Research Policy 50 (2021) 104273

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Research Policy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/respol

Situating innovation policy in Mediterranean Arab countries: A research

agenda for context sensitivity
Christian Haddad a, Maximilian Benner b, 1, *
a
Austrian Institute for International Affairs – oiip, Währinger Straße 3, 1090 Vienna, Austria
b
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Edificio Expo, Calle Inca Garcilaso 3, Seville 41092, Spain

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

JEL codes: Innovation policy is embedded in local contexts that shape its courses and outcomes. However, the role of
D02 context is often neglected in the design and implementation of innovation policies. Critical questions such as
L26 what innovation actually means, what kind of innovation policies may be beneficial in a given country and for
L38
specific sectors, regions and actors, and what kinds of policies and programs can help promote innovation in a
O25
O31
feasible and effective manner are rarely addressed. Focusing on Mediterranean Arab countries with their political
O38 and economic proximity to the EU, this article proposes three conceptual shifts towards a context-sensitive
Keywords:
approach to innovation policy design and analysis. Drawing on insights from relational economic geography,
Innovation policy interpretive policy analysis, and science and technology studies, the article discusses how these three shifts
Mediterranean Arab countries enable new perspectives on innovation policies in Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt. The article suggests a research
Institutional context agenda that can stimulate discussion and lead to a new approach in innovation studies and policy for Arab
Sociotechnical imaginaries of innovation countries in the EU’s neighborhood.
Policy transfer
Socio-technical understanding of innovation

1. Introduction upgrade domestic firms’ competitive and innovative capabilities (Ben­

In line with international trends since the mid-1990s (e.g. OECD,
2002), several Mediterranean Arab countries2 have embarked on a
journey to become knowledge-based economies (Aubert and Reiffers,
2004). Accordingly, innovation policy has become a central focus for
policymakers in the region and has, in many cases, entailed the formu­
lation of explicit national innovation strategies (ESCWA, 2017). This
turn towards promoting innovation is to a considerable degree driven by
international aid and donors such as USAID, the European Union (EU),
or the World Bank, and facilitated by consultants that provide expertise
and technical assistance on how effective innovation (eco-)systems are
supposed to be built (see also Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996; Irwin
et al., 2021; Jessop, 2005). The association agreements (AA) signed
between Mediterranean Arab countries and the EU under the European
Neighborhood Policy (ENP) are a further driver behind national inno­
vation policies, not least because the prospect of free trade and
competition with firms from the EU has conveyed a sense of urgency to
ner, 2015; 2019; 2020a; Cammett, 2007; Cassarino, 1999; Hazbun,
2008; Murphy, 2006).
Consistent with a particular policy discourse recently described in
this journal as the “deficit model of innovation” (Pfotenhauer et al.,
2019) and similar to what Joly et al. (2010, p.24) earlier called “the
regime of economics of technoscientific promises”, Mediterranean Arab
countries are encouraged to adapt to the requirements posed by the
“global innovation imperative” (Pfotenhauer et al., 2019, p.903). From
this perspective, Mediterranean Arab economies are characterized by
the severe socio-economic challenges that, by and large, result from
perceived innovation deficits including high unemployment among
specific groups such as women, youth, and university graduates, weak
private sectors with low international export competitiveness, weak
technological research and development (R&D) capacities, and diffi­
culties to absorb new graduates into the labor market (e.g. Amin et al.,
2012; Benner, 2020a; Noland and Pack, 2007; OECD, 2015; Richards
and Waterbury, 2008; World Bank, 2014). To confront these challenges

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: christian.haddad@oiip.ac.at (C. Haddad), maximilian.benner@univie.ac.at (M. Benner).
1
Present address: University of Vienna, Department of Geography and Regional Research, Universitätsstr. 7, 1010 Vienna.
2
By “Mediterranean Arab countries” we mean, in particular, Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, and Tunisia.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2021.104273
Received 19 September 2019; Received in revised form 8 April 2021; Accepted 19 April 2021
Available online 18 May 2021
0048-7333/© 2021 European Union and Christian Haddad. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
C. Haddad and M. Benner
by investing more in the conditions for innovation, instruments such as
cluster promotion, the set-up of large-scale science and technology
parks, start-up incubators and business accelerators, support to graduate
entrepreneurship, and the creation of specialized innovation promotion
agencies are applied in Mediterranean Arab countries (e.g. Benner,
2020a; 2020b; Erdle, 2011; M’Henni and Deniozos, 2012; Mahroum
et al., 2013; OECD, 2012b; Rodríguez-Pose and Hardy, 2014; Smadi and
Tsipouri, 2012). These measures, which often have been supported by
international aid, were supposed to enhance Mediterranean Arab
countries’ innovation systems and to stimulate the development of an
incipient knowledge economy which, it was believed, would contribute
not only to increasing export competitiveness and creating employment
but also to substantially transforming the countries’ economies and to
making them more resilient socio-economically (Bizri, 2018; ESCWA,
2017; Nour, 2016).
However, in the policy literature, the success of these policies faces
skepticism, underscored by the mediocre position of most Mediterra­
nean Arab economies on common innovation rankings and the partly
disappointing results of innovation policies (e.g. Erdle, 2011; M’Henni
and Deniozos, 2012; Trabelsi, 2015; Trabelsi and Ben Salah, 2018).
Given the danger that policymaking chasing international trends leads
to piecemeal experiments and the quest for universal “best practices”, it
is doubtful whether the tools applied present the policy instruments of
choice to induce the outcomes desired and if so, whether they are suf­
ficiently adapted to local specificities. Policymaking insensitive to
context can be due to misconceptions on either the theoretical, political,
or practical level (Kuhlmann and Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017), where
misalignment between different actors may occur due to a lack of co­
ordination that has been described metaphorically as “innovation policy
dance” (Kuhlmann et al., 2010). As Tödtling and Trippl (2005) have
argued, the “one size fits all” approach driven by “best practice models”
is popular in innovation policy but not appropriate because conditions
and contexts vary significantly across places (see also Enright, 2000).
Similarly and by drawing on DiMaggio and Powell’s (1983) notion of
isomorphism, Irwin et al. (2021) find a considerable degree of policy
similarity in the global innovation discourse but at the same time some
context-specific peculiarities.
By calling for caution against a too strong reliance on importing “best
practice” tools, this article argues for more comprehensive, context-
sensitive innovation policies by taking Mediterranean Arab countries
as an example. While our arguments address issues that resonate broadly
with international discourses on innovation (e.g. Delvenne and Thor­
eau, 2017), we consider Mediterranean Arab countries an illustrative
case because of their partial policy alignment with the EU under the
ENP. Our argument for context sensitivity addresses all phases of poli­
cymaking – from problem identification to policy design and imple­
mentation – and particularly emphasizes the need to better align
innovation policies with the specific socio-cultural and institutional
context they are applied in. Driven by the basic argument that context
conditions innovation policy, we propose a research agenda based on
selected theoretical perspectives from relational economic geography,
interpretive policy analysis, and science and technology studies (STS).
We articulate these theoretical perspectives along three conceptual
shifts: from structural conditions and innovation systems to socio­
technical visions and imaginaries of innovation; from policy evidence to
the politics of knowledge; and from policy transfer to sociotechnical
translation. Methodologically, we suggest situated analyses guided by
context-sensitive theory building (Gong and Hassink, 2020) and
ethnographic sensibility (Pader, 2006; Prainsack and Wahlberg, 2013;
Simmons and Smith, 2017) as suitable means for context-sensitive
innovation policy analysis. As the politics of innovation include a
struggle over the authoritative definition of diverging notions and
meanings of innovation, such an approach allows for attending to the
ways situated actors perceive and envision particular policies, as well as
for the tensions and ambivalences that result from their articulation with
broader socio-material context.
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The article starts with an overview on the concept of innovation and
its drastic expansion in scope and semantics since the 1990s (Section 2)
before delineating our theoretical approach for context-sensitive inno­
vation policy design and analysis along three analytical shifts we suggest
(Section 3). Section 4 turns to selected fields of innovation policy by
drawing on vignettes from Tunisia, Jordan, and Egypt. Based on these
observations, Section 5 suggests a research agenda for context-sensitive
innovation policies in Mediterranean Arab countries and discusses im­
plications for policy making and analysis.
2. Innovation: the state of debate
2.1. The increasingly diverse notion of innovation
Any critical research on innovation has to take into consideration the
evolution of the concept and the pluralization of its meaning in different
contexts (Diercks et al., 2019; Meissner et al., 2017; Schot and Stein­
mueller, 2018). As innovation has become a powerful socio-political
imaginary (Jasanoff and Kim, 2009; Joly, 2019; Pfotenhauer and
Jasanoff, 2017), it has not only become a key marker for national
development and international competition but is also perceived as a
panacea for all kinds of societal problems, no matter how complex or
challenging they are (Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017; Pfotenhauer
et al., 2019).
Innovation policy has accordingly transcended the disciplinary
boundaries of traditional innovation studies formerly dominated by
economists (Godin, 2017) and has become an object of multidisciplinary
investigation from various fields of social sciences and beyond (Godin
and Vinck, 2017). This trend is visible in current debates revolving
around the need to devise novel research frameworks to capture these
scholarly developments. In their widely received contribution, Schot
and Steinmueller (2018) have stimulated a debate over an emergent
third frame of innovation centered on transformative socio-ecological
change which both complements and transcends traditional un­
derstandings of innovation policy (see also Coenen and Morgan, 2019;
Diercks et al., 2019; Fagerberg, 2018; Joly, 2019; Uyarra et al., 2019).
Put in a historical perspective, economists and policymakers
following the Schumpeterian tradition have long regarded innovation as
a linear process of technological change generating competitive
advantage and economic growth on the macro level (Fagerberg and
Verspagen, 2009; Hospers, 2005; Joly, 2017; Kuhlmann and
Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017; Leyden and Menter, 2018; Massey et al.,
1992; Tödtling and Trippl, 2005). The 1980s and 1990s have seen the
rise of systemic concepts, captured by the idea of systems of innovation
(e.g. Lundvall, 1988; 1992). The OECD’s Oslo Manual proposed an
authoritative definition with a strong impact on national and regional
innovation policies (Kuhlmann and Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017). While
the concept was incrementally widened and now, in its recent edition
(OECD, 2018), extends to non-technological aspects, innovation policy
practice still adheres to a linear and techno-economic notion (Diercks
et al., 2019; Godin, 2006a; Lechevalier and Laugier, 2019). Somewhat in
parallel, the past decades have seen a critique of the linear
techno-economic model (Pfotenhauer and Juhl, 2017). Calls for a
renewed understanding of innovation that shifts the focus from
technology-centric to social and human-centric innovation have sur­
faced (Lechevalier and Laugier, 2019; Marques et al., 2018). The pro­
liferation of various alternative concepts such as open, user-driven, or
distributed innovation (Joly, 2017; Joly et al., 2010), responsible
innovation (Rip, 2016) or frugal innovation (Radjou et al., 2012) have
shaped the expansion of the concept of innovation (Meissner et al.,
2017), leading to severe challenges both for innovation studies and
policy (Soete, 2019). Against this backdrop, Schot and Steinmueller’s
(2018) third frame represents a rearticulation of the normative purpose
of innovation away from an exclusive focus on economic growth and
competition towards social and ecological challenges. In this frame,
innovation is fraught with expectations to effectively address
C. Haddad and M. Benner
heterogeneous and complex societal challenges ranging from unem­
ployment and welfare to demographic challenges, food and water se­
curity, antimicrobial resistance, and climate change (Diercks et al.,
2019; Mazzucato, 2018; Schot and Steinmueller, 2018; Smith and Stir­
ling, 2018; Turnheim and Nykvist, 2019).
The resulting needs have been interpreted differently among actors
and contexts and translated into a variety of policy visions (see also
Irwin et al., 2021). On a practical level, a transformative approach to
innovation leans towards ideas of experimentalist policymaking, a more
inclusive democratization of science, technology and innovation policy,
and mission orientation (e.g. Breznitz and Ornston, 2013; Coenen and
Morgan, 2019; Diercks et al., 2019; Joly, 2019; Mazzucato, 2015;
Robinson and Mazzucato, 2019; Smith and Stirling, 2018, Stirling,
2014).
2.2. Critical studies of innovation beyond deficit construction and creative
destruction
From the vantage point of critical policy and governance studies,
innovation can be understood as an overarching political rationality (for
a definition see Dean, 2010, p.268) of present societies that have begun
to (re)imagine themselves increasingly in terms of a “knowledge-based
economy” (Godin, 2006b; Jessop, 2005). As a paramount socio-political
obligation, innovation shapes public policies, corporate strategies, and
practices of individuals who are increasingly encouraged to behave
entrepreneurially (Bröckling, 2016). In this light, STS scholars have
critically analyzed innovation as a powerful discourse and global
imperative (Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff 2017; Lechevalier and Laugier,
2019), underpinned by an implicit “deficit model of innovation” (Pfo­
tenhauer et al., 2019) and a tacit “pro-innovation bias” (Godin and
Vinck, 2017). More often than not, innovation is viewed as a universal
and linear process, precipitated through the competition of “innovation
leaders” (see also Irwin et al., 2021) and entrepreneurship based on a
heroic role ascribed to entrepreneurs (Joly et al., 2010; Lowe and
Feldman, 2017; Massey et al., 1992). The deficit model captures how a
multitude of policy problems are framed as some form of lacking inno­
vation and hence defined as a case for innovation policy (Pfotenhauer
et al., 2019).
Particularly in its technologist guise, innovation is predominantly
perceived as something that is per se good (Diercks et al., 2019; Godin
and Vinck, 2017; Joly, 2019; Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017; Soete,
2013; Stirling, 2014) – something that, as a cultural notion, ranks
equally with traditional notions of progress, development, or moderni­
zation (Leary, 2018) in the sense of what Delvenne and Thoreau (2017,
p.42, 49) call “catching-up modernism” and “developmentality”. Less
emphasis is usually given to “destructive creation” (Soete, 2013, p.134),
although critical innovation scholars have begun to question the
pro-innovation bias and the dominant deficit model (Godin and Vinck,
2017; Pfotenhauer et al., 2019; see also Diercks et al., 2019).
2.3. Critical geographies of innovation: context, place, and institutions
As social studies of innovation have long emphasized, innovation
must be understood as a complex social process (Akrich et al., 2002a;
2002b; Joly et al., 2010; Lundvall, 2013; Soete, 2019). As work form
economic geography emphasizes, this process is embedded in a place’s
socio-economic, politico-cultural, and institutional contexts (Glückler
and Bathelt, 2017) shaped by specific geographies (Audretsch and
Feldman, 1996) and institutional arrangements (Rodríguez-Pose, 2013).
As an overarching analytical category, the institutional context of a
place is understood here as a complex regime of explicit rules and formal
organizations as well as informal (and often tacit, i.e. habitualized)
interaction patterns (Bathelt and Glückler, 2014; Glückler and Bathelt,
2017; see also Jasanoff, 2004; Schmidt, 2008). In relational economic
geography, Bathelt and Glückler (2014) distinguish between rules, or­
ganizations, and institutions within a place’s context, whereas
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Research Policy 50 (2021) 104273
institutions are defined as “stable patterns of social practice based on
mutual expectations” (Bathelt and Glückler, 2014, p.346). While rules
may shape the expectations and strategies of actors, they are not to be
understood as full-fledged institutions unless they become enacted in
practice, i.e. habitualized through actors’ social practice (Bathelt and
Glückler, 2014; Glückler and Bathelt, 2017). The conditions in which
innovation policies become embedded are shaped by institutions and are
not generally predictable in international policy transfer processes (see
also Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996).
When combined, relational economic geography and STS provide
theoretical lenses for conceptualizing the relationships between context
and place. While place is part and parcel of a particular context, rela­
tional approaches (e.g. Bathelt and Glückler, 2003) refrain from a
positivist and deterministic approach to place as stable context for
policy, e.g. in terms of climatic conditions, natural resources, or
geological conditions. Rather, the meaning of place, as well as its
particular institutional context, is both subject to and result of social
practices, shaping and being shaped by context-specific outcomes, nar­
ratives and imaginations (Bathelt and Glückler, 2003; Czarniawska and
Joerges, 1996; Gieryn, 2000; Guridi et al. 2020; Irwin et al., 2021;
Malecki, 2018; Muñoz et al., 2020; Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017).
3. Three shifts for context sensitivity
Building on the critical approaches discussed above, we articulate
theoretical perspectives that can help analyze innovation policy dis­
courses and tools in Mediterranean Arab countries. We suggest three
conceptual shifts in analyzing innovation policy: (1) from structural
(pre)conditions and innovation systems to sociotechnical imaginaries of
innovation; (2) from evidence-based policy to the politics of knowledge;
and (3) from policy transfer to sociotechnical practices of translation.
These shifts do not describe empirically observable changes in innova­
tion policy. Rather, they help delineate a novel research agenda to
approach, conceptualize, and critically analyze innovation policy in
Mediterranean Arab countries and beyond.
3.1. From structural conditions and innovation systems to sociotechnical
imaginaries of innovation
While innovation studies have put a strong emphasis on innovation
systems and structural (pre)conditions, attention to the politics and
performativity of visions, expectations and imaginaries related to in­
novations is a newer phenomenon. In the STS literature, the idiosyn­
cratic ways models of innovations are (re)shaped in particular contexts
have been conceptualized in terms of “sociotechnical imaginaries”
(Jasanoff and Kim, 2009) or “imaginaries of innovation” (Pfotenhauer
and Jasanoff, 2017). As collectively held visions of a desirable future,
imaginaries shape mindsets and reference frames, define values, and
stabilize particular pathways of development with lasting effects
(Jasanoff and Kim, 2009; McNeil et al., 2017; Mikami, 2015; Pfo­
tenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017).
Policy visions of desirable societal developments are often articu­
lated in national, sectoral, or corporate innovation strategies. This trend
gained momentum under the trend for mission orientation (e.g. Rob­
inson and Mazzucato, 2019). However, it often remains unclear not only
how to create visions in both a science-based and
democratic-participatory way, but also how to produce the desired
outcomes of missions (Konrad and Böhle, 2019; see also Diercks et al.,
2019). Imaginaries often work as the glue that hold together different
expectations and diverging interests and thus help bridge or mask
technical inconsistencies and political conflicts. A shift from a (positive)
assessment of structural conditions for innovation policy or an innova­
tion system analysis towards a (projective) analysis of sociotechnical
visions and imaginaries allows for putting to the fore the momentous
ways in which the idea of innovation is mobilized not only to tackle
discrete problems, but also to set course for more substantive societal
C. Haddad and M. Benner
transformations.
3.2. From evidence-based policy to politics of knowledge
Questions of appropriate evidence as a basis for effective innovation
policy are among the most hotly debated ones in innovation policy in
Arab countries. Often, a lack of comprehensive data is lamented, sup­
posedly rendering effective policymaking (and evaluation) difficult, if
not pointless (e.g. Bosco and Mavilia, 2014; ESCWA, 2017; Trabelsi and
Ben Salah, 2018). Evidence often comes in the shape of quantitative
measurements, indicators, or rankings (e.g. Cornell University et al.,
2018). While the quantitative focus is geared towards enabling
cross-country comparisons of innovation performance, it precludes a
situated perspective on the idiosyncratic contexts of innovation. Still,
even if innovation policy is based on a limited understanding of the
context at hand, it does shape society in ways that are deeply political
since “models of innovation are also models of society” (Joly et al., 2010,
p.21). This is why a focus on the politics of knowledge (for an intro­
ductory discussion see Domínguez Rubio and Baert, 2013) and on how
the generation of evidence and the politics of innovation are “co-pro­
duced” (Jasanoff, 2004, p.17) is key for critical innovation policy
analysis. Such a focus directs our attention to the powerful implications
of knowledge creation and dissemination processes and focuses on the
social and institutional conditions that allow authoritative knowledge
claims to emerge (Domínguez Rubio and Baert, 2013).
At the same time, the evidence base for innovation policy seems
somewhat in crisis (Soete 2019), not least because different innovation
discourses and paradigms make comparative assessments ever more
difficult (Meissner et al., 2017). A certain disenchantment with inno­
vation policy (Guridi et al., 2020; Joly et al., 2010) blends in with a
broader crisis of the interface between science and policy and with
current critiques of knowledge, expertise, and evidence in policymaking
(Parkhurst, 2017). We suggest that the departure from the linear model
of innovation policy towards multi-faceted politics of innovation, in
which multiple notions of innovation are involved, also corresponds
with a pluralization of forms of knowledge (see also Joly, 2017). Put in
more normative terms, a rethinking of policy-relevant knowledge and
“evidence” is key to bringing about the kind of inclusive, needs-based,
sustainable, and ultimately more democratic politics of innovation
envisioned in current debates (Godin and Vinck, 2017; Lechevalier and
Laugier, 2019; Schot and Steinmueller, 2018). Here, innovation studies
can benefit from debates in critical policy studies and STS on different
kinds of policy knowledge (Freeman and Sturdy, 2014), a critique of
expertise (Collins and Evans, 2002; Fischer, 2009), and recent debates
on “epistemic selectivities” (Vadrot, 2017) and strategic ignorance in
policy processes (Gross and McGoey, 2015; McGoey, 2019; Paul and
Haddad, 2019).
3.3. From policy transfer to sociotechnical translation
Much emphasis is put on policy implementation, learning, and
transfer and to the (re)design of innovation systems (e.g. Pietrobelli,
2009). The elusiveness of institutional contexts and the practical
confusion of written rules and actual institutions complicate
evidence-based policy interventions. Hence, simply transferring inno­
vation policy tools from one country to another and the resulting
isomorphism of innovation policies (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983;
Kuhlmann and Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017) might not necessarily lead to
a uniform, predictable, and desired impact (Czarniawska and Joerges,
1996; Irwin et al., 2021; Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017), and may thus
prove ineffective in promoting innovation for a clear-cut objective.
Eventually, these off-the-shelf models may be “solving the wrong
problem” (Kuhlmann and Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017, p.14) for the
context at hand. Delvenne and Thoreau (2017) show how the adoption
of the national innovation systems approach in Latin America led to a
disconnect with pre-existing practices and local context. Why
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Research Policy 50 (2021) 104273
policymakers appear to prefer seemingly universal “best-practice”
models over context-sensitive policies is a pertinent question that needs
to be studied empirically. Policymakers’ risk adversity (Benner, 2019)
may lead them to adopt models perceived as already working elsewhere
and adds to the urge to present ready-made “solutions” (Kuhlmann and
Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017). With regard to Mediterranean Arab coun­
tries, policy transfer needs to be situated within broader contexts of
North-South relationships and their postcolonial legacies (Anderson,
2009; Mitchell 2002). Thus, we suggest more rigorously examining the
postcolonial legacies that encourage policy transfer, e.g. through inter­
national donors and organizations (Delvenne and Thoreau, 2017;
Godin, 2006b; Irwin et al., 2021; Jessop, 2005).
STS research on the transfer of innovation models has shown that
such models become reconfigured and refracted in the new context in
ways that are difficult to anticipate (Hird and Pfotenhauer, 2017; Pfo­
tenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017). Irwin et al. (2021, p.2) describe how
innovation-related “ideas and practices not only travel but also emerge,
develop, and are in different ways domesticated.” In these practices of
translation, content and context become mutually (re)configured and
are likely to result in an idiosyncratic mixture shaped through the
particular translation of context into content and vice versa (Akrich
et al., 2002a, Czarniawska and Joerges, 1996; Freeman, 2009; Latour,
1986). Measuring success and failure, therefore, demands context
sensitivity (Gong and Hassink, 2020) and must involve a comparative
interpretive sensibility (Simmons and Smith, 2017) that refers to the
sense-making practices, expectations, and visions of local actors as a
central criterion of evaluation (see also Irwin et al., 2021).
In the next section we turn to selected sites and spaces of innovation
policy in Mediterranean Arab countries. With these shifts in conceptual
perspective in mind, our analysis is guided by the following questions:
How are particular places (re)imagined as spaces where innovation is
likely to take place? What experiences, expectations, and expertise un­
derpin these innovation imaginaries? How are seemingly universal
innovation models translated into the sociotechnical and institutional
context given, and what challenges, contingencies, and resistances
shape these processes?
4. Innovation policy in Mediterranean Arab countries
In recent years, a considerable body of literature on macro-level
innovation patterns in Mediterranean Arab countries has emerged (e.
g. Bosco and Mavilia, 2014; M’Henni and Deniozos, 2012; Mahroum
et al., 2013; Péridy, 2010; Smadi and Tsipouri, 2012; Trabelsi, 2015;
Trabelsi and Ben Salah, 2018). When measured by traditional quanti­
tative indicators such as gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD),
patents, or scientific publications, Mediterranean Arab countries score
rather low (e.g. Bosco and Mavilia, 2014; Noland and Pack, 2007), and
in corresponding rankings, most Mediterranean Arab countries are
found in the middle or lower ranks (e.g. Cornell University et al., 2018)
with little improvement over time (ESCWA, 2017). Throughout, the vast
majority of accounts on innovation in Arab economies are putting to the
fore various deficits, measured against global norms and international
standards (e.g. ESCWA, 2017). Despite these common features, the
specifics of innovation vary between Mediterranean Arab countries
(Bosco and Mavilia, 2014) and mainstream accounts do not do justice to
the complexities and developments in the region.
4.1. Methodology and case selection
The argument put forward in this article builds both on a compre­
hensive literature review and on genuine empirical work undertaken by
either of the authors in recent years. Our approach is informed by what
Simmons and Smith (2017, p.126) describe as a “comparison with an
ethnographic sensibility”. Such an approach allows to capture the
assumed meanings and the significance social actors ascribe to key
policy concepts and to situate these practices of meaning-making within
C. Haddad and M. Benner
specific historical, political, and socio-economic contexts (Simmons and
Smith, 2017), and is consistent with our context-sensitive approach
(Gong and Hassink, 2020).
One author (M.B.) has conducted nine semi-standardized telephone
or internet voice call interviews with stakeholders and experts from
Jordan and Tunisia from September to December 2018 during earlier
research on the institutional foundations of economic reform (Benner,
2020a), and has known the context in Mediterranean Arab economies
from earlier work in policy consulting. The latter experience shaped his
awareness for the dominant role of policy transfer and the related
technocratic rationality involved in innovation policy in Mediterranean
Arab countries. The other author (C.H.) has worked on several academic
and policy-oriented projects investigating national innovation policies,
international technology transfer activities, and sociotechnical visions of
emergent knowledge-based societies in Mediterranean Arab countries.
During his fieldwork in 2018 and 2019, he has conducted a total of 24
face-to-face expert interviews in Egypt and Jordan. This experience has
sensitized the author for the stark discrepancies between global visions,
national programs and local practices of aspiring innovation societies,
and hence for the need to situate innovation policies in broader con­
stellations of international aid and development programs that often do
not seem to address the local actors’ needs and challenges.
While the argument for context sensitivity is a generic one, we
believe that the Mediterranean perspective is particularly illustrative for
at least two reasons. First, spatial proximity and social interactions
shaped by postcolonial legacies, European diasporas, and linguistic
similarities such as the Maghreb elites’ francophony have created a
specific spatial nexus that facilitated and shaped policy transfer from
“Europe” and notably from Great Britain and France to Europe’s
Southern neighbors as a postcolonial legacy (Benner, 2015, 2020a).3
This nexus has to be seen in the broader structural and historical con­
ditions of North-South relationships. Second, the policy frameworks
offered by the EU for cooperation with its neighbors such as the ENP,
financial support through the European Neighborhood Instrument
(ENI), and mutual free trade under the AAs create a context for partial
integration that is not found in other parts of the world (Benner, 2015,
2019, 2020a).
In the following sections we present vignettes from Tunisia, Jordan,
and Egypt. Our intention is not to present a holistic comparison of
innovation policies in the three countries. Rather, we aim to highlight
how specific ways of giving meaning to place and context play out by
focusing on one specific site of innovation policy per country.
4.2. Building clusters in Tunisia top-down: global models, local
adaptations4
Cluster policy has been a major policy trend since the late 1990s
when policymakers sought to leverage the assumed effects of spatial
agglomeration on innovation for economic development but often
focused more narrowly on networking (e.g. Kiese, 2008). The original
approaches on clustering (Porter, 1990, 1998) dwelled on how to pro­
mote existing spatial agglomerations of firms and supporting organiza­
tions. While the literature tends to conclude that “successful clusters
cannot be created from scratch” (Schmitz and Nadvi, 1999, p.1509) and
despite scholars voicing concerns against imposing cluster policies in a
top-down way as allegedly best-practice, one-size-fits-all approaches (e.
g. Birch 2016; Enright, 2000; Hospers and Beugelsdijk, 2002; Tödtling
and Trippl, 2005), implementation often focused more on “building”
clusters, following a technocratic and engineering-oriented
3 account for its specific configuration, recent developments indicate a
In a similar vein, political proximity to the U.S. may facilitate the transfer of
Anglo-American concepts, as will become clear later in the cases of Egypt and
Jordan.
4
This sub-section draws on Benner (2014, 2017, 2020a, 2020b) and Leh­
mann and Benner (2015).
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understanding of cluster policy that ignored the context-specific
embeddedness and path dependence of socio-economic processes
(Kiese, 2008; Wrobel and Kiese, 2009). Science and technology parks
(STPs) have often been used in these technocratic schemes (e.g. Castells
and Hall, 1994; Felsenstein, 1994; Massey et al., 1992; Quintas et al.,
1992).
Tunisia provides an illustrative example for a policy of cluster
building through STPs.5 Since the late 1990s, the Tunisian government
has been pursuing an ambitious program that evolved out of its first
technology park for the information and communications technology
(ICT) sector, Elgazala in Tunis. In an effort to spread the presumed
impetus for innovation afforded by spatial proximity in STPs to wider
parts of the country, the Tunisian government designated so-called pôles
de compétitivité in sectors such as agrifood, ICT, mechanics/electronics,
or textiles. A pôle consists of an STP, further amenities such as an
incubator or an industrial zone for manufacturing operations, and sec­
toral networks. The STPs are designed to host multinational anchor
companies, university departments or certification institutes, and local
firms and start-ups. Typically, to promote innovation through collabo­
ration, pôles have set up networks linking industry and research. While
the latter scheme combines top-down and bottom-up logics, the desig­
nation of pôles follows a clear top-down logic and an ambition to “build”
clusters (Aubert et al., 2013; Benner, 2017; Benner, 2019; 2020a; 2020b;
Erdle, 2011; Lehmann and Benner, 2015; M’Henni et al., 2013; M’Henni
and Deniozos, 2012; Rodríguez-Pose and Hardy, 2014).
As for the politics of knowledge, the networking logic of the pôles
program follows the French model (DGCIS and DATAR, 2014) with the
same name (Benner, 2017, 2020a; Lehmann and Benner, 2015) and
benefited from support by various organizations such as the European
Investment Bank or UNIDO while bilateral donors such as France and
Japan focused on supporting specific pôles (M’Henni et al., 2013). The
latter point suggests a dimension of policy competition between bilateral
donors and between their national “best practice” models of STPs and
cluster policies and provides a possible explanation for the relationship
between postcolonial legacies and the popularity of these models.
The pôles exhibit a clear focus on technological catching-up with
European competitors as dominant imaginary. The first pôle, Elgazala,
was established after the 1995 AA between the EU and Tunisia whose
free-trade provisions led to the widely held narrative of export-oriented
Tunisian firms having to upgrade their skills and technological capa­
bilities to compete with firms from the EU (Benner, 2015, 2017, 2020a;
Cammett, 2007; Cassarino, 1999; M‘Henni et al., 2013; Murphy, 2006).
The innovation imaginary behind the pôles reflects this narrative.
Technology, or more precisely, technology developed in the R&D sub­
system and commercialized by export-oriented firms, was seen as the
driver of firm upgrading and competitiveness and the idea of attracting
large multinational enterprises such as Microsoft, Ericsson, or Huawei to
Elgazala fits into this outward-looking perspective because it was
deemed to enable export-oriented Tunisian companies to integrate into
global value chains (Aubert et al., 2013; Benner, 2017, 2020a, 2020b;
M’Henni et al., 2013).
The large-scale thinking behind the pôles can be read as an expression
of an imaginary that focuses on spectacular, visible technological
infrastructure projects or what Massey et al. (1992) criticized as
“high-tech fantasies” built on the linear model of innovation that all too
often seem insulated from wider parts of the economy and society (see
also Felsenstein, 1994; Phillimore, 1999; Quintas et al., 1992). In
particular, those parts of Tunisian society not engaged with
export-oriented technology firms are not quite included in the realiza­
tion of the innovation imaginary enacted through the pôles program.
While the historical context of Elgazala dating from the 1990s might
gradual shift towards more context-based approaches and demonstrate
5
This paragraph draws on the sources given at the end of the paragraph.
C. Haddad and M. Benner
the ongoing negotiation process between policy implementation and
context.
The establishment of local incubators across the country under the
roof of the Elgazala pôle demonstrates the conflict of the pôles’ imaginary
with wider societal needs of extending the presumed benefits of inno­
vation policy to peripheral regions marked by high youth unemploy­
ment (Benner, 2017, 2020a, 2020b). These so-called cyberparcs reflect a
process of local adaptation to the Tunisian context, as do the pôles
designated in Médenine for desert resources, Gafsa for phosphates and
minerals, and Jendouba for agriculture (Benner, 2017, 2019, 2020a,
2020b; M’Henni and Deniozos, 2012; M’Henni et al., 2013). These pôles
located in peripheral parts of the country and related to these regions’
spatial characteristics and natural resources seem to differ from the
dominant imaginary focused on technology transfer and
technology-intensive export orientation to the extent that they follow a
logic of regional convergence and place-based policy (Barca, 2019).
Whether the pôles program implemented until today will be able to
sufficiently address the wider societal ambition of current innovation
policies is an open question that calls for further in-depth con­
text-sensitive analysis. What becomes clear is that the pôles program is
subject to two different imaginaries, one of innovation-driven growth
visible most clearly in Elgazala and those pôles located in coastal urban
regions with a low degree of spatial and social inclusiveness and one of
place-based regional development and convergence focused on periph­
eral areas and on employment creation (Benner, 2014, 2017, 2020a,
2020b). These two imaginaries are likely to contradict each other and
highlight the inner tension in the way the pôles program seeks to mediate
between place and context.
4.3. Replicating the ICT success story in Jordan: turning the entire country
into a technology park
A country marked by a lack of basic resources, fiscal instability, and
the constant threat of (geo)political instability, the Hashemite Kingdom
of Jordan, too, has embarked on a mission to become an innovation
society. Since the late 1990s, a strong reliance on the ICT sector marked
Jordan’s initial innovation agenda. At the time driven by an alliance
between private-sector individuals, donor agencies, and King Abdullah
II who emblematically stands for the Kingdom’s modernization and
integration into the global economy, and in line with international
trends, the initial idea for promoting the ICT sector was building an STP.
However, consultation with the nascent private telecommunications
industry transformed the idea of the STP from a physical arrangement
towards a more figurative notion of “technology park”. The leading
vision, embraced by the King and implemented by the private sector,
became to turn the entire country into a technology park. Jordan’s first
private sector-driven innovation initiative called REACH represents a
milestone of the modernization, (neo)liberalization, and international­
ization of the Jordanian economy. The initiative’s guiding mission was
to create an ICT-friendly environment by reshaping the country’s legal,
economic, and technological infrastructure that can serve as a platform
for the emergence of a competitive industry. The initiative was imple­
mented in a historical and political context of expectations of stability
and prosperity stimulated by the peace deal with Israel as well as the
gradual opening of the Jordanian economy to the globalized world
economy (Mansour et al., 2019; see also Benner, 2020a; Hazbun, 2008).
Indeed, these conditions allowed for massive growth of the ICT sector
during the past two decades, making Jordan a regional ICT hub and
paving the way for a more differentiated innovation landscape. In that
period, Jordan’s innovation ecosystem has gradually evolved and
become recalibrated to include technology-based and
technology-enabled business.
In line with these efforts, since 2000 Jordan has seen the emergence
of a full-fledged entrepreneurship ecosystem with several incubators,
with iPark being one of the first and major ones (Mahroum et al., 2013;
Smadi and Tsipouri, 2012). Founded in 2003, iPark was based on the
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assumption that the American model of business incubation could be
replicated in Jordan (infoDev, 2009) if sufficiently adapted to the local
context of the country.
The year 2009 marked another turning point when, in the midst of
the global financial crisis, Yahoo acquired the Arab content-based e-mail
provider Maktoob developed by two Amman-based entrepreneurs for
more than USD 160 million. This event prompted a change in imagi­
nation of what Jordan is and could become as an innovation country. If
two entrepreneurs with hardly any support infrastructure for innovators
could make it, much more was imagined to be possible if there was a
functioning ecosystem. The new vision now was to create the conditions
for many more “Maktoobs” to emerge. Translating this vision into reality
demanded the creation of the “Oasis 500” venture capital fund and
accelerator through the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (see also
Benner, 2020a; Mahroum et al., 2013). Subsequently, more seed accel­
erators and venture capital funds emerged, and Jordan’s entrepreneurial
ecosystem started to blossom. The model apparently led to a growing
innovation culture, which even led Oasis 500 to stop the popular
entrepreneurship boot camp trainings it had initially offered.
Jordan’s leading policy vision of becoming an innovation-based so­
ciety draws much of its impetus from the accomplishments of the ICT
sector. However, the innovation imaginary promising a thorough
modernization of the country and the inclusion of many Jordanians in a
vibrant global knowledge economy faces a series of challenges. Among
these challenges is the spatial concentration of innovation culture and
capacity in the big cities of Amman and (to a lesser degree) Irbid and Al-
Karak (see also Benner, 2020a). While the imaginary template of Mak­
toob and other “success stories” supported the notion that everyone in
Jordan who owns a laptop can become an entrepreneur and an inno­
vator, the policy objective to spread success stories to the country’s
periphery seems difficult or even impossible to realize. First and fore­
most, doing so would require more investment into basic social and
material infrastructure including education and thus investments that
are hard to imagine in the context of constant budgetary constraints,
foreign debt, fiscal and political instability, and a broader recourse to
neoliberal reform policies (Mansour et al., 2019). Beyond that, realizing
this policy objective would require a shift in focus from ICT to other
domains of innovation. This shift from a sectoral approach to a systemic
one was already formulated in Jordan’s National Innovation Strategy
2013–2017 (Higher Council for Science and Technology, 2013; see also
Benner, 2020a), which was conceptually and financially driven by the
World Bank. However, the strategy was hitherto only selectively
implemented and plays only a marginal role in the overall ecosystem.
In the eyes of leading figures in Jordan’s innovation ecosystem, iPark
can serve as a rare example of a long-term strategic vision. In recent
years, iPark has gradually shifted from its mainly ICT-focused, Amman-
based incubation program towards a more diversified approach by
expanding its activities and thematic focus and by establishing satellites
in other areas of the country. While the Amman branch is still oriented
towards high technology and ICT, other branches focus on locally
anchored industries such as hardware manufacturing in Irbid or tourism,
logistics, and entertainment in Aqaba. Interestingly, a major condition
for iPark’s success is seen in its relative independence from international
donor funds, which enables pursuing a long-term strategy beyond the
project-driven logic prevalent in donor-driven aid programs. This in­
dependence provides an example for how to prevent pitfalls through
policy transfer shaped by postcolonial legacies that often accompany
donor interventions.
4.4. Leading authentic heritage into a “tech-immersed future”: Egypt’s
(post-) revolutionary innovation spaces
In Egypt, as elsewhere, policy visions of dedicated innovation spaces
and notably STPs infused by an emergent entrepreneurship culture have
proliferated. In recent years, Egypt has launched various entrepreneur­
ship support programs, particularly targeted at university students and
C. Haddad and M. Benner
graduates. International universities such as the British University in
Egypt (BUE) and the American University in Cairo (AUC) aspire to
develop an entrepreneurial culture among their students, graduates, and
staff. Measures include the setup of technology transfer offices, start-up
incubators, and co-working spaces, as well as enriching curricula with
entrepreneurship courses. Further, a variety of STPs have emerged in
Egypt, as examples such as Smart Village in the Cairo area, the invest­
ment zone in Borg El-Arab, or the Technology Valley in Ismailia
demonstrate. For instance, Smart Village hosts various European and
American multinationals, provides possibilities for a tech-savvy, well-
educated workforce, and is managed by the governmental IT promotion
agency for the private sector, ITIDA. Yet, these spaces seem rather iso­
lated and remote, if not entirely disconnected from the larger social and
economic life in Egypt. At the same time, a vibrant entrepreneurial start-
up culture has emerged in large cities. Cairo’s so-called “GrEEK” campus
provides an illustrative example. As the first campus of the AUC, it was
abandoned when the university opened its new campus outside Cairo.
The GrEEK campus was leased by an ex-Wall Street investor from AUC in
2013 and turned into a co-working space, start-up incubator, and
networking area for an internationally-oriented, well-educated upper
middle class crowd of young graduates who see themselves as radical
reformers and change makers. Combining a notion of technical sophis­
tication (“geeks”) with the historical heritage of the Greek university
campus in downtown Cairo, the campus hosts a large marketing and
public-relations firm, international ICT firms, and Uber with its “Uber
Bus” model for collective transportation. Given the high level of
congestion in Egypt’s big cities, this invention is celebrated as a show­
case model for innovation through adaptation to local context. More­
over, GrEEK hosts the “Rise Up! Summit”, one of the biggest
entrepreneurship and innovation events in the region. Each year the
event brings together entrepreneurially minded, tech-savvy people who
attend inspirational talks by experienced professionals with back­
grounds in technology, finance, business administration, property law,
social media marketing, etc. Partners so far included, for example,
multinational corporations such as Uber, Microsoft, or Pepsico and in­
ternational donors such as the World Bank and GIZ (Rise Up LLC, 2019).
In a nutshell, the GrEEK campus illustrates how particular meanings
are assigned to a place (Gieryn, 2000) where innovation is imagined to
happen. In the Mediterranean and beyond, the campus has become a
widely known space of an emergent innovation culture. Within Egypt,
the campus is perceived as the nucleus of a local entrepreneurial
ecosystem charged with a distinctive apolitical and technocratic narra­
tive. As such, the campus figures as a “narrated place” (Muñoz et al.,
2020, p.3) that shapes how actors interpret and shape the institutional
context of the ecosystem (Lowe and Feldman, 2017) in a
post-revolutionary environment. At the same time, the campus’s vision
is more social than technical or, more precisely, it is about promoting
sociality through technology as it aspires to build “a community on the
pursuit of transforming the shape of industries […], towards a better
world with more capable individuals” by leading Cairo’s authentic
heritage into “a tech-immersed future” (Greek Campus, 2020). The
leading slogan, serving as an informal code of conduct for its tenants and
guests and signaling a global-cosmopolitan worldview is: “No religion,
no politics, no jerks!” Moreover, drawing on a decidedly bottom-up
entrepreneurial movement that allegedly does not engage in politics
but is at the same time ready to engage with decision makers and experts
in suggesting policy measures to promote start-ups and entrepreneurs,
this space is situated within the technocratic legacies of postcolonial
relations that have shaped Egyptian state formation and government
since the 1950s (Mitchell, 2002).
4.5. Discussion
Promoting innovation to accommodate the needs of an emerging
knowledge-based economy is a major policy goal in each of the three
countries. The three vignettes highlight differences in how selected
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policy approaches mediate between place and context and how global
imaginaries of innovation are being translated into local institutions, in
line with what Irwin et al. (2021) call “isomorphic difference”.
Importantly, the different instruments described (cluster promotion,
STPs, incubators, entrepreneurship programs) are found in each coun­
try, at least to some degree. Yet, the places where innovation is meant to
“take place” are shaped by specific sociotechnical imaginaries and as
such need to be understood as “narrated places” (Muñoz et al., 2020,
p.3) that link socioeconomically embedded institutions and their his­
torical legacies with specific notions of a desirable future to be attained
through innovation.
The role of entrepreneurship that figures prominently in innovation
imaginaries in all three countries can serve as an example. Given high
youth unemployment notably among university graduates, it is under­
standable that policy efforts are spent on the objective of “getting young
students to see entrepreneurship as a viable choice” (Amin et al., 2012,
p.135; see also Benner, 2020a) which resonates with what Schot and
Steinmueller (2018) have identified as a main policy focus in the second
frame of innovation. The implicit assumption of entrepreneurship being
able to tackle youth unemployment (e.g. World Bank, 2019) postulates a
specific solution to a complex problem in terms of a deficit in sufficiently
developed entrepreneurial mindsets, skills, and initiative. Considering
the preference of young graduates in Arab countries for stable
public-sector employment (Amin et al., 2012; Hertog, 2016; World
Bank, 2014) which amounts to a powerful socio-economic institution
(Benner, 2020a), the question remains as to what degree the perceived
solution (entrepreneurship) is adapted to the underlying problem (youth
unemployment). However, ascribing a purely instrumentalist role to
entrepreneurship in terms of providing employment does not address
the broader socio-cultural connotation of entrepreneurship. This is
particularly true given the stylized, dazzling figure of the heroic entre­
preneur at the core of (neoliberal) innovation discourse (Bröckling,
2016; Joly et al., 2010; Massey et al., 1992). This tension becomes
visible by contrasting the ambition of state-driven programs to promote
entrepreneurship to boost employment with the broader entrepreneurial
spirit of contemporary capitalism that seems to animate a whole gen­
eration of young middle-class graduates in Mediterranean Arab coun­
tries and beyond. On the one hand, the example of the Elgazala pôle
describes a state-driven approach where entrepreneurial activity is
imagined to follow the top-down implementation of STPs. On the other
hand, Cairo’s GrEEK campus epitomizes a somewhat bottom-up
approach that runs remotely from state innovation policies and some­
what in parallel to them, despite the fact that it is supported by powerful
investors from the private sector.
The dominant imaginary of the tech-savvy, heroic entrepreneur who
deserves public support and recognition of their capacity to lift them­
selves (and others) out of the quandary of youth unemployment ignores
the embeddedness of entrepreneurship into the wider social context,
thus representing an “undersocialized” perspective of economic agency
(Granovetter, 1985). It remains to be seen how this heavy recourse to
entrepreneurship as a panacea squares with the rather state-dominated
economic institutions and approaches prevalent in Mediterranean Arab
countries (Amin et al., 2012; Benner, 2020a; Hertog, 2016; Noland and
Pack, 2007; Richards and Waterbury, 2008). While the imaginary cre­
ates new spaces of economic agency for young entrepreneurs unre­
stricted by a state bureaucracy often criticised as inaccessible and
stifling (e.g. Benner, 2020a; Hertog, 2016; Noland and Pack, 2007;
OECD, 2013), it also delegates responsibility and risk from the state to
the individual. Often driven by international private universities or
supported by multinational enterprises and donors targeting an
internationally-oriented youth, the imaginary seems intricately linked to
a broader shift in development policy paradigms that directly address
the local level and private actors (Craig and Porter, 2006). In a context
where traditional responsibilities and competences of the state are
increasingly being dismantled, it is important to conceive of the political
dimension of entrepreneurship that affects the socio-institutional
C. Haddad and M. Benner
context of a society (Acemoglu and Robinson, 2012; Benner, 2020a) and
increasingly reshapes non-economic initiative in civil society
(Bröckling, 2016). Critical scholarship needs to further study these
sociotechnical translations between top-down and bottom-up initiative,
between public and private responsibility and between global models
and local institutions in the politics of innovation.
Similarly, cluster policies and STPs are, with varying shapes, central
elements in all three countries’ innovation imaginaries. Despite Porter’s
(1998) caution against classifying sectors along the binary scheme of
high-tech vs. low-tech, anything considered “high-tech” seems particu­
larly attractive to policymakers (Castells and Hall, 1994; Enright, 2000).
Mediterranean Arab countries are no exception and have predominantly
invested in ICT and electronics, as the examples of Elgazala in Tunis or
Smart Village in Cairo underscore. While the heavy recourse to STPs can
clearly be read in terms of Massey et al.’s (1992) critique of “high-tech
fantasies”, it is interesting to see how different visions of STPs are
translated differently across contexts. At the same time, in all cases the
concept of STPs as an important tool for innovation policy was adopted
from European and U.S. contexts with little respect for local idiosyn­
crasies. Yet, there are considerable differences in the ways this seem­
ingly universal policy model was translated into local contexts. The
cases of Tunisia and Jordan both show local reconfiguration processes
through efforts to extend innovation support instruments such as the
Tunisian pôles and Jordan’s iPark to peripheral regions. Further, post­
colonial legacies may explain Tunisia’s inclination toward the French
pôles model while Egypt’s and Jordan’s innovation policies seem to rely
more on Anglo-American entrepreneurship-driven models. Moreover,
Jordan’s strong political ownership cannot be isolated from its political
system and its historical role as an adopter of Western models of
modernization. Over time, changes in the role and meaning of innova­
tion, as explicated conceptually by the shift in innovation policy frames
(Schot and Steinmueller, 2018), mean that concepts of STPs and entre­
preneurship, too, are gradually reformulated as innovation imaginaries
evolve.
5. A research agenda for innovation in Mediterranean Arab
countries
Our call for context-sensitive innovation policies in Mediterranean
Arab economies resonates with what Kuhlmann and
Ordóñez-Matamoros (2017, p.3) characterize as “radical view” that
transcends the conventional view on innovation policies by emphasizing
aspects of context and inclusion. While it is easy to sympathize with
these goals, the critical question is how to design policies accordingly,
and how to provide the conceptual perspectives that may lead up to such
a turn.
We conclude this article by addressing a few further considerations
of central importance for such a research agenda. First of all, the con­
textuality of institutions in a place (Bathelt and Glückler, 2003, 2014) is
relevant not only for the downstream effectiveness of eventual innova­
tion policies, but much earlier upstream for how innovation is under­
stood, enacted, and translated into specific socio-spatial arrangements
(see also Irwin et al., 2021). To grasp this nexus between place, context,
and institutions, we consider more research on the overarching inno­
vation imaginaries and their underlying drivers worthwhile. Specif­
ically, a deeper understanding of how these imaginaries come into being
and who shapes them is important. As the concept of innovation is
subject to fierce struggles over its meaning, innovation cannot be
separated from questions about the wider societal good, neither as a
process nor in terms of results. It is vital to understand which actors are
able to shape authoritative definitions of desirable forms and practices
of innovation and whose particular interests, values, and visions of a
good, desirable society as well as political choices are universalized as
the “common interest” in innovation policy agendas (Jasanoff, 2004;
Joly et al., 2010; Pfotenhauer and Jasanoff, 2017; Pfotenhauer and
Juhl, 2017; Pfotenhauer et al., 2019; Stirling, 2014; see also Irwin et al.,
8
Research Policy 50 (2021) 104273
2021).
Addressing these issues calls for attention to the politics of innova­
tion, understood in terms of conflicts and confrontations over dominant
sociotechnical visions and the social values, interests, and the material
and symbolic power relations that underpin them. Beyond the techno­
cratic guise of expert-driven innovation policy, it is key to discern the
function of a particular innovation policy for the (re)production of the
larger governance regimes and relations of power within a country and
between countries. This is particularly relevant when it comes to policy
transfer to “emerging” economies in the context of development aid and
cooperation where power relations between leading innovation coun­
tries (mostly from the “Global North”) and innovation followers (mostly
from the “Global South”) are often perpetuated by postcolonial legacies
(Delvenne and Thoreau, 2017). Further research needs to expand on the
emerging work on the effect of political systems on innovation (e.g.
Pertuze et al., 2019) and go beyond the macro-level question of regime
types. This means refraining from treating the “political system” as one
variable in innovation policy analysis and further exploring how specific
forms of statecraft and governance are being co-produced with regimes
and imaginaries of innovation (Pfotenhauer and Juhl, 2017).
Precisely because innovation is such an elusive and essentially con­
tested term, we suggest that a context-sensitive approach to innovation
policy should not strive to ultimately “settle” the definition of innova­
tion prior to policy design but remain open for exploring diverse and
possibly competing notions of innovation among different actors and
stakeholders, as well as interests, values, and future visions attached to
them.
These insights call for a focus on the politics of knowledge (Domí­
nguez Rubio and Baert, 2013) as an intrinsic dimension of the politics of
innovation (see also Smith and Stirling, 2018) and in particular of how
expert knowledge deemed “policy-relevant” shapes both policy visions
and translation. Addressing the apparent tension between international
expertise represented by donors, experts, and consultants on the one
hand and the public definition of societal needs and interests on the
other hand, taking into account the preconditions and possibilities of
political participation in each country, could contribute to achieving
more context-sensitive models of innovation policy (Kuhlmann and
Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017) and to overcoming a deficit discourse con­
structed around seemingly universal norms and requirements of an
apparently global knowledge economy.
This emphasis on the politics of knowledge has also methodological
implications. Moving towards a comprehensive view on knowledge that
underpins innovation policy requires a broader and pluralistic evidence
base that complements quantitative indicators with qualitative research
and interpretive research designs that attend to the meaning-making
processes of a variety of situated actors. This point further underlines
the importance of grasping where selective priorities or possible policy
ignorance (Paul and Haddad, 2019) come from, what visions sustain
them, and which target groups are addressed through such choices.
Through policy analysis with ethnographic sensibility (Pader, 2006;
Prainsack and Wahlberg, 2013; Simmons and Smith, 2017), under­
standing how meaning-making by particular actors shape processes and
practices provides critical knowledge needed to drive innovation prac­
tices towards the goal of societal transformation and public value
(Diercks et al., 2019; Schot and Steinmueller, 2018).
A final point addresses the sociotechnical translation of policy vi­
sions into practice including policy learning, experimental policy design,
and various forms of participatory modes of policymaking. These as­
pects can be particularly problematic in the context of North-South re­
lationships and in the case of Mediterranean Arab countries with their
proximity to the EU. Specifically in view of the tight economic and po­
litical alignment of Mediterranean Arab countries with the EU including
the ENP with its AAs, and association to the “Horizon” R&D framework
program (European Commission, 2019) provides a zone of policy
transfer that is likely to shape innovation policies in a powerful way
(Benner, 2015, 2017, 2019, 2020a). Yet, how to foster context-sensitive
C. Haddad and M. Benner
sociotechnical translation needs more research.
The introduction of smart specialization (Foray et al., 2009, 2012) to
Tunisia that is currently being prepared with support from the European
Commission could provide an opportunity to observe the local adapta­
tion of participatory approaches and to better understand
context-specific constraints and contingencies (Benner, 2017, 2019,
2020a, 2020b; Foray, 2020). Participatory processes could contribute to
fostering context-sensitive policy experimentation. At the same time,
such interventions face challenges (Capello and Kroll, 2016; Gianelle
et al., 2020; Karo et al., 2017; Kroll, 2015; Kyriakou, 2016; Trippl et al.,
2020) that need to be understood, carefully analyzed and addressed
prior to and during policy implementation.
Summing up and building on the theoretical perspectives articulated
along the three conceptual shifts we suggested and in light of our
exploration of situated innovation processes in three countries, we
propose the following guiding questions as a basis for a research agenda:
• What sociotechnical visions and imaginaries shape innovation pol­
icies and practices, and how are institutions, social values and power
relations reshaped through these innovation imaginaries? What
tensions exist between diverging or contending visions of
innovation?
• What kinds of experience and expertise underpin innovation imagi­
naries and policies, and what forms of power and authority make
these forms of knowledge possible? Under which conditions can
particular ideas, concepts, technologies, knowledges, and people
travel from one place to another? How is the politics of knowledge
conditioned and reinforced by institutional and socio-political con­
stellations, including (post)colonial legacies?
• How are seemingly universal models, “best practices”, or techno­
logical systems translated into the particular institutional context of
a place? How do these practices of translation precipitate, or indeed
prevent, institutional change? What practices of resistance shape the
politics of innovation?
6. Conclusions and outlook
The need for effective and context-specific innovation policies will
not decrease in the years to come. Apart from various structural chal­
lenges Mediterranean Arab countries face, conditions for economic
development will be affected by prospects of Deep and Comprehensive
Free Trade Areas (DCFTAs) whose establishment the EU is envisaging
with Tunisia, Jordan, Morocco, and Egypt (Gharib, 2019; OECD 2012a,
2013). When concluded, these agreements would strengthen the align­
ment of Mediterranean Arab economies with the EU’s Single Market and
increase the pressure to further enhance domestic firms’ competitive
and innovative capabilities, implying that a new wave of innovation
policies can be expected (Benner, 2017, 2019, 2020a).
Nevertheless, our proposed research agenda could be of use beyond
Mediterranean Arab economies for analyzing how innovation policies
are conceptualized, negotiated, and implemented. Reframing innova­
tion policy more rigorously as a contested field of competing visions of
the social good, public value, and desirable societal development places
innovation into the realm of the political. This conceptual shift enables a
better understanding of the kinds of problems for which innovation, and
what specific forms and processes of innovation, represent adequate
solutions. Doing so is a precondition for reclaiming innovation as one of
several means to improve the human condition and to contribute to
citizens’ quality of life (Kuhlmann and Ordóñez-Matamoros, 2017) by
tackling the pressing issues of societal transformation, sustainable so­
cioeconomic development, and the democratization of technology in
both the North and the South (Diercks et al., 2019; Delvenne and
Thoreau, 2017; Lechevalier and Laugier, 2019; Schot and Steinmueller,
2018; Stirling, 2014). Reaching out to adjacent fields like critical ge­
ography, interpretive policy analysis, and STS, innovation studies can
extend the debate among scholars, activists, and policymakers on this
9
Research Policy 50 (2021) 104273
ultimate question of how innovation can contribute to a livable and
desirable society and, maybe, where we need to be decidedly innovative
by going beyond expecting a globally uniform imaginary of innovation
to perform miracles.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Christian Haddad: Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology,
Writing - original draft, Writing - review & editing. Maximilian Benner:
Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Writing - original draft,
Writing - review & editing.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Disclosure statement
M. Benner worked as a consultant for development cooperation
projects, including projects on regional development in Tunisia funded
by German technical cooperation.
Declaration of funding
C. Haddad’s work was supported by funds of the Oesterreichische
Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank, Anniversary Fund, project num­
ber: 17891). M. Benner’s work on the paper was funded by the European
Commission (Joint Research Centre).
Acknowledgments
C. Haddad wants to thank Sherin Gharib for research assistance. The
authors wish to thank Dimitrios Kyriakou as well as our editor, Maryann
Feldman, and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments
and suggestions that helped to significantly improve our draft. All
remaining errors are our own. The views expressed are purely those of
the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an
official position of the European Commission.
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