The Power to Nudge

Dados Bibliográficos

ID3483723
AutoresAdam T Schmidt (0000-0002-2323-2838, University of Groningen, autor correspondente), Andreas T Schmidt
Ano2017
Volume111
Fascículo2
Páginas404-417
Data de publicação2017-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-0554 • E-ISSN: 1537-5943
EditoraCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0003055417000028
OpenAlexW2605904880
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas42
Referências citadas59

Nudging policies rely on behavioral science to improve people's decisions through small changes in the environments within which people make choices. This article first seeks to rebut a prominent objection to this approach: furnishing governments with the power to nudge leads to relations of alien control, that is, relations in which some people can impose their will on others-a concern which resonates with republican, Kantian, and Rousseauvian theories of freedom and relational theories of autonomy. I respond that alien control can be avoided, if nudging is suitably transparent and democratically controlled. Moreover, such transparency and democratic control are institutionally feasible. Building on this response, I then provide a novel and surprising argument for more nudging: democratically controlled public policy nudging can often contain the power of private companies to nudge in uncontrolled and opaque ways. Therefore, reducing alien control often requires more rather than less nudging in public policy

Argument (complex analysis · Autonomy · Control (management · Democracy · Economics · Law and economics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Transparency (behavior · Climate Change and Geoengineering · Free Will and Agency · Law · Political Philosophy and Ethics