ABSTRACT
While the U.S. government has played a strong role in stimulating technological innovation since World War II (Hooks 1990; Mowery and Rosenberg 1993; Hounshell 1996; Bingham 1998), its developmental apparatus has been significantly expanded over the past three decades. The result is a decentralized structure of agencies, networks, and cooperative mechanisms that support technological innovation and the transfer of technologies from government research facilities to commercial markets-and vice versa. Although much of the government’s role as a developmental state has remained hidden behind market fundamentalist political rhetoric, the lines dividing the “private” and “public” roles in innovation dynamics have become increasingly blurred as networks of technical specialists have become ever more critical to technological innovation (Hargadon 2003; Lester and Piore 2004; Block and Keller, Chapter 8).
