The Ambivalent Relations Between Bureaucracy and Public Innovation: The Case of the Successful Failure of Dial Police

Building on a growing body of literature on public innovation and the rediscovery of bureaucracy, this article explores the relations between innovation and bureaucracy. A framework for studying innovation in a bureaucratic context is developed and its relevance assessed through a case study of the successful implementation but failed diffusion of an innovation project. The case study demonstrates how a bureaucratic context represents not only barriers to innovation but also a number of complex drivers. The outline of these ambivalent relations is used to tease out the Janus face of the new spirit of innovation in public administration.