Technological innovation, global justice and politics of development

Abstract

The importance of innovation in human development is undeniable. Since the 1780s, successive scientific and technological revolutions have introduced new products and services with tremendous impact on well-being and general welfare. Yet innovation has not been available to all individuals and their societies. There are still countries in the developing world which lack proper access to fundamental innovations such as medicines, electricity, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and so on. Unequal generation and diffusion of innovation constitutes a major problem of global justice. However, neither innovation theory nor the theory of global justice provides solutions. On the one hand, innovation theory has so far refused to engage with questions of fairness and justice in the generation and diffusion of new technologies. On the other hand, emerging approaches to global justice have been almost indifferent to the prominence of new technologies in the fight against poverty and inequality. The aim of this article is to bridge the gulf between the literatures of technological innovation and global justice. It will be argued that technological innovation can satisfy minimum requirements of global justice only through successful public action and campaigning against unjust innovation diffusion. This implies that politics of development should support redistributive systems and global social movements against current Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) regimes, providing alternative incentives for successful generation and application of new knowledge.

Crafting Sustainable Development Solutions: Frugal Innovations of Grassroots Entrepreneurs

“…According to this view, rather than tapping into underserved consumers, grassroots innovators aspire to address problems that are essentially and primarily social [60] providing appropriate [43], socially acceptable [5] and environmentally sustainable [66] solutions. According to Gupta [67] and Fressoli et al [68], including grassroots entrepreneurship and innovation within the range of public policy would not only lead to the delivery of affordable products/services but also to the strengthening of the activity of actors such as Civil Society Organizations (CSO) [69] and NGOs [70], empower local communities [71][72][73][74][75] fill institutional voids [76,77] and promote more inclusive patterns of development [78,79].…”

Framing resource-constrained innovation at the ‘bottom of the pyramid’: Insights from an ethnographic case study in rural Bangladesh

“…Thus, it is not surprising that such innovation is empathetic (Gupta, 2010) or pursues objectives other than consumption, profitability or ever increasing incomes (Ansari et al, 2012). Grassroots narratives acknowledge technology and innovation are neither socially or politically neutral (Winner, 1980) nor sufficient to overcome the problems of poverty, social exclusion (Burnett, Senker, & Walker, 2010) and global justice (Papaioannou, 2011). These are also reflected in concepts such as 'inclusive innovation' (Altenburg, 2009;Nijhof, Fisscher, & Looise, 2002;George et al, 2012) which advocates for a more equal and fair distribution of the economic benefits of innovation and economic growth, evoking concepts of social justice and equity.…”

How inclusive can innovation and development be in the twenty-first century?

“…According to these principles '… social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are both (a) reasonably expected to be to everyone's advantage and (b) attached to positions and offices open to all' (Rawls 1972, 60). 3 Although, as is well known (Papaioannou 2011;Papaioannou, Yanacopulos, and Aksoy 2009), in his The Laws of Peoples, Rawls (1999) strongly rejects the monism between the global and the domestic, Pogge (2005) insists that a global theory of justice can only be Rawlsian in its principles. Thus he proposes a global social structure guided by the difference principle and the equal right to basic liberty that can include institutions such as a Health Impact Fund (HIF), which would provide innovators with stable and financial incentives to address the needs of the poor.…”

“…In a series of papers (Papaioannou 2011(Papaioannou , 2013, I have defined such a framework as public action and campaigning for satisfying basic human needs in an equitable and participatory way. According to Reader (2006, 337) The "basic needs approach" (henceforth BNA) is an approach to social justice that gives priority to meeting people's basic needs -to ensuring that there are sufficient, appropriately distributed basic needs (BN) goods and services to sustain all human lives at minimally decent level.…”