What are the conditions under which business corporations expand their institutional power? This paper argues that institutional power is affected by the architecture of the “acquisition regime” – the set of formal (and informal) rules that govern how states purchase public services. A shift towards marketization in this regime leads to micro-level policy feedback effects that contribute to the accumulation of institutional power among large business corporations. We illustrate this through process tracing the change in the acquisition regime of social services in Israel in the 2010s, relying on multiple data sources and analysis, including interviews, public procurement data, policy documents and corporate reports. We argue that the alignment of market-based approach and practices in social services acquisition with business corporations' capitalist, expansionary logic and competitive experience contributed to their empowerment in a changing institutional environment. Additionally, the increasing embeddedness of corporations in state service provision enabled them to reshape further procurement rules to their advantage. Our work contributes to the conceptualization and theory on institutional power.

This article develops the concept of policy advisory system (PAS) management in recognition of the need to better theorise and empirically study how governments approach the complex systems of advice around them. In our analysis, we go beyond the conceptualisation of degrees of government's “control” over advisory sources. We use the dimensions of government agency and discretion and argue that PAS management falls into four forms: authoritative, dependent, laissez-faire, or absent. Using evidence from Australia, Canada, Britain, and New Zealand, we explore how governments operationalise these approaches through a range of choices and practices. The analysis points to the need to recognise that attempts to manage these systems occur both proactively and reactively with clear differences in the broad or narrow scope of management efforts.