Collaboration or Civil Society Movement? The Dilemma of Social Innovation and Its Implications to Empowerment

Abstract

Social innovation is a new iniative that comes from below to tackle social problems. This paper is a conceptual analysis on the dilemma on the development of social innovation. On the one hand, social innovation can be brought into civil society movement trajectory, as the counter-hegemonic towards the existing structure and institutions that cause social problems. On the other hand, social innovation can be developed as collaboration process with the government and private enterprises. Through collaboration, innovation can be scaled out, but facing the risk of becoming mainstream that it fails to result in institutional change. Both directoions may bring different implications to empowerment.