The process of paradigm change: the rise of guided innovation in China

This article offers a new framework for understanding the beliefs behind science, technology and innovation (STI) policy. Building on recent research that has identified several distinct ‘policy paradigms’ in STI policy, it explains how these paradigms may be understood as hierarchical belief systems, and it identifies different variants within each paradigm. The article then illuminates one means through which countries may transition from one paradigm to another in this domain, focusing on the international diffusion of the ‘innovation systems policy’ paradigm after the 1980s. The article emphasizes how local ideology regarding state intervention in the economy shapes how the new paradigm is localized in the receiving state. To probe the plausibility of this theory, the article presents an in-depth case study focused on China’s reception and localization of the innovation systems policy paradigm in recent decades.