Nudges: encouraging civic behaviour - 5 comments
I started Nudge, the 'latest' behavioural economics book, yesterday. It's full of examples of experiments where subtle changes in the choices that people are offered can greatly influence the decisions they make - potentially, decisions that will benefit them, or society, much more than others. This should interest all politicians. Here's an interesting example from p. 66 (my bold):
In the context of tax-compliance, a real-world experiment conducted by officials in Minnesota produced big changes in behaviour. Groups of taxpayers were given four kinds of information. Some were told that their taxes went to various good works, including education, police protection, and fire protection. Others were threatened with information about the risks of punishment for non-compliance. Others were given information [...] how to fill out their tax forms. Still others were just told that more than 90 per cent of Minnesotans already complied, in full, with their obligations under tax law.So, no carrot, no stick, just a gentle nudge - rely on peer-pressure and conformity to do the rest. I'm not particularly suggesting it as an alternative to closing tax 'loopholes', the general principle is much more interesting, and just imagine how similar techniques could solve other long-standing problems.
Only one of these interventions had a significant effect on tax compliance, and it was the last. Apparently some taxpayers are more likely to violate the law because of a misperception [...] that the level of compliance was pretty low. When informed that the actual compliance level is high, they become less likely to cheat.
*
Following directly on from that:
Note to political parties: If you would like to increase turnout, please do not lament the large numbers of people who fail to vote.The argument here is that if the electorate believe that others are not bothering - for any of the myriad of good/explicable/plausible-sounding reasons that politicians have proposed - it's easier to justify not voting either; voting seems less and less like part of one's responsibility to society, and more like something exceptional - the action of a political activist, for example.
So if you believe that society is healthier if turnouts are very high (I'm sure I'd agree) then don't:
- Bleat about the electoral system or the nature of the political parties (which are not uniquely bad in the UK).
- Simply appeal to civic virtue, expecting people to look at their consciences.
- Punish non-voting.
- Devise strategies to make it 'cheaper and easier' to vote.
- "So, people like me are voting."
- "Idiots like that are voting."
- "Explained like that, I'm definitely voting for/against X."
- "We organised a group and made the Council listen..."
Labels: civic society, economics, human behaviour, Nudge, politics, Taxation, voting
![[Valid Atom]](http://www.bloggers4labour.org/images/valid-atom.png "Validate my Atom feed")
5 comments so far...
And it's not just tax compliance and voting.
"Britain is a broken society. There is an epidemic of knife crime and a collapse of responsibility. More and more of our young people are carrying knives. Nobody think in terms of 'right and worng' any more. We will change this, not by top-down state diktat but by using the 'nudges' of behavioural econom- Oh. Oops."
Gah!!
That'll teach me to read fashionable books.
Clearly I must devote more time to reading Cameron's wise words before I open my mouth in future. Two years of guff had fooled me into thinking he was some kind of simpleton.
Notwithstanding DC's nicking of the latest fashion, I think your post is useful and insightful in linking 'nudge theory' to policy prescriptions for the health of democracy.
In terms of the economic behaviour nudgery, the American experiment on what best creates fiscal rectitude puts me in mind of a pilot initiative in Hartlepool a year of two back (though a quick google suggests itâs still happening in some form) aimed at drawing people in from the informal economy back into the taxed economy â never an easy option when there is at least a perceived risk of having to pay thousands of pounds in back tax and even face prosecution as a result of trying to go âlegitâ. The initiative sought to encourage people to take the legit route by ensuring advice on how to do it was confidential, but also required local marketing in places and ways appropriate to the âtargetâ.
Although the initiative as a whole wasnât a great success because the âgo legitâ advisors had a conflict of interest (their own job creation targets) which made them not want to go into enough detail on the informal stuff., what showed best promise in the getting people on board respect was sticking the initiatives telephone number and a very simple âgo legitâ message on beer mats across Hartlepoolâs pubs. âNudge theoryâ fits nicely with that â I can see it now âGo on, youâve said you wanted to go legit loads of timesââ¦..âI will if you willââ¦.âok mobiles at the ready, one two three, call the numberâ¦.â
Moving across to the place of nudge theory in democratic engagement, I think youâre dead right about the need to bleat less about civic duty, and do more to nudge people along towards valuing civic/political engagement because others they respect do. At a local engagement level, Demosâs new report âState of Trust: How to build better relationships between councils and the publicâ is not a bad effort in this respect, at least highlighting the importance of âhowâ Councils deliver their services as opposed to what they deliver, though the assessment of the role of local politics and politician in all of this tends to ignore the importance to polticians of political values and the oppositionalism inherent in that, in favour of a somewhat trite and not-soon-to-be-realised recommendation about cross-party codes of positive working.
But what this and lots of other stuff dealing with poltical disenchantment are really light on is how we got to this position in the first place, and without that itâs difficult to find the best route back to political enchantment. JRFâs Power Inquiry talks a lot about the changing social context, with less servile attitudes and greater choice in what we do in our daily lives leading to disengagement from the political, but I donât really buy this as a cause-effect thing since it ignores the âdifferently politicalâ attitudes and actions of a huge segment of the post-war, the post-post war and now the post-post-post war generation.
However, thereâs light at the end of the disengagement tunnel. Colin Haysâ newish book âWhy We Hate Politicsâ provides a very convincing argument that political disengagement (he refers to âdepoliticisationâ) is fundamentally a creation of neo-liberal economics and consequent politics. To quote the blurb on the back of the book âBy demonstrating how our expectations of politics and the political realities we witness are shaped decisively by the assumptions about human nature that we project onto political actors, Hay provides a powerful and highly distinctive account of contemporary political disenchantmentâ.
In other words, itâs the theories set out by Hayek and Friedman and their mates, back to Schumpeter and I guess ultimately to Adam Smith about individuals being primordially self-interested, which have led â via big âgovernment is bad governmentâ discourse and onto the Keith Josephâs intellectual legitimation of the Thatcher âprojectâ in the UK that has got us in this mess, and as lefties we need to be prepared to stand up and say that. We can call it âreverse nudge theoryâ, I suppose.
In response, the left needs a valid intellectual response, which goes beyond the cuddly atheoreticals of communitarianism â thatâs had its day and it hasnât delivered an effective counter to the now deep-rooted neo-liberal assumptions.
Fortunately, weâve got Gramsci on our side. And Laclau and Mouffe. And Jurgen Habermas. But thatâs for another comments page.
"Two years of guff had fooled me into thinking he was some kind of simpleton."
I think it's a very clever double bluff: he spouts platitude and earnestness and says "incredibly" and "actually" so much that we'll think he must just be dumbing his fierce intellect down for popular consumption. But no...
"he spouts platitude and earnestness and says "incredibly" and "actually" so much that we'll think he must just be dumbing his fierce intellect down for popular consumption"
Oh god, I've just realised! That's what I do! That's my entire thing! I didn't realise. Bah.
Post a Comment
<< Home