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Nudging Cannot Solve Complex Policy Problems

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Evan Selinger  and
Kyle Powys Whyte
Evan Selinger
Affiliation:
Rochester Institute of Technology
Kyle Powys Whyte
Affiliation:
Michigan State University
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Abstract

We deepen Adam Burgess’ insight that under current conditions nudging cannot solve complex policy problems reliably and without controversy. We do so by integrating his concerns about nudging into Braden Allenby and Daniel Sarewitz's three-leveled model of the basic problems technology can address and generate. We use this model to explain why the UK experiment with nudging has revolved around techno-fixes with limited policy potential, and conclude that nudging is best seen as an emerging form of soft law.

Type
Symposium on Nudge
Information
European Journal of Risk Regulation , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , March 2012 , pp. 26 - 31
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

1 Burgess, Adam, “‘Nudging’ Healthy Lifestyles: The UK Experiments with the Behavioral Alternative to Regulation and the Market”, 3 EJRR (2012), this issueGoogle Scholar.

2 See also Selinger, Evan and Whyte, Kyle Powys, “Competence and Trust in Choice Architecture”, 23 Knowledge, Technology & Policy (2010), pp. 461–482.CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whyte, Kyle Powys, Selinger, Evan, Capan, Arthur et al., “Nudge, Nudge or Shove, Shove-The Right Way for Nudges to Increase the Supply of Donated Cadavor Organs”, 12 American Journal of Bioethics (2012), pp. 32–39 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed; Selinger, Evan and Whyte, Kyle, “Is There a Right Way to Nudge? The Practice and Ethics of Choice Architecture”, 5 Sociology Compass (2011), pp. 923–935 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Desai, Anuj C., “Libertarian Paternalism, Externalities, and the ‘Spirit of Liberty’: How Thaler and Sunstein Are Nudging Us toward an ‘Overlapping Consensus’”, 36 Law & Social Inquiry (2011), pp. 263–295 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Bovens, Luc, “The Ethics of Nudge”, in Yanoff, Till and Hansson, Sven Ove (eds.), Preference Change, (New York: Springer, 2009)Google Scholar.

5 Allenby, Braden and Sarewitz, Daniel, The Techno-Human Condition (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011)Google Scholar.

6 Ibid., p. 107.

7 Ibid., p. 52.

8 Ibid.

9 Ibid., pp. 51–52.

10 Ibid., p. 52.

11 Ibid., p. 38.

12 Ibid.

13 Ibid., p. 48.

14 Ibid., p. 48–49.

15 Ibid., p. 50.

16 Ibid., p. 49.

17 Ibid., p. 184.

18 BIT, “Behavioral Insights Team Annual Report”, Cabinet Office (2010-2011).

19 Thaler, Richard and Sunstein, Cass, Nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 192–93Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., p. 192.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid., p. 192–93.

23 Hausman, Daniel M. and Welch, Brynn, “Debate: To nudge or not to nudge”, 18 Journal of Political Philosophy (2010), pp. 123–136 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24 Ibid., p. 124.

25 Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge, supra note 19, at p. 193.

26 Ibid.

27 BIT, Behavioral Insights Team Annual Report, supra note 18

28 Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge, supra note 19, at p. 178.

29 Whyte, Selinger, Capan et al., “Nudge, Nudge or Shove, Shove”, supra note 2.

30 Thaler and Sunstein, Nudge, supra note 19, at pp. 38–39.

31 Jon Hilkevitch, “Lake Shore Curve to Get More Alerts,” Chicago Tribune, 24 July 2006.