How Co-Production Regulates
| Author | Morag McDermont,Martin Innes,Bethan Davies |
| Published date | 01 June 2019 |
| Date | 01 June 2019 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663918777803 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
How Co-Production
Regulates
Martin Innes, Bethan Davies
Cardiff University, UK
Morag McDermont
University of Bristol, UK
Abstract
This article examines how and why regulatory influences tend to embed within the
practices of co-production. Informed by empirical data derived from semi-structured
interviews conducted with a sample of experts in co-production, the analysis seeks to
illuminatesome of the ‘soft’ and ‘interactive’ formsof regulatory work that are performed.
In so doing, thediscussion provides a ‘lightly’critical reading of co-production and draws in
Erving Goffman’s hitherto neglected use of the conceptof regulation. Framedby this work,
a distinction is drawn between the regulation of co-production and regulation by co-
production. The analysis contributes to a growing literature on some of the subtle and
sophisticated ways in which regulation is being conducted in contemporary societies and
how these contribute to the governance of social order more generally.
Keywords
Co-production, governance, regulation
Designers of regulatory architectures typically seek to avoid two pathologies. ‘Over-
regulation’ occurs when there is too much regulatory activity. It is to be avoided on the
grounds that the ‘costs’ of regulating outweigh the benefits of any risk or harm mitigated.
Overly intrusive regulation can also impede and intrude upon the area of social life that is
its object. Conversely, ‘under-regulation’ arises when a regulatory regime is imprecisely
configured or calibrated, lacking sufficient ‘grip’ upon any presenting risk or threat. The
quest to navigate between these two potentials has shaped the conception of a number of
Corresponding author:
Martin Innes, Crime and Security Research Institute, Cardiff University School of Social Sciences, Glamorgan
Building, King Edward VII Ave, CF10 3WT, UK.
Email: innesm@cardiff.ac.uk
Social & Legal Studies
2019, Vol. 28(3) 370–391
ªThe Author(s) 2018
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663918777803
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new regulatory models, such as ‘smart’ and ‘responsive’ regulation (Ayres and
Braithwaite, 1992; Baldwin et al., 2010). Promoted as more dynamic and adaptive than
‘top-down’ orthodox models of ‘command and control re gulation’, where particular
liabilities of over-regulation and under-regulation have been repeatedly diagnosed, these
developments are part of wider and deeper shifts in the logics and rationalities of
governance.
Regulation is a key and increasingly important instrument of governance, and as such,
the growing accent upon regulatory responsiveness, is itself an inflection of a recognition
that key processes of governance are increasingly complexly constituted. For instance, in
recent years, several new policy frames have been brought forward with the intent that
they should alter how public service delivery is conceived and performed (Jones et al.,
2013; Le Grand, 2003). One example being the currently vogue-ish notion of ‘evidence-
based policymaking’ and using systematic review and randomized control trial meth-
odologies to directly inform the design and delivery of key public services (Breckon,
2015; Halpern, 2015). This ‘experimental governance’ effectively seeks to integrate a
regulatory influence on the grounds that robust and rigorous research is assigned a role in
steering activity towards ‘what works’.
Allied to but distinct from experimental governance has been the rising policy influ-
ence of ‘behavioural science’, colloquially dubbed ‘nudging’ (Thaler and Sunstein,
2009). This seeks to limit explicit and intrusive regulation, by manipulating the ‘choice
architectures’ people are exposed to (Berndt, 2015). The idea being that by so doing,
people will elect to act in prosocial or beneficial ways, absent any overt external direc-
tion or instruction (Dolan et al., 2012). Deploying social-psychological techniques to
persuade and influence public behaviour has become an increasingly prominent feature
across policy domains such as public administration, health and crime (Halpern, 2015).
A third set of innovations in the broader refiguring of public service delivery and
governance has pivoted around the concept of co-production. The think tank New
Economics Foundation (NEF) defining it as:
Co-production means delivering public services in an equa l and reciprocal relationship
between professionals, people using services, their families and their neighbours. Where
activities are co-produced in this way, both services and neighbourhoods become far more
effective agents of change. (Boyle and Harris, 2009)
As well as featuring in debates around public service reform, similar processes have
been advocated for knowledge generation. There is a shared commitment to the notion
that by reducing the ‘distance’ between ‘authors’ and ‘users’, a higher quality, more
resilient and more effective product should result (Sharp, 1980; Whitaker, 1980).
Although possessing a considerable legacy, a distinct revival of interest in
co-production has been evident in the context of public sector austerity, with multiple
governmental actors advocating or expressing interest in its precepts (Durose and
Richardson, 2016; Welsh Government, 2014).
Positioned in this way, co-production is of particular interest because it implicitly
contends that by promoting a working closeness between authors and users of an idea or
service, the need for regulation is at least minimized or potentially obviated. Indeed,
Innes et al. 371
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