Open AccessInnovation and the Vocabulary of Governance
Author(s) -
Kai Eriksson
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
science and technology studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.675
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 2243-4690
DOI - 10.23987/sts.55309
Subject(s) - corporate governance , vocabulary , politics , openness to experience , field (mathematics) , production (economics) , sociology , process (computing) , epistemology , perspective (graphical) , economic system , political science , economics , management , linguistics , computer science , law , philosophy , macroeconomics , operating system , psychology , social psychology , mathematics , artificial intelligence , pure mathematics
Innovation has become a crucial part of the vocabulary of contemporary political governance and its conceptual equipment. As innovation has emerged as an ever-more significant political issue, the discourse on innovation has become intertwined with the notion of network. This paper argues that certain ontological elements inherent in this discourse tend to lose their openness when they are defined as policy-oriented concepts, and uses the innovation system concept as a case study to illuminate this. Insofar as innovation, the production of something novel, is the basis of contemporary economy, then political language has to strive both to attain what is new and, at the same time, to make it governable. It seems, however, that when a concept receives its political formulation, that is, when it becomes a means for governance, then the unifying process attendant to the production of a field of governance will replace the perspective of change. This essential tension is investigated in what follows through innovation policy as articulated mainly in the Finnish policy discourse.