The Glamour and Grammar of Innovation

Notes on the Spectacular Reimagination of Municipal Care in Norway

The expert report Innovation in the Care Services (NOU 2011: 11) promotes “innovation” as a radical new idea and solution to public care in Norway. We critically analyze three dimensions of this idea in policy and argue that it represents a “spectacular reimagination” where the glamour of future technological and market-driven solutions to “old issues” of taking care of long-term needs is obtained by translating the social problematic of care into a grammar of liberal economic theory. Key words: innovation, care, social policy, problematization, experts, predictative politics. https://doi.org/10.18261/9788215057880-24-08