Skip to main content

Cultivating ‘Nudge’: Behavioural Governance in the UK

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy ((SKP))

Abstract

Nine people of different age gather around a table. They witness the very moment when the experimenter closes a valve connected to a glass vessel. In a few seconds, the air will be withdrawn. The resulting vacuum is evidenced by a white cockatoo fighting for its life. The boy in the background, however, already opens a cage, thereby giving us a hint on the further course of the experiment: The experimenter will open the valve again, bringing the expensive bird back to life (Figure 5.1).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2010) Applying Behavioural Insight to Health (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2011) Behaviour Change and Energy Use (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2012a) Applying Behavioural Insights to Reduce Fraud, Error and Debt (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2012b) Test, Learn, Adapt. Developing Public Policy with Randomised Controlled Trials (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2013a) Applying Behavioural Insights to Charitable Giving (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2013b) Applying Behavioural Insights to Organ Donation (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2014) EAST. Four Simple Ways to Apply Behavioural Insights (London: The Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team (BIT) (2015) Evaluating Youth Social Action (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team).

    Google Scholar 

  • Behavioural Insights Team and Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIT and BIS) (2011) Better Choices: Better Deals. Consumers Powering Growth (London: Cabinet Office Behavioural Insights Team and The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills).

    Google Scholar 

  • Berger, P. and Luckmann, T. (1967) The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Anchor Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Brown, M. B. (2009) ‘Federal Advisory Committees in the United States: A Survey of the Political and Administrative Landscape’, in Weingart, P. and Lentsch, J. (eds.) Scientific Advice to Policy Making: International Comparison (Opladen: Barbara Budrich), 17–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bulley, D. and Sokhi-Bulley, B. (2014) ‘Big Society as Big Government: Cameron’s Governmentality Agenda’, The British Journal of Politics & International Relations, 16(3), 452–470.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabinet Office (2012) The Civil Service Reform Plan (London: Cabinet Office).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabinet Office and Institute for Government (2010) MINDSPACE: Influencing Behaviour Through Public Policy (London: Cabinet Office and Institute for Government).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cabinet Office Strategy Unit (2004) Personal Responsibility and Changing Behaviour: The State of Knowledge and Its Implications for Public Policy (London: Cabinet Office Strategy Unit).

    Google Scholar 

  • Cameron, D. (2008) Party Conference Speech, 1 October, date accessed: 23.09.2014, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/01/davidcameron.toryconference1

  • Cameron, D. (2009a) Party Conference Speech, 8 October, date accessed: 23.09.2014, available at: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/oct/08/david-cameron-speech-in-full

  • Cameron, D. (2009b) The Big Society. Hugo Young Lecture, 10 November 2010, date accessed: 23.09.2014, available at: http://www.respublica.org.uk/item/ResPublica-mentioned-in-Camerons-speech-ggtc

  • Cameron, D. and Clegg, N. (2010), The Coalition: Our Programme for Government, available at: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100919110641/http:/programmeforgovernment.hmg.gov.uk/files/2010/05/coalition-programme.pdf, date accessed: 23.09.2014.

  • Center for Social Justice (2006) Breakdown Britain: Interim Report on the State of the Nation (London: Centre for Social Justice).

    Google Scholar 

  • Conservative Party (2010) The Conservative Manifesto 2010: Invitation to Join the Government of Britain (London: Conservative Party).

    Google Scholar 

  • Corbett, S. and Walker, A. (2013) ‘The Big Society: Rediscovery of ‘the Social’ or Rhetorical Fig-leaf for Neo-liberalism?’, Critical Social Policy, 33(3), 451–472.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davies, W. (2015) The Happiness Industry: How the Government and Big Business Sold us Well-Being (London/New York: Verso) (forthcoming).

    Google Scholar 

  • Deacon, A. (2003) ‘“Levelling the Playing Field, Activating the Players”: New Labour and the Cycle of Disadvantage’, Policy & Politics, 31(2), 123–137.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (2008) A Framework for Pro-environmental Behaviours (London: Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

    Google Scholar 

  • Doubleday, R. and Wilsdon, J. (eds.) (2013) Future Directions for Scientific Advice in Whitehall (Cambridge/Sussex: University of Cambridge/University of Sussex).

    Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, K. C. (2011) Is a Little Pollution Good for You? Incorporating Societal Values in Environmental Research (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ellison, N. (2011) ‘The Conservative Party and the “Big Society”’, Social Policy Review, 23, 45–62.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ezrahi, Y. (2012) Imagined Democracies: Necessary Political Fictions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Galison, P. (1997) Image and Logic. A Material Culture of Microphysics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Giddens, A. (2002) Where Now for New Labour? (Cambridge/London: Polity Press/Fabian Society).

    Google Scholar 

  • Guston, D. (2000) Between Politics and Science. Assessing the Integrity and Productivity of Research (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hilgartner, S. (2000) Science on Stage: Expert Advice as Public Drama (Stanford: Stanford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hilgartner, S., Miller, C., and Hagendijk, R. (eds.) (2015) Science and Democracy: Making Knowledge and Making Power in the Biosciences and Beyond (Genetics and Society) (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (1990) The Fifth Branch: Science Advisers as Policymakers (Cambridge/London: Harvard University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (2005a) Designs on Nature: Science and Democracy in Europe and the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (2005b) ‘Judgement under Siege: The Three-Body Problem of Expert Legitimacy’, in Maasen, S. and Weingart, P. (eds.) Democratization of Expertise? Exploring Novel Forms of Scientific Advice in Political Decision-Making (Berlin/Heidelberg/New York: Springer Verlag), 209–224.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (2011a) ‘Quality Control and Peer Review in Advisory Science’, in Lentsch, J. and Weingart, P. (eds.) The Politics of Scientific Advice. Institutional Design for Quality Assurance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 19–35.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. (2011b) ‘The Practices of Objectivity in Regulatory Science’, in Camic, C., Gross, N., and Lamont, M. (eds.) Social Knowledge in the Making (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 307–337.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. and Kim, S.-H (2009) ‘Containing the Atom: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and Nuclear Power in the United States and South Korea’, Minerva, 47(2), 119–146.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jasanoff, S. and Kim, S.-H (2015) ‘Future Imperfect: Science, Technology, and the Imaginations of Modernity’, in Jasanoff, S. and Kim, S. H. (eds.) Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical Imaginaries and the Fabrication of Power (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), 1–33.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R., Pykett, J., and Whitehead, M. (2010) ‘Big Society’s Little Nudges: The Changing Politics of Health Care in an Age of Austerity’, Political Insight, 1(3), 85–87.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, R., Pykett, J., and Whitehead, M. (2013) Changing Behaviours. On the Rise of the Psychological State (Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Jung, A., Korinek, R. L., and Straßheim, H. (2014) ‘Embedded Expertise: A Conceptual Framework for Reconstructing Knowledge Orders, Their Transformation and Local Specificities’, Innovation: The European Journal of Social Sciences, 27(4), 398–419.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. and Tversky, A. (1982 [1974]) ‘Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases’, in Kahneman, D., Slovic, P., and Tversky, A. (eds.) Judgement under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases (Cambridge/New York/Sidney: Cambridge University Press), 3–20.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Korinek, R. L. (2014) ‘The Construction of Politico-Epistemic Authority. Comparing Food Safety Agencies in Germany and in Britain’, Paper presented at the ECPR General Conference 2014 in Glasgow.

    Google Scholar 

  • Luhmann, N. (1995) Social Systems (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lunn, P. L. (2014) Regulatory Policy and Behavioural Economics (Paris: OECD).

    Google Scholar 

  • Miller, P. and Rose, R. (1994) ‘On Therapeutic Authority: Psychoanalytical Expertise under Advanced Liberalism’, History of Human Science, 7(3), 29–64.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, M. S. (2011) ‘Travelling Facts’, in Howlett, P. and Morgan, M. S. (eds.) How Well Do Facts Travel? The Dissemination of Reliable Knowledge (Cambridge/New York/Melbourne: Cambridge University Press), 3–39.

    Google Scholar 

  • Norman, J. (2010) The Big Society: The Anatomy of the New Politics (Buckingham: University of Buckingham Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Donnell, C., Deaton, A., Durand, M., Halpern, D., and Layard, R. (2014) Wellbeing and Policy (London: Legatum Institute).

    Google Scholar 

  • Scott, W. R. (1995) Institutions and Organizations (London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shapin, S. and Schaffer, S. (1985) Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Hobbes, Boyle, and the Experimental Life (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon, H. (1957) Models of Man: Social and Rational-Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting (New York: Wiley).

    Google Scholar 

  • Social Science Research Committee (2012) Introducing Behavioural Economics and Potential Applications for the FSA (SSRC 12/2/2) (London: Food Standards Agency Social Science Research Committee).

    Google Scholar 

  • Star, S. L. and Griesemer, J. R. (1989) ‘Institutional Ecology “Translations” and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeley’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology 1907–39’, Social Studies of Science, 19(3), 387–420.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Straßheim, H. (2015) ‘Politics and policy expertise: towards a political epistemology’, in Fischer, F., Torgerson, D., Orsini, M., and Durnova, A. (eds.) Handbook of Critical Policy Studies (Cheltenham/Northampton: Edward Elgar) (in print).

    Google Scholar 

  • Straßheim, H., Jung, A., and Korinek, R. L. (2015) ‘Reframing Expertise: The Rise of Behavioural Insights and Interventions in Public Policy’, in Berthoin Antal, A., Hutter, M., and Stark, D. (eds.) Moments of Valuation. Exploring Sites of Dissonance (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 249–268.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Straßheim, H. and Korinek, R. L. (2015) ‘Behavioural Governance in Europe’, in Doubleday, R. and Wilsdon, J. (eds.) Future Directions for Scientific Advice in Europe (London: University of Cambridge/University of Sussex), 155–162.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunstein, C. R. (2013) Simpler. The Future of Government (New York: Simon and Schuster).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sunstein, C. R. (2014) Valuing Life. Humanizing the Regulatory State (Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Sunstein, C. R. and Thaler, R. H. (2003) ‘Liberal Paternalism is not an Oxymoron’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 70, 1159–1202.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R. (2008) Nudge. Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness (London: Penguin Books).

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Bavel, R. H., Esposito, G., and Proestakis, A. (2013) Applying Behavioural Sciences to EU Policy-making (JRC Scientific and Policy Reports) (Brussels: European Commission).

    Google Scholar 

  • Williams, B. (2011) ‘The Big Society: Post-Bureaucratic Social Policy in the Twenty-First Century?’, The Political Quarterly, 82(s1), 120–132.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zahariadis, N. (2015) ‘Plato’s Receptacle: Deadlines, Ambiguity, and Temporal Sorting in Public Policy’, in Straßheim, H. and Ulbricht, T. (eds.) Die Zeit der Politik. Demokratisches Regieren in einer beschleunigten Welt, Leviathan Special Issue No. 30 (Baden-Baden: Nomos), 113–131.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Copyright information

© 2016 Holger Strassheim and Rebecca-Lea Korinek

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Strassheim, H., Korinek, RL. (2016). Cultivating ‘Nudge’: Behavioural Governance in the UK. In: Voß, JP., Freeman, R. (eds) Knowing Governance. Palgrave Studies in Science, Knowledge and Policy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514509_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137514509_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-56476-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-51450-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics