Contesting the Mainstream Narrative? A Conceptual Discussion on the Politics of Science, Technology, and Innovation from the Periphery

Abstract

Over the last decades, technological innovation became the new mantra in the Science, Technology, and Innovation (STI) policy arena of the most different countries, including the world peripheries. By adopting a historical and global perspective, we identify in this article a scope of isomorphic pressures in the core elements of the policy process, which became increasingly evident, aligned with neoliberalism and the ideals of rationalization and bureaucratization: discursive and argumentative rationalities, primary goals definition, policy mechanisms, and legislation – all elements central to policy formulation and very similar across countries, independently of some degree of variation within national contexts. Therefore, one can observe that the reforms held in the STI policy arena of different Latin America and Iberian countries, to create an ‘innovation culture’ of entrepreneurship, are based on very similar discourses and incentives. In this piece, we conduct a conceptual discussion on the politics of STI given the realities and historical backgrounds of some peripheral countries – mainly Latin American ones, highlighting the relations between interests and their respective agency within STI’s complex policy process.

Keywords: Science; Technology and Innovation (STI); Policy Analysis; Peripheral Countries; Isomorphism; Innovation Studies