Policy Innovation as an Institutional Process: a Critical Synthesis on Local Policy Sustainability
Abstract
This article critically examines the relationship between local policy innovation and policy sustainability by conceptualizing innovation as an institutional process rather than a purely technical solution. Dominant public policy literature, particularly within the New Public Management paradigm, tends to equate innovation success with short-term performance gains. However, empirical studies reveal a recurring paradox: many technically effective local policy innovations fail to endure beyond their initial implementation phase. This study argues that such failure reflects weak institutionalization rather than implementation deficits or leadership turnover alone. Drawing on a critical–interpretive literature review of 41 studies through the lens of historical–political institutionalism, the article demonstrates that policy sustainability is best understood as institutional sustainability, defined by the extent to which innovations are embedded in regulatory frameworks, organizational routines, and relatively stable configurations of power. Based on this synthesis, the article develops a typology of local policy innovation according to varying degrees of institutionalization and advances theoretical propositions linking institutionalization, leadership dependence, and policy endurance. The study contributes to the development of public policy and public administration scholarship by shifting analytical attention from technical effectiveness to institutional sustainability, bridging the literature on policy innovation and institutionalism, and introducing institutional sustainability as an analytical framework for understanding policy endurance across time, leadership transitions, and political change
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