Navigating Public Sector Innovation Under Populist Contexts: Insights from Israel
以以色列为案例，通过焦点小组和访谈研究民粹主义如何影响公共部门创新，发现高层官员面临直接干预，中层管理者遭遇间接压力，但创新可通过非正式网络等策略持续，尽管存在隐性交易成本。
How does populism affect public sector innovation, and can innovation persist despite populist context? Using Israel as a case study, we examine this relationship through a two-stage mixed-methods approach: focus groups with former senior officials followed by interviews with mid-level managers who successfully implemented innovative initiatives. We find that contemporary populism manifests differently across hierarchical levels – senior officials experience direct interference through centralization, delegitimization of expertise, and politicization; while mid-level managers encounter operational constraints under indirect populist pressures. Nevertheless, innovation can persist through sophisticated adaptive strategies: building informal networks, creating protected spaces and leveraging existing frameworks to avoid political scrutiny. Our findings contribute by revealing both the differential impact of populism on innovation barriers across bureaucratic levels and identifying specific work around strategies that enable innovation to flourish despite these constraints, though with hidden transactional costs.