Geopolitics, national security, and national innovation systems: The strategic national innovation systems (SNIS) framework

Thomas Malta-Kira

EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, 2026, vol. 12, issue 3, No 100866

Abstract: National Innovation Systems (NIS) theories were formed in a period of relative international stability, with the functioning of such systems, and the open flows in and out of a given system, and between them, being largely assumed. These systems are now being reconfigured within a geopolitical context marked by strategic competition. They are increasingly driven not by market efficiency, but by the strategic and security interests of the state. Systems must balance the need to protect national security with the desire to foster innovation and promote economic growth, facing complex trade-offs, and understanding the growing significance of the innovation of technologies for state power. NIS theories must place more emphasis on strategic orientation in this context. This article develops a new framework for NIS interaction in the context of international relations (IR), and an overarching framework for the complex interaction between competing and Strategic National Innovation Systems (SNIS) in the international system of states. The SNIS framework addresses modes of control that regulate system inputs and outputs. This includes capital (including investment), export and import, labour, and information (including data) controls. Addressing third states within a bipolar dynamic, it brings in concepts such as balancing, bandwagoning, buck-passing, and hedging, to address the strategic orientation of any given SNIS in the rivalrous context of the international system. This framework can therefore be applied not only to a hegemonic innovation system, or that of a rising power, but to a hegemon-aligned third power, a rising-power aligned power, or a non-aligned third power.

Keywords: Technology; Innovation; National innovation systems; National security; Geopolitics; International relations; Strategic national innovation systems; Competing national innovation systems; Economics of innovation; SNIS; Geopolitics of innovation; Geopolitics of technology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:espost:343868

DOI: 10.1016/j.joitmc.2026.100866

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