed systems. This reflects some prosaic realities for many actors in public sector organisations and their civic partners. Our findings suggest a less pessimistic vision for improved corporatist structures is possible by taking account of sub-national variations in designs for corporatism in contexts of institutional disruptions. A key implication for designers of participatory systems is to test for malign intent, but based on the existence of good faith actors, stay optimistic about the prospects for reform.