Renegotiation and Maintenance, Conceptualizing interactions of a public sector innovation lab from a governance perspective

To enable more flexible and responsive public procedures and services, foster innovation, and potentially develop new ways of governing, governments around the world are introducing public sector innovation (PSI) labs. Due to their use of methods influenced by design, PSI labs represent one of the most distinctive ways in which design enters the public sector. Through a case study of a PSI lab in Uruguay, this paper highlights particular challenges that PSI labs face in the public sector related to governance. This is achieved by understanding interactions as manifestations of governance. To capture nuances in the lab’s interactions with various actors, the paper introduces the concepts of renegotiation and maintenance. Through these conceptual lenses, the paper makes evident how PSI labs juggle between hierarchical and horizontal interactions, face a need to manage very different ideals and expectations, and how they could, by influencing civil servants and other actors’ perspectives on public innovation, challenge the idea of politics and the political and thus contribute to shape varied perspectives of governance.