Political innovations: Innovations in political institutions, processes and outputs

Public innovation has become a key objective for governments all over the Western world and is a growing research area among students of public policy and governance. At the heart of this new agenda is the search for ways to make the public sector more innovative. Governments and researchers alike are mainly interested in assessing and promoting innovations in public service delivery, but have paid little or no attention to the need for innovations in polity, politics and policy. This article develops a research agenda for studying innovations in political institutions, in the political process and in policy outputs. It proposes a number of research themes related to political innovations that call for scholarly attention, and identifies push and pull factors influencing the likelihood that these themes will be addressed in future research.