This is a randomized experiment from Indonesia, were 49 towns were chosen to take part, half were randomly allocated to use elected representatives and half participatory budgeting to allocate 9 000 dollars to improve the village. How they used the money didn't differ much, but the satisfaction on how the money was used was much higher among those using participatory budgeting.
Here's the source: https://www.povertyactionlab.org/sites/default/files/publications/2012.04.23_Direct_Democracy_FINAL.pdf
Capitalist manifesto offers great insights on how to reform the trade union movement. Instead of using laws to ban things, have trade unions enable and reward employee stock-ownership, for example by offering legal aid.
Hopefully employee stock ownership could be one thing that could bring the right and the left together: it's quite rare to find an idea supported explicitly by both Ronald Reagan and Bernie Sanders after all!