key messages This original research finds the relationship between EBPM and nudge is interwoven with each providing fertile ground for the other. Evidence produced by nudge is seen as ‘incontestable’ because of the focus on the ‘gold standard’ of EBPM. Nudge is shaping and reinforcing perceptions of what is legitimate evidence. The popularity of Nudge may be increasing this perception in the public service. Introduction Government administrations around the world are increasingly adopting a new policy tool, known commonly as ‘nudge’. Nudge
3 Policy & Politics • vol 42 • no 1 • 3–19 • © Policy Press 2014 • #PPjnl @policy_politics Print ISSN 0305 5736 • Online ISSN 1470 8442 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/030557312X655576 article The politics of behaviour change: nudge, neoliberalism and the state Will Leggett, School of Government and Society, University of Birmingham, UK w.p.leggett@bham.ac.uk Behaviour change is increasingly central to policy and politics. The exemplar of nudge, and its relationship to behavioural economics and psychology, is outlined. Nudge’s claim to libertarian
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
265© The Policy Press • 2012 • ISSN 2040 8056 po lic y Key words civic behaviour • nudge • Big Society • voluntary sector Voluntary Sector Review • vol 3 • no 2 • 2012 • 265–74 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204080512X649405 Can nudging create the Big Society? Experiments in civic behaviour and implications for the voluntary and public sectors Sarah Cotterill, Alice Moseley and Liz Richardson One of the mechanisms through which the United Kingdom government is seeking to achieve its Big Society agenda is through nudge-style interventions. This article summarises
Introduction In focusing attention on the mechanics of behaviour change, nudge makes an important contribution to policy studies. Based on the presumption that decision-making is ‘intuitive and automatic’, Thaler and Sunstein (2008: 6) explain how small changes in the ‘choice architecture’ presented by the environment can prompt people to make better decisions, both for themselves and for society at large. By offering light-touch and low-cost policy interventions, nudge is in tune with times characterised by austerity and a suspicion of big government
information can be incentivised and, thus, lead to more effective implementation decisions. It relies on a field experiment testing the impact of a ‘thought provoking’ nudge ( John, 2018 : 129) that focuses SLBs on beneficiaries’ life-course and vulnerability with the aim of improving the effectiveness of SLBs’ decisions. Empirically, it studies the allocation of disability benefits in Switzerland. It addresses the following research question: ‘Does a life-course mindset lead SLBs to look at recipients as human beings rather than paper files and, thus, to make more
their work: behavioural economics, the use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) and nudges. The BIT UK leans heavily on the same research as that used in the psychology research underlying behavioural economics ( Halpern, 2015 ; Thaler 2016 ; Congdon and Shankar, 2018 ). In the 1970s and 1980s, psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky had catalogued many systematic errors and predispositions in human judgement and decision-making, often in contrast to what was expected in standard economic models. These typical biases in decision-making included loss
criticism against behavioural policy interventions as it can lead scholars and practitioners to neglect the social and political conditions and implications of individual actions ( Brown, 2012 ; Leggett, 2014 ; Ewert, 2020 ). For example, ‘nudges’ ( Thaler and Sunstein, 2009 ), defined as small-scale changes in public choice architectures to achieve individual behaviour change, arguably have a limited capacity to cause lasting behavioural change because they often are not adequately situated in and linked to people’s social contexts and identities, for example
167 European Journal of Politics and Gender • vol 1 • no 1–2 • 167–83 © European Conference on Politics and Gender and Bristol University Press 2018 Print ISSN 2515 1088 • Online ISSN 2515 1096 https://doi.org/10.1332/251510818X15272520831229 RESEARCH Nudges for gender equality? What can behaviour change offer gender and politics? Georgina Waylen, georgina.waylen@manchester.ac.uk University of Manchester, UK This article explores what behaviour change, with its associated methods, approaches and policy prescriptions, can offer gender and politics. After
Governments have developed a convenient habit of blaming social problems on their citizens, placing too much emphasis on personal responsibility and pursuing policies to ‘nudge’ their citizens to better behaviour.
Keith Dowding shows that, in fact, responsibility for many of our biggest social crises – including homelessness, gun crime, obesity, drug addiction and problem gambling – should be laid at the feet of politicians.
He calls for us to stop scapegoating fellow citizens and to demand more from our governments, who have the real power and responsibility to alleviate social problems and bring about lasting change.
