A decentred assessment of the impact of ‘informal governance’ on democratic legitimacy
| Date | 01 January 2022 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0952076720904991 |
| Author | Sarah Ayres |
| Published date | 01 January 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Special Issue Articles |
2022, Vol. 37(1) 22 –45
Special Issue: Decentred State
A decentred assessment
of the impact of
‘informal governance’
on democratic legitimacy
Sarah Ayres
University of Bristol, UK
Abstract
The aim of this article is to examine the impact of informal governance on democratic
legitimacy. It draws on the literatures on informal governance and decentred theory to
examine how governance mechanisms that are un-written, un-codified and non-
institutional impact on democratic legitimacy in governance networks. Drawing on a
case study of English devolution in the United Kingdom, this article explores how
informal governance impacts on different dimensions of legitimacy – input,throughout
and output. It does so by drawing on the narratives and stories of central government
officials directly involved in English devolution between 2015 and 2018. Findings reveal
that even when formal structures are weak, democratic legitimacy can be secured,
especially in promoting effective decision making and problem solving – throughput
legitimacy. Nonetheless, a decentred analysis has shown a high level of selectivity and
differentiation in central-local relationships that undermine legitimation based on input
(inclusiveness) and outcome (results) legitimacy. This assessment provides important
new insights into how governance networks characterized by high levels of informality
can promote democratic legitimacy in ways that reflect the nuances of political decision
making in highly complex environments. The challenge for politicians and policy makers
moving forward is to actively manage the inevitable trade-offs generated through the
use of informality if accusations of a democratic deficit are to be averted.
Keywords
Decentred theory, democracy, devolution, governance networks, informal governance,
Westminster
Corresponding author:
Sarah Ayres, University of Bristol, 8 Priory Road, Bristol, BS81TZ, UK.
Email: sarah.ayres@bristol.ac.uk
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Ayres 23
Introduction
The issue of informality in policy making is particularly timely as actors from state,
market and civil society work together to manage complex problems within con-
tested environments (Turnbull, 2018). This has prompted a growing interest in
questions about democratic legitimacy in governance networks (Sorensen, 2016).
Reflecting the subjectivity of the topic, a number of different definitions of infor-
mal governance are identified in the literature. This article takes the position of
informality as the absence of written rules. Christiansen et al. (2003: 6), for exam-
ple, define governance as informal ‘when participation in the decision making
processes is not or cannot be codified and publicly enforced’. Informal governance
includes, therefore, structures and processes that are un-codified, un-documented
and have no trace beyond the recollection and perceptions of the actors involved.
By contrast, formal governance ‘is regulated by rules that have been instituted
according to procedures recognized as legal in clearly defined contexts. Normally,
formal rules are written down and recognized as binding on behaviour under defined
circumstances’ (Brie and Stolting, 2013: 19). Both types are evident in all political
systems and may complement, support, impede or paralyse each other.
Attention to informal institutions and processes is not new to political science.
Nevertheless, informal governance has remained at the margins of this analysis.
‘Indeed, much current literature assumes that actors’ incentives and expectations
are shaped, primarily, if not exclusively, by formal rules’ (Helmke and Levitsky,
2013: 85). Such a narrow focus can be problematic, for it risks missing much of
what drives policy making and underplays the social construction of political deci-
sion making. Informality is often recognized in the governance literature, but
rarely holds centre stage in empirical analysis (Peters, 2007). Indeed, because of
the methodological challenges of analysing the ‘invisible’, there is little empirical
research on the role of informality in policy-making (Jitske van and Buuren van,
2016). It is usually a by-product or add-on to broader, more formal institutional
analysis. Moreover, most work on informal governance has focused on policy
making in the European Union (Kleine, 2013) and international organizations
and ‘there is thus far a lacunae when it comes to observing and accounting for
the practice of informal governance more generally across the globe and within
different policy domains’ (Christiansen and Neuhold, 2013: 2). This article seeks to
bridge this gap by moving beyond functionalist accounts to offer a rich, empirical
analysis of how informality shapes one of the fundamental principles of contem-
porary policy making: democratic legitimacy. In doing so, it makes an original
contribution to the informal governance literature by exploring this phenomenon
at a national state level where there has been comparatively little empirical work.
The impact of informal governance on democratic legitimacy will be examined
through a case study of English devolution in the UK. This area of policy is highly
suited to analyse the impact of informal governance on democratic legitimacy for
the following reasons. First, English devolution involves actors from state, market
and civil society operating at multi-governance levels. Second, the policy has
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