300450 Science and Policy in World Society: The Case of Nudging (MA: Politische Soziologie) (S) (WiSe 2019/2020)

Over the past decade behavioural public policy has spread inter- and transnationally. Behavioural public policies such as ‘nudging’ include all means and modes of public policy aiming at influencing individual or collective behaviour by using insights from behavioural economics, psychology or neurosciences. This entanglement of scientific and political claims, of analysing and governing behaviour is a common feature of all forms of behavioural public policy. The World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations have all documented their efforts to implement behavioural insights and interventions in a wide variety of policy areas. While the US, the UK and Singapore are among the forerunners, modes of behavioural public policy can nowadays be found in many countries across Western Europe, Central America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
The motives and mechanisms behind this worldwide spread of behavioural interventions have been interpreted in different ways. Some observers are sceptical and compare the diffusion of behavioural instruments to other fads and fashions of public sector reform. Some agree with the OECD in characterising the use of behavioural approaches as a paradigmatic change that is based on both the ‘behavioural revolution’ in economics and the capability of behavioural scientists to ‘translate’ their claims into public policies. Others criticize the behavioural movement as the latest expression of neoliberal governmentality.
This seminar focuses on the historical roots and developments of the behavioural change agenda in public policy, the modes and varieties of behavioural public policy across jurisdictions and policy areas, the causes for its inter- and transnational spread as well as its ethical and normative implications and its political consequences. It is based on the assumption that behavioural experts are successfully combining political and epistemic authority. Behavioural public policy is not simply a tool. In many ways, it raises pressing questions about how we imagine the future relations between science, policy and society in a globalized world.

Bibliography

Straßheim, Holger, and Silke Beck, eds. 2019. Handbook of Behavioural Change and Public Policy (Handbooks of Research on Public Policy, ed. by Frank Fischer). Cheltenham, UK/Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar.