Behavioural governance in the policy process: introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Research adopting an interdisciplinary, behavioural perspective on Public Policy and Public Administration is booming. Yet there has been little integration into mainstream public policy scholarship. Behavioural public administration (BPA) and behavioural public policy (BPP) have emerged largely as two disconnected subfields. We propose the overarching term 'behavioural governance' to refer to the cognitive and decision processes through which decision-makers, implementing actors and target populations shape and react to public policies and to each other, as well as the impacts of these processes on individual and group behaviour. To allow an integrative perspective, this introductory essay discusses how a behavioural perspective can deepen understanding of different phases of the policy process. We connect insights from a long established public policy and administration scholarship which has not always been self-defined as 'behavioural' with more recent studies adopting a more explicitly behavioural perspective, including those in this Special Issue from varied national contexts.

Comprehensive Evaluation of the Behavioral Insights Group Rotterdam

“…Our findings illustrate, however, that implementation is not a given and was limited by the resources and willingness of proposers who often needed to bridge different units of a fragmented administration for successful implementation. This highlights the importance of the micro level of individual behavior for policy implementation and challenges top-down views of mechanistic policy implementation (Gofen et al, 2021). Moreover, it highlights that BITs can benefit from being assigned a broad mandate from the start that encourages proposers to "think big" and guarantees access to resources needed for implementation (e.g., dedicated innovation teams).…”

“…]” (Grimmelikhuijsen et al, 2017). In fact, advanced versions of behavioral insights widen the scope from behavior of the public to also include the behavior of administrators and interactions between both (Gofen et al, 2021).…”

Influence government: Exploring practices, ethics, and power in the use of targeted advertising by the UK state

“…There is now a well-developed research literature, including a number of Nobel prizes, on the potential and use of BPP in a government context (Baggio et al, 2021; Gofen et al, 2021; Lepenies and Malecka, 2018) - this itself is far from new. The literature focuses not only on the fundamentals of behavioural psychology, but also on analysis of the policy actors who undertake these interventions (Gofen et al, 2021). A whole range of behavioural levers have become well-established within government, not only at the level of policy, but also in formulation of law (Thaler and Sunstein, 2009).…”

The end of Nudge and the beginning of The Behavioral Code?

“…Although the potential value of a “behavioral turn” had long been discussed in the margins of regulatory scholarship (e.g., Ariely, 2008; Cialdini, 2009), it was Thaler and Sunstein's (2008) book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health , Wealth and Happiness that put the topic squarely on the agenda of scholars, policymakers, and regulators. While the book may have presented a one‐sided and too hopeful picture of the behavioral turn, it undeniably has helped to mainstream what are now the fields of behavioral economics (Frantz et al, 2017), behavioral public administration (Bhanot & Linos, 2020), behavioral public policy (Oliver, 2017), and behavioral governance (Gofen et al, 2021).…”

“…In short, Van Rooij and Fine's book aligns, at least implicitly, with an evolving and broadening understanding of what “behavior” means in the behavioral turn that we have witnessed over the last decades: “the cognitive and decision processes through which decision‐makers, implementing actors and target population both shape and react to public policies and to each other, as well as the impacts of these processes on individual and group behavior” (Gofen et al, 2021, 635). This makes The Behavioral Code a truly valuable addition to the growing literature in this area.…”