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Innovation and the State: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Policy Capacity

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Policy Capacity and Governance

Part of the book series: Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy ((PEPP))

Abstract

In this chapter we propose an evolutionary analytical approach to policy capacity with a specific focus on policy domains where uncertainty and need for policy innovations, or novelty creation, is a central concern for effective policies. From an evolutionary perspective, the core elements of policy capacity are: (a) organizational routines and their varieties, (b) search and selection and the endogenous and exogenous sources of novelty creation, (c) selection and feedback environments. We operationalize these elements and illustrate the value of the evolutionary analytical perspective through discussing the evolution of science, technology and innovation (STI) policy capacities of three Asian Tigers.

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Acknowledgements

Research for this chapter has been funded by the Estonian Research Council grants IUT19-13, ETF9404, the INET Grant Innovation and the State: How Should Government Finance and Implement Innovation Policy? and the JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 15F15760. We thank R.R. Nelson for useful comments and feedback.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Tallinn, Estonia

    Erkki Karo & Rainer Kattel

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  1. Erkki Karo
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  2. Rainer Kattel
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Correspondence to Erkki Karo .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Public Policy, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China

    Xun Wu

  2. Department of Political Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada

    Michael Howlett

  3. Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

    M Ramesh

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Karo, E., Kattel, R. (2018). Innovation and the State: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Policy Capacity. In: Wu, X., Howlett, M., Ramesh, M. (eds) Policy Capacity and Governance. Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54675-9_6

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