ABSTRACT
This chapter studies the relationship of social innovation and space in Austria from a historical perspective, giving special emphasis to two emblematic moments in periods of crises of hegemony. It mobilizes empirical research to reflect on crucial questions concerning social innovation and re-conceptualizes social change dynamics and scalar arrangements. Transformations in socioeconomic development often go hand in hand with changes in time and space, as the construction of new institutions and regulations coincides with the production of space. Austria was a late-comer to industrialization, and civil society was always weak and grew in strong symbiosis with the state. As entrepreneurs who were independent from the state were rare, liberals recruited their followers more from the educated classes than from national entrepreneurs. The chapter analyses social innovation and the governance of scale in Austria in a historical perspective so as to be able to grasp the processes of their institutionalization and structuring.
