ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces an approach: a cultural political economy of research and innovation that explores the co-production of R&I and socio-political regimes in terms of dynamic emergent systems of power/knowledge relations and technologies. This complex power/knowledge systems (CP/KS) perspective draws together cultural political economy (CPE), political ecology, theories of socio-technical systems transition and Foucauldian analysis of government, regarding the 'conduct of conduct' of polities and selves, with a specific focus on issues of research and innovation. The approach reveals the aetiology of the present turbulence as the crisis of the incumbent dominant power/knowledge system, which is called 'neoliberalism'. Innovation is thus a key process in the 'normal' government of a neoliberal(izing) system always on the cusp of crisis but productively balanced as such. Two overwhelmingly important trends emergent from the crisis of neoliberalism, and now pushing beyond it, are the rise of China and the emergence of Web 2.0-based informationalization.
