Navigating public sector innovation under populist contexts: insights from Israel

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.