Innovation policy complexity: actors, action and interaction

Abstract

This paper explores the ways in which normative innovation policy studies treat policy processes, in particular actors, instruments, institutions and interactions. We argue that the normative innovation policy literature tends to treats policy makers as mere translators of theoretical rationales into action, denies agency to most actors in relation to policy change, remains focused on a superficial analysis of instruments (despite a supposed emphasis on policy mixes ) and treats interactions between policies as something to be designed away by better co-ordination. In this way complexity in innovation policy is black-boxed and rendered unproblematic, with potentially dangerous consequences for the ultimate utility of the policy prescriptions advanced.