Introduction A growing interest among policymakers and researchers in the application of behavioural insight to public policy has led to the development of a wide range of behavioural public policy interventions, designed to improve the health of populations by changing behaviour of individuals, groups, communities and/or populations, implemented at policy level and delivered via legal, fiscal, educational, regulatory, environmental or interpersonal methods. Such interventions draw on diverse fields including psychology, social science and behavioural
Introduction Behavioural public policy (BPP) has been suggested as a new policy paradigm to utilise behavioural insights, that is, evidence-based expertise on human behaviour, 1 for policymaking. So far, behavioural policies are predominantly based on insights from behavioural economics and psychology in order to ‘nudge’ people to act in line with predefined aims and to overcome the dilemma of behaviour that contradicts economic rationality and is in conflict with desired policy ends. However, behavioural insights are ‘embedded in several historical
Key messages Expert-led behaviour change can be paternalistic; participatory alternatives have been small-scale and costly. Nudge plus is trans-disciplinary; citizen reflection and technical expertise shape behavioural public policies. Design principles complement nudge plus through multiple forms of expertise, and iterative learning-by-doing. Greater crossover is possible than exists between behaviour change and design labs in designing behavioural policy. Introduction Governments around the world have been successful in designing and introducing
209 Policy & Politics • vol 47 • no 2 • 209–25 • © Policy Press 2019 Print ISSN 0305 5736 • Online ISSN 1470 8442 • https://doi.org/10.1332/030557319X15526371698257 Accepted for publication 30 January 2019 • First published online 21 March 2019 article Rethinking the role of experts and expertise in behavioural public policy Peter John, peter.john@kcl.ac.uk King’s College London, UK Gerry Stoker, Gerry.Stoker@canberra.edu.au University of Canberra, Australia and University of Southampton, UK Nudge and behavioural public policy tools have won support from
Introduction Under the headings of ‘Behavioural Public Policy’ (BPP) and ‘Behavioural Public Administration’ (BPA), insights about psychological micro-mechanisms increasingly inform the study, design, and implementation of public policy. While BPP generally refers to interventions that are ‘directly inspired by, and designed on, the principles of behavioral research’ ( Galizzi, 2014 : 27), BPA is defined as the ‘analysis of public administration from the micro-level perspective of individual behavior’ ( Grimmelikhuijsen et al, 2017 : 45). Behavioural
Introduction Since 2010, behavioural public policy has spread inter- and transnationally. In more than 100 countries, expert units focusing on nudging and other behaviourally informed tools are translating insights from behavioural sciences into policy interventions. Existing interpretations of the behavioural movement and its impact on public policy vary considerably ( John, 2013 ; Whitehead et al, 2014 ; John and Stoker, 2019 ; Straßheim and Beck, 2019 ). To move beyond very general explanations, this article focuses on two specific approaches to
. Easton , S. ( 2016 ) Experimental trials: a BETA way of making policy , The Mandarin , 28 November , www.themandarin.com.au/73022-experimental-trials-a-beta-way-of-making-policy Einfeld , C. ( 2019 ) Nudge and evidence based policy: fertile ground , Evidence & Policy , 15 ( 4 ): 509 – 24 . Ewert , B. , Loer , K. and Thomann , E. ( 2020 ) Beyond nudge: advancing the state-of-the-art of behavioural public policy and administration , Policy & Politics , this issue . Feitsma , J. ( 2019 ) Brokering behaviour change: the work of behavioural
effective implementation decisions?’ This research design is innovative, and thus risky, for three reasons. First, it measures the behaviour of SLBs as policy implementers, rather than citizens’ behaviour, as is done in most studies applying a behavioural public policy (BPP) approach ( Grimmelikhuijsen et al, 2017 : 53; Bellé et al, 2018 : 829; Battaglio et al, 2019 : 305; Kasdan, 2018 :13). Investigating the bounded rationality and cognitive biases of SLBs is important since one cannot directly attribute findings about citizens’ thinking and behaviour to the
Social policy and human geography are intimately intertwined yet frequently disconnected fields. Whilst social policies are always conceived, implemented and experienced in and through geography, the role of place in social policy scholarship and practice is frequently overlooked. Bringing together experts from both fields, this collection illuminates the myriad of ways that human geography offers rich insights conceptually, empirically and methodologically into the neglected spatialities of policy scholarship, practice and experience.
By building the necessary bridges towards a spatial social policy, this book enables the enhanced design, performance and understanding of social policies once properly rooted in their multiple spatialities.
