IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/revepe/v1y2020i2d10.1007_s43253-020-00018-z.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Reflections on the entrepreneurial state, innovation and social justice

Author

Listed:
  • Theo Papaioannou

    (The Open University)

Abstract

The state and its role in technological innovation and social justice have become, once again, fashionable topics of political and economic debate. A number of innovation theorists argue that never more than today, it is necessary to rethink the state’s entrepreneurial role in society and welfare. Their argument provides justification for the existence of the state, going beyond classical political theory and especially contractarian accounts of legitimacy and obligation. It emphasises the ability and willingness of the state to take risks and reduce uncertainty of economic agents for the sake of innovation that can make everyone better off. This paper insists that although the risk-taking argument of innovation theorists deserves further attention and analysis, it should not be abstracted from a holistic politico-theoretical approach to the state. Such an approach is necessary for a critical understanding of the complex set of predominantly political institutions which compose the state and which have been historically developed to guarantee social evolution. Any risk-taking for innovative enterprise and mission-oriented investment ought to be justified and legitimised on the grounds of principled democratic procedures. This implies that innovation itself is a value-laden political process, requiring participation in the decision-making and standards of fairness.

Suggested Citation

  • Theo Papaioannou, 2020. "Reflections on the entrepreneurial state, innovation and social justice," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(2), pages 199-220, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:revepe:v:1:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s43253-020-00018-z
    DOI: 10.1007/s43253-020-00018-z
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s43253-020-00018-z
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s43253-020-00018-z?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lukas Schlogl & Andy Sumner, 2018. "The Rise of the Robot Reserve Army: Automation and the Future of Economic Development, Work, and Wages in Developing Countries," Working Papers 487, Center for Global Development.
    2. Uwe Cantner & Jean-Luc Gaffard & Lionel Nesta, 2008. "Schumpeterian perspectives on innovation, competition and growth," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 18(3), pages 291-293, August.
    3. Bengt-Åke Lundvall & K. J. Joseph & Cristina Chaminade & Jan Vang (ed.), 2009. "Handbook of Innovation Systems and Developing Countries," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12943.
    4. Fagerberg, Jan & Martin, Ben R. & Andersen, Esben Sloth (ed.), 2013. "Innovation Studies: Evolution and Future Challenges," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199686353.
    5. Theo Papaioannou & Smita Srinivas, 2019. "Innovation as a political process of development: are neo-Schumpeterians value neutral?," Innovation and Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 141-158, January.
    6. Dan Breznitz & Amos Zehavi, 2013. "What Does Politics Have to Do with Innovation? Economic Distribution and Innovation Policy in OECD Countries," Carlo Alberto Notebooks 303, Collegio Carlo Alberto.
    7. James Buchanan & Viktor Vanberg, 1988. "The politicization of market failure," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 57(2), pages 101-113, May.
    8. Ian Marsh, 1999. "The State and the Economy: Opinion Formation and Collaboration as Facets of Economic Management," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 47(5), pages 837-856, December.
    9. Leydesdorff, Loet & Meyer, Martin, 2006. "Triple Helix indicators of knowledge-based innovation systems: Introduction to the special issue," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(10), pages 1441-1449, December.
    10. Maarten Goos & Alan Manning & Anna Salomons, 2014. "Explaining Job Polarization: Routine-Biased Technological Change and Offshoring," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2509-2526, August.
    11. Lall, Sanjaya & Teubal, Morris, 1998. ""Market-stimulating" technology policies in developing countries: A framework with examples from East Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 26(8), pages 1369-1385, August.
    12. Acemoglu, Daron & Autor, David, 2011. "Skills, Tasks and Technologies: Implications for Employment and Earnings," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 12, pages 1043-1171, Elsevier.
    13. Bengt-Åke Lundvall, 2007. "National Innovation Systems—Analytical Concept and Development Tool," Industry and Innovation, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(1), pages 95-119.
    14. Zehavi, Amos & Breznitz, Dan, 2017. "Distribution sensitive innovation policies: Conceptualization and empirical examples," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 327-336.
    15. Hayek, F. A., 1978. "Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 2," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226320830, December.
    16. Richard R. Nelson, 1984. "High-Technology Policies: A Five-Nation Comparison," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 918025, September.
    17. Alberto Mingardi, 2015. "A Critique of Mazzucato's Entrepreneurial State," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 35(3), pages 603-625, Fall.
    18. Herbert A. Simon, 1991. "Organizations and Markets," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(2), pages 25-44, Spring.
    19. James M. Buchanan, 1988. "MarketFailure and Political Failure," Cato Journal, Cato Journal, Cato Institute, vol. 8(1), pages 1-13, Spring/Su.
    20. Theo Papaioannou, 2012. "Reading Hayek in the 21st Century," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-1-137-28362-7, December.
    21. Srinivas, Smita & Sutz, Judith, 2008. "Developing countries and innovation: Searching for a new analytical approach," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 129-140.
    22. Hayek, F. A., 2012. "Hayek on Hayek," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226321202 edited by Kresge, Stephen & Wenar, Leif, December.
    23. Hayek, F. A., 1978. "Law, Legislation and Liberty, Volume 1," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226320861, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theo Papaioannou, 2023. "What kind of innovation state matters for social justice? Learning from Poulantzas and going beyond," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 4(2), pages 299-320, July.
    2. Fulvio Castellacci, 2023. "Innovation and social welfare: A new research agenda," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1156-1191, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. McMahon, Dominique & Thorsteinsdóttir, Halla, 2013. "Pursuing endogenous high-tech innovation in developing countries: A look at regenerative medicine innovation in Brazil, China and India," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 965-974.
    2. Theo Papaioannou, 2021. "The Idea of Justice in Innovation: Applying Non-Ideal Political Theory to Address Questions of Sustainable Public Policy in Emerging Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-14, March.
    3. Giuliani, Elisa & Martinelli, Arianna & Rabellotti, Roberta, 2016. "Is Co-Invention Expediting Technological Catch Up? A Study of Collaboration between Emerging Country Firms and EU Inventors," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 192-205.
    4. Tommaso AGASISTI & Geraint JOHNES & Marco PACCAGNELLA, 2021. "Tasks, occupations and wages in OECD countries," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 160(1), pages 85-112, March.
    5. Keller, Wolfgang & Utar, Hale, 2023. "International trade and job polarization: Evidence at the worker level," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    6. Castellacci, Fulvio & Natera, Jose Miguel, 2013. "The dynamics of national innovation systems: A panel cointegration analysis of the coevolution between innovative capability and absorptive capacity," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(3), pages 579-594.
    7. Aleksandra Parteka & Joanna Wolszczak-Derlacz, 2020. "Wage response to global production links: evidence for workers from 28 European countries (2005–2014)," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 156(4), pages 769-801, November.
    8. Arendt, Lukasz & Gałecka-Burdziak, Ewa & Núñez, Fernando & Pater, Robert & Usabiaga, Carlos, 2023. "Skills requirements across task-content groups in Poland: What online job offers tell us," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    9. Mario Reinhold, 2016. "On the Link between Job Polarisation and Wage Inequality - A regional approach for Germany," ERSA conference papers ersa16p361, European Regional Science Association.
    10. Battisti, Michele & Gatto, Massimo Del & Parmeter, Christopher F., 2022. "Skill-biased technical change and labor market inefficiency," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    11. Ben R. Martin, 2016. "Twenty challenges for innovation studies," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(3), pages 432-450.
    12. Antje Mertens & Laura Romeu-Gordo, 2023. "Retirement in Western Germany – How Workplace Tasks Influence Its Timing," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(2), pages 467-485, April.
    13. Michael J. Böhm & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker & Felix Schran, 2024. "Occupation Growth, Skill Prices, and Wage Inequality," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 42(1), pages 201-243.
    14. Leon, Ramona Diana, 2023. "Employees’ reskilling and upskilling for industry 5.0: Selecting the best professional development programmes," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    15. Jan Eeckhout & Christoph Hedtrich & Roberto Pinheiro, 2021. "IT and Urban Polarization," Working Papers 21-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    16. Edward Romar, 2009. "Noble Markets: The Noble/Slave Ethic in Hayek’s Free Market Capitalism," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 85(1), pages 57-66, March.
    17. Caitlin Allen Whitehead & Haroon Bhorat & Robert Hill & Tim Köhler & François Steenkamp, 2021. "The Potential Employment Implications of the Fourth Industrial Revolution Technologies: The Case of the Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector," Working Papers 202106, University of Cape Town, Development Policy Research Unit.
    18. Baumgarten, Daniel & Irlacher, Michael & Koch, Michael, 2020. "Offshoring and non-monotonic employment effects across industries in general equilibrium," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 130(C).
    19. Srinivas, Smita, 2009. "Industry policy, technological change, and the state," MPRA Paper 52691, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Vanessa CASADELLA, 2014. "Systèmes d’innovation du Sud, transfert technologique et capacités d’apprentissage [Innovation Systems From The South, Technological Transfer And Leaning Capabilities]," Working Papers 38, Réseau de Recherche sur l’Innovation. / Research Network on Innovation.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:revepe:v:1:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s43253-020-00018-z. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.