Unimaginable Change

Formal Institutional Change and Informal Institutional Persistence: The Case of Dutch Provinces Implementing the Spatial Planning Act

“…All three strands of the new institutionalism discussed earlier can help to explain these findings. Rational choice institutionalism, which focuses on the payoff structure of the various actors, would observe that the Wro may have provided the correct tools for reaching the objectives, but did not provide sufficient incentives to provinces to use them in the manner intended (Kim, 2011). Even though the Wro and the national government urged provinces to 'let go', the devolution of planning had made them increasingly responsible for guiding urban development.…”

Optimising Nudges in Public Space: Identifying and Tackling Barriers to Design and Implementation

“…As subconscious decision-making is prone to cognitive biases and heuristics, nudging targets such decision-making (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). However, various widely used instruments in public space management primarily address consciously made decisions, including most governmental information campaigns (Kim, 2011), financial incentive schemes for congestion reduction (Te Brömmelstroet, 2014), crime prevention through environmental design (Cozens & Love, 2015), and traffic safety programmes (Dumbaugh et al, 2020). By applying nudging in public space management, management strategies can target both conscious and subconscious decision-making.…”

“…Using behavioural theories to improve nudge design may be challenging. The limited use of such theories in planning practice suggests that substantial barriers compromise application (Churchman, 2008;Kim, 2011). Drawing upon the policy design literature (e.g.…”

“…In italics, the strategies offered by the framework to overcome the identified barriers. Churchman, 2008;Kim, 2011) that call for the application of behavioural theories in policy design do not address potentially impeding factors. Altogether these results indicate a need for a better alignment between the knowledge about why humans act in a particular manner, a structured design process in which that knowledge is used, and the organisational and societal context in which nudging is applied.…”

“…The starting point of this paper is that effective nudging requires an understanding of the psychological and cognitive drivers of human behaviour and leverage points for behaviour change (Capano & Howlett, 2021;Walton, 2014). While the use of behavioural theories is acknowledged in both the planning and nudge literature to enhance the effectiveness of policy designs, applying such theories in nudge design has proven difficult (Churchman, 2008;Kim, 2011). A lack of understanding exists about the barriers that prevent urban planners from applying these theories (De Ridder et al, 2020).…”