Co-Evolutionary Policy Processes: Understanding Innovative Economies and Future Resilience

Abstract

The great debates of most fields associated with economic development rest on emergence versus intention and the interplay between the two. The 'residual' of unexplained divergence between goal and outcome, in this sense, can be ascribed in part to the interplay, or co-evolution, between policies (intention) and self-organizing (emergent) development. Do public policy and economic development co-evolve in technologically innovative economies, and if so, how? This paper discusses the basic premise that the gap between economic development strategies and their poor implementation cannot simply be removed by creating better-intended strategies, tools or institutions. The analysis uses evolutionary thinking for an analysis of economic development, and ends with some postulates for future study on innovative regions and the concept of resilience.