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Miettinen, R. (2002). National Innovation System. Scientific concept or political rhetoric? Helsinki: Edita.
The book can be ordered from Akateeminen kirjakauppa (they ship internationally): Bookexport@akateeminen.com,
http://www.akateeminen.com
Two reviews of the book:
Aant Elzinga, Professor of Theory of Science, University of Göteborg:
"Here is one of those rare books on science and technology policy that actually generates clarity. This is thanks to author’s ability tom combine two things. First of all he gets below the surface of specialist vocabulary and institutions to show how policy documents get crafted and key terms get circulated as consensus-making tags between different milieus. Secondly he applies an epistemological lense, asking why and do certain certain terms gain ground and serve as powerful metaphors in the transformation of visions into actions. Do they come before or after change, or both/and? It turns out that researchers and policy makers are each other’s captives.
"The book puts a finger on in important aspect that distinguishes present day policy-making and implementation. Most readers will know that a systems-oriented rationalistic and dirigist policy approach of old has been replaced by “orchestration policy” involving the mobilizing of actors and institutions. Foresight exercises and technology forecasting to set priorities are two examples. Newer policy approaches target values and visions to try and harmonize the interests of diverse stakeholders, sometimes to the extent of resembling sales talk and hype. Rhetoric, striking imagery and thought figures permeate policy documents. Consensus is prime.
"Many recent theorists seemed blinded by this scene in which are themselves enmeshed as captives; they suggest that we are entering in a new era, now witnessing an eroding of boundaries and fusion of values and interests. This book is refreshing in that it does go against the grain of such fashion. The term ‘national innovation system’ is fixed upon to trace its origin and function as a metaphor, and as a bonus we get a brief an enlightening review of pertinent schools in the literature of on innovation policy. I come away of it with new insights into the how-and –why crafting of rhetorical strategies and self-referential vision-promoting prose emanating from the bureaucracies within OECD and EU. The multiple roles of consultants and some-university-based researchers, in these contexts are probed, with reference also to recent notions like Mode 2 and Triple Helix in the “new production of knowledge” literature. With a critically sober eye the author delves below the surface of changes and reconfigurations, finding that the functional differentiation and task-specification persists.
"In the final chapter the interrogation elegantly homes in on a significant epistemological issue. We see the articulation of an essential tension as Miettinen elucidates epistemic reality catching vs. rhetorical future-shaping functions of key policy terms and their mutual interdependence as basic ingredients in the current dynamics of science and technology policy discourse. Too much of the first leads to bloodless rationalism, too much of the second to impotent voluntarism."
Professor Charles Bazerman, University of California, Santa Barbara
"Words make us make sense of a complex world, but in helping us words also direct us towards action and towards fulfilling the self-fulfilling prophecies of our terms. In this way a word with only an intuition of a possible fuzzy meaning can capture imaginations and motivate transformative and interpretative work that help remake the world if it captures the attention and imagination of powerful actors. Miettinen studies the force of such words within the making of technological and economic policy by examining the life history, consequences, substance and significance of the policy by the policy term “National innovation system,” particularly as the term has been used in Finnish economic policy.
"His book reveals the ways in which words that may seem hopelessly vague can have large defining and transformative effects on social systems, and in the process come to have more specific and concrete meanings in the reality the words had helped to create. Miettinen shows that while these policy terms may eventually fade, as they no longer serve to orient
attention and energy to projects people put their hope and faith in, they have left their mark to the world they have helped made. Miettinen has helped us understand on of the important but complex and subtle ways language does important work of creating the built
symbolic environment which pervades the build material environment.”
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