Abstract
Given that many factors bar the way to the democratic and social ambitions of mainstream co-production being achieved essentially through evolution, it makes sense to frame the concern with more co-productive services as a matter of social innovation. This contribution presents firstly some key findings from social innovation research in the field of public services, showing, by which recurring innovative features ‘co-productive’ service designs make a difference. Secondly, framing co-production as a process, the paper explores how better interactions might be achieved between social innovations and politics, within a governance context that gives more attention to local levels, cities and municipalities. This implies going beyond pilot programmes, which merely put to the test what remains centrally designed and decided—towards a kind of democratic experimentalism.
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Evers, A., Ewert, B. (2021). Understanding Co-production as a Social Innovation. In: Loeffler, E., Bovaird, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Co-Production of Public Services and Outcomes. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53705-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-53705-0_7
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