Reflections on the entrepreneurial state, innovation and social justice

Theo Papaioannou ()
Additional contact information
Theo Papaioannou: The Open University

Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, 2020, vol. 1, issue 2, 199-220

Abstract: 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.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial state; Innovation; Social justice; Schumpeter; Political economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s43253-020-00018-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:revepe:v:1:y:2020:i:2:d:10.1007_s43253-020-00018-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.springer.com/journal/43253

DOI: 10.1007/s43253-020-00018-z

Access Statistics for this article

Review of Evolutionary Political Economy is currently edited by Wolfram Elsner

More articles in Review of Evolutionary Political Economy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().