TY - JOUR

T1 - The politics of research and innovation

T2 - Understanding instrument choices in complex governance environments-the case of France and Italy

AU - Acciai, Claudia

PY - 2021/11

Y1 - 2021/11

N2 - What governments desire to achieve, and how they want to accomplish their goals, represent the core of any policy design process. However, it is still unclear how partisan politics, in its combined effect with pathdependency forces, influence policy makers' choices over alternative instrument mixes. Through a comparative analysis of Research and Innovation (R&I) instrument choices in countries characterized by different paradigmatic models of policy (Italy and France), the paper investigates how the politics of different cabinets influence the formulation of national R&I strategies and the extent to which these decisions are constrained by the legacy of previous choices. By capitalizing on a new proposed treatment of policy instruments, the paper contributes to the definition of the types of tools found in policy mixes, investigating how national R&I instrument mix variations develop. The results of the analysis indicate how the selection of R&I policy instruments does not closely follow traditional left versus right-wing political cleavages, and their evolution is generally influenced by a combination of different context-dependent dynamics. However, when partisan acceptance of consolidated R&I instrument mixes across cabinets is present, this triggers a consolidating effect on pathdependency forces.

AB - What governments desire to achieve, and how they want to accomplish their goals, represent the core of any policy design process. However, it is still unclear how partisan politics, in its combined effect with pathdependency forces, influence policy makers' choices over alternative instrument mixes. Through a comparative analysis of Research and Innovation (R&I) instrument choices in countries characterized by different paradigmatic models of policy (Italy and France), the paper investigates how the politics of different cabinets influence the formulation of national R&I strategies and the extent to which these decisions are constrained by the legacy of previous choices. By capitalizing on a new proposed treatment of policy instruments, the paper contributes to the definition of the types of tools found in policy mixes, investigating how national R&I instrument mix variations develop. The results of the analysis indicate how the selection of R&I policy instruments does not closely follow traditional left versus right-wing political cleavages, and their evolution is generally influenced by a combination of different context-dependent dynamics. However, when partisan acceptance of consolidated R&I instrument mixes across cabinets is present, this triggers a consolidating effect on pathdependency forces.

KW - Research & Innovation Policy

KW - Instrument mix

KW - Politics of instrument choices

KW - Qualitative Content Analysis

KW - POLICY MIX

KW - GOVERNMENT IDEOLOGY

KW - TECHNOLOGY

KW - INSTITUTIONS

KW - RATIONALES

KW - DESIGN

KW - SYSTEM

KW - IDEAS

U2 - 10.1016/j.respol.2021.104254

DO - 10.1016/j.respol.2021.104254

M3 - Journal article

VL - 50

JO - Research Policy

JF - Research Policy

SN - 0048-7333

IS - 9

M1 - 104254

ER -