新作坊 Humanity Innovation and Social Practice

Potentialities and constraints in the relation between social innovation and public policies: some lessons from South America. (社會創新與公共政策關係的潛力和局限性：南美的經驗)

摘要：

Social innovation (SI) can offer alternative forms of organization and novel solutions to complex problems faced by contemporary societies. As governments face increasing pressures from mounting societal challenges, it is assumed that SI can provide bottom-up solutions in ways that can create transformative change. However, the dialectic relation between bottom-up initiatives and government can be difficult and sometimes contradictory. Even more, assumptions about the diminishing powers of government can be misleading and overstress the role of SI. Based on the study of the recent South American experience, we have departed from this assumption, seeking to understand what the role of public policies as initiators or supporters of SI could be. We analyzed two top-down initiatives promoted by public policies that ultimately fostered SI in Argentina, the subsistence agriculture “Pro-Huerta” program and the policies of the National Technology and Social Innovation Program, and one complementary case study of a bottom-up SI experience in Brazil, the One Million Cisterns Program, which was later inserted into public policies. Together, these cases have allowed us to understand the potentialities and limitations of SI and the kind of dialectic relations they established with public policies. In particular, we have considered how public policies can foster and support SI.

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社會創新能為當代社會面臨的複雜問題，提供替代的組織形式和新穎的解決方案。政府面臨日益嚴峻的社會挑戰所帶來越來越大的壓力，使人們認為社會創新藉由下而上的解決方案，能帶來變革性的解決方案。然而，由下而上的倡議與政府之間的對話十分困難，有時甚至是彼此矛盾衝突的。尤有甚者，關於削弱政府權力的假設，可能會過分誇大了社會創新的功能。基於最近在南美的研究，我們放棄此一假設，試圖了解公共政策作為社會創新發起者與支持者所扮演的角色。我們分析了兩個由政策推動自上而下的措施，這些措施最終在阿根廷促進了社會創新的發展；自給自足的農業“ Pro-Huerta”計劃，以及「國家技術與社會創新計劃」的政策。此外，本研究補充一個自下而上的社會創新的研究案例：巴西的「百萬水箱計劃」，後來被納入公共政策中。總括來說，這些案例使我們了解了社會創新的潛力和局限，以及它們與公共政策共構的對話關係。特別是公共政策如何促進和支持社會創新。