Communicative governance at work: how choice architects nudge citizens towards health, wealth and happiness in the information age

Esmark, Anders

doi:10.1080/14719037.2018.1473476

Cited by 30 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…This line of research speaks to cognitive biases in public administration decision making from a theoretical perspective only, with varying degrees of breadth and depth. The manuscripts in this category deal with the following topics: loss aversion (Bregn ) and halo (Clement ) in public personnel management; loss aversion in public policy (Jacobs and Weaver ; Knetsch ); negativity (Hood ); groupthink (Kelman, Sanders, and Pandit , ); nudging (Esmark ; Oliver ; Vlaev et al ); herd behavior in public policy (Maor ); multiple cognitive biases (Bazerman and Watkins 2007; Camerer and Kunreuther ; Etzioni ; Kramer ; Moulton et al ; Moynihan, Herd, and Harvey ; Preuss and Walker ; Thacher ; West and Bowman ); and bounded rationality and behavioral public administration in general (Grimmelikhuijsen et al ; James, Jilke, and Van Ryzin ; Jones and Baumgartner ; Moynihan ; Nørgaard ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Biases, and Nudging in Public Organizations

Battaglio¹,

Belardinelli

Bellé

et al. 2018

Public Administration Review

232

166

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This article provides a comprehensive overview of how policy makers, practitioners, and scholars can fruitfully use behavioral science to tackle public administration, management, and policy issues. The article systematically reviews 109 articles in the public administration discipline that are inspired by the behavioral sciences to identify emerging research trajectories, significant gaps, and promising applied research directions. In an attempt to systematize and take stock of the nascent behavioral public administration scholarship, the authors trace it back to the seminal works of three Nobel Laureates—Herbert Simon, Daniel Kahneman, and Richard Thaler—and their work on bounded rationality, cognitive biases, and nudging, respectively. The cognitive biases investigated by the studies reviewed fall into the categories of accessibility, loss aversion, and overconfidence/optimism. Nudging and choice architecture are discussed as viable strategies for leveraging these cognitive traps in an attempt to alter behavior for the better, among both citizens and public servants.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Biases, and Nudging in Public Organizations

Battaglio¹,

Belardinelli

Bellé

et al. 2018

Public Administration Review

232

166

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Descriptive norm draws inspiration from herd mentality by transmitting descriptive information about social norms to stimulate individual compliance. The function of social norms lies in its normative pressure on individuals to conform to group behaviors and social learning acceptable in the broader social context to maintain homogeneity (Esmark, 2019). Relevant research has shown that compared with slogan propaganda and persuasion, descriptive norm serves a better end for individual decision-making and behaviors (Allcott, 2011; Goldstein et al, 2008).…”

Section: The Moderating Role Of Nudgementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Due to its serious, educational, and even prohibitive nature, traditional public information was often considered intrusive. Infotainment is a smart communication alternative that integrates policy information and entertainment (Esmark, 2019). With the assistance of new media, digital governance, and big data, the government can increase the power of infotainment nudge (Halpern, 2015) to assure the better acknowledgment and acceptance of policies among the public.…”

Section: The Moderating Role Of Nudgementioning

confidence: 99%

Two-Way Risk Communication, Public Value Consensus, and Citizens’ Policy Compliance Willingness About COVID-19: Multilevel Analysis Based on a Nudge View

Bin

Bao

Liu

et al. 2021

Administration & Society

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COVID-19 has spawned a surge in the number of public epidemic prevention policies. More important than active policy-making is how to increase citizens’ policy compliance willingness. Based on public value theory and nudge theory, this study adopts multilevel mediation and moderation model to analyze the relationships among the government’s authoritarian control, two-way risk communication, public value consensus, nudge, and citizens’ policy compliance willingness. A sample of 2,616 citizens nested in 86 Chinese cities was collected. The study found that (a) local governments can improve citizens’ policy compliance willingness by adopting both “stick” (authoritarian control) and “sermon” (two-way risk communication) policies, whereas two-way risk communication demonstrates a uniquely positive effect on public value consensus; and (b) the effect of two-way risk communication on policy compliance willingness is mediated by public value consensus. By enhancing public value consensus, two-way risk communication helps establish consensus between citizens and the government on “what needs/needs not to be done” and “what should/should not be done” to slow down the pandemic, thus coalescing efforts in a cooperative spirit; (c) nudge intervention positively moderates the effect of two-way risk communication on public value consensus, but has no effect on the authoritarian control–policy compliance willingness relationship. In other words, nudge intervention is a better companion to “sermons,” not “sticks.” Findings of the nuanced relationship manifested the differentiated effect of authoritarian control and two-way risk communication on citizens’ policy compliance willingness during a pandemic. The results provide theoretical implications for scholars to unlock the “black box” of public values and practical implications for strategies from behavioral public administration aspects to curb the ongoing COVID-19.

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“…Nudging techniques in the form of "informal" or "experimental" tools have long been used by state governments, private corporations, and even voluntary associations to achieve desired ends, leveraging insights from social psychology to affect the behavior of the "governed" without their knowledge. More recently, "boost" policy interventions, aiming at equipping the individual with the competence to overcome their cognitive biases, have been added to the tool kit of design-based governance (Hertwig & Ryall 2020), as this vibrant field is being further extended to the realities of the digital age (Esmark 2019).…”

Section: Algorithmic Systems and The Modes Of Governance Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithmic governance: A modes of governance approach

Gritsenko

Wood

2020

Regulation & Governance

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This article examines how modes of governance are reconfigured as a result of using algorithms in the governance process. We argue that deploying algorithmic systems creates a shift toward a special form of design‐based governance, with power exercised ex ante via choice architectures defined through protocols, requiring lower levels of commitment from governing actors. We use governance of three policy problems – speeding, disinformation, and social sharing – to illustrate what happens when algorithms are deployed to enable coordination in modes of hierarchical governance, self‐governance, and co‐governance. Our analysis shows that algorithms increase efficiency while decreasing the space for governing actors' discretion. Furthermore, we compare the effects of algorithms in each of these cases and explore sources of convergence and divergence between the governance modes. We suggest design‐based governance modes that rely on algorithmic systems might be re‐conceptualized as algorithmic governance to account for the prevalence of algorithms and the significance of their effects.

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Communicative governance at work: how choice architects nudge citizens towards health, wealth and happiness in the information age

Cited by 30 publications

References 60 publications

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Biases, and Nudging in Public Organizations

Behavioral Public Administration ad fontes: A Synthesis of Research on Bounded Rationality, Cognitive Biases, and Nudging in Public Organizations

Two-Way Risk Communication, Public Value Consensus, and Citizens’ Policy Compliance Willingness About COVID-19: Multilevel Analysis Based on a Nudge View

Algorithmic governance: A modes of governance approach

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