Territorial governance, social innovation, and co-production: signifiers or significant?

Social innovation and co-production are increasingly pervasive concepts in public policy. This chapter critically investigates the opportunities and limits of territorial governance based on these ‘open signifier’ concepts. In particular, it highlights three specific aspects of social innovation and co-production in territorial governance. The first aspect is how they are interpreted in different political-institutional contexts. The second dimension relates to concerns about how these concepts and associated practices are organised and who benefits from the new processes of shared governance. Finally, it argues that there is concern about how the power of social innovation and co-production can progressively reshape territorial governance and, specifically, the planning practice. The chapter concludes by suggesting future research avenues where the use of social innovation and co-production has been claimed to be different in both design and impact, and which require further investigation.