Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-mnklg Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-13T01:22:41.485Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

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.

Information

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

Footnotes

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

2 See also Selinger, Evan and Whyte, Kyle Powys, “Competence and Trust in Choice Architecture”, 23 Knowledge, Technology & Policy (2010), pp. 461–482.; 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 ; 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 .

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 .

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

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

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. 192–93.

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 .

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.