Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T12:08:16.570Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bounded interdisciplinarity: critical interdisciplinary perspectives on context and evidence in behavioural public policies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2019

JORAM FEITSMA  and
MARK WHITEHEAD Open the ORCID record for MARK WHITEHEAD [Opens in a new window]
JORAM FEITSMA
Affiliation:
Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
MARK WHITEHEAD*
Affiliation:
Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, UK
*
*Correspondence to: Aberystwyth University – Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion SY23 3DB, UK. Email: msw@aber.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A behavioural public policy movement has flourished within the global policy realm. While this movement has been deemed interdisciplinary, incorporating behavioural science theories and methods in a neoclassical economics-governed policy process, this paper analyses the bounded form of interdisciplinarity that characterizes it. We claim that an engagement is missing with the broader sweep of social sciences, which share similar concerns but deploy different analytical perspectives from those of behavioural public policy. Focusing on two central concepts (context and evidence), we aim to show how behavioural public policy's bounded interdisciplinarity implies constrained understandings of context and evidence, thereby limiting its complex problem-solving abilities. At the same time, we highlight some alternative examples of behavioural public policy practice that do explore new critical interdisciplinary horizons.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , July 2022 , pp. 358 - 384
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BBC News (2017), ‘Wales’ organ donor opt-out law has not increased donors. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-42213813Google Scholar
Ball, S. and Feitsma, J.N.P. (2018), Nudge in Translation. Comparing Behavioural Insights Practices in Australia and the Netherlands. EGPA 2018 Conference Paper.Google Scholar
Biesta, G. (2007), ‘Why ‘what works’ won't work: Evidence-based practice and the democratic deficit in educational research’, Educational Theory, 57(1): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cairney, P. (2016), The Politics of Evidence-Based Policy Making, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Camerer, C. F., Loewenstein, G. and Rabin, M. (Eds.) (2003), Advances In Behavioral Economics, Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Carter, E.D. (2015), ‘Making the Blue Zones: Neoliberalism and nudges in public health promotion’, Social Science & Medicine, 133: 374–382.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Davies, W. (2014), The Limits of Neoliberalism: Authority, Sovereignty, and the Logics of Competition London: Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaton, A. and Cartwright, N. (2018), ‘Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials’, Social Science & Medicine, 210: 2–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Einfeld, C. (2018), ‘Nudge and evidence based policy: fertile ground’, Evidence & Policy, advance view.Google Scholar
Esterling, K. M. (2004), The political economy of expertise: Information and efficiency in American national politics, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Etikan, I., Musa, S.A. and Alkassim, R.S. (2016), ‘Comparison of Convenience Sampling and Purposive Sampling’ American Journal of Theoretical and Applied Statistics, 5: 1–4CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feitsma, J.N.P. (2018a), ‘Rationalized Incrementalism’. How behavior experts in government negotiate institutional logics’. Critical Policy Studies, advance online view, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2018.1557067.Google Scholar
Feitsma, J. N. P. (2018b), ‘The behavioural state: critical observations on technocracy and psychocracy’, Policy Science, 51: 387–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feitsma, J. N. P. (2019), ‘Brokering behaviour change: The work of Behavioural Insights experts in government’, Policy & Politics, 47(1): 37–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischer, F., Torgerson, D., Durnova, A. and Orsini, M. (2015), ‘Introduction to critical policy studies’, in Fischer, F., Torgerson, D., Durnova, A. and Orsini, M. (eds), Handbook of critical policy studies, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frodeman, R. and Mitchum, C. (2007), ‘New Direction in Interdisciplinary: Broad, Deep, Critical’, Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 27(6): 506–514.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Furedi, F. (2011), On tolerance: A defence of moral independence, New York: Continuum International Publishing Group. Penguin.Google Scholar
Grimmelikhuijsen, S., Jilke, S., Olsen, A. L. and Tummers, L. (2017), ‘Behavioral public administration: Combining insights from public administration and psychology’, Public Administration Review, 77(1): 45–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hallsworth, M., Egan, M., Rutter, J. and McCrae, J. (2018), Behavioural Government, London, UKGoogle Scholar
Hallsworth, M., Parker, S. and Rutter, J. (2011), Policy-making in the Real World, London: Institute for Government.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halpern, D. (2015), Inside the Nudge Unit, London: Ebury Publishing.Google Scholar
Hansen, P. (2008), ‘What are we forgetting?’ Behavioural Public Policy 2(2): 190–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ingold, J., and Monaghan, M. (2016), ‘Evidence translation: An exploration of policy makers’ use of evidence’, Policy & Politics, 44(2): 171–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacobs, J. A. and Frickel, S. (2009), ‘Interdisciplinarity: A critical assessment’, Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 43–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
John, P. (2018), How far to nudge? Cheltenham: Edward Elgar PublishingCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, R. and Whitehead, M. (2018), ‘Politics done like Science: Critical Perspectives on Psychological Governance and the Experimental’, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 36(2): 313–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, R., Pykett, J. and Whitehead, M. (2013), Changing Behaviours: On the Rise of the Psychological State, Edward Elgar Publishing.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D., Slavic, P. and Tversky, A. (eds.) (1982), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow, London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Kennisinstituut voor Mobiliteitsbeleid (2017), Stedelijke distributie en gedrag, Den Haag: Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu.Google Scholar
Kirchler, E, and Hölzl, E (2006), ‘Twenty-five years of the journal of Economic Psychology (1981–2005): A report on the development of an interdisciplinary field of research’ Journal of Economic Psychology. 27: 793–804.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knorr-Cetina, K. (2007), ‘Culture in global knowledge societies: Knowledge cultures and epistemic cultures’, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 32(4): 361–375.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leggett, W. (2014), ‘The politics of behaviour change: Nudge, neoliberalism and the state’, Policy & Politics, 42(1): 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lepenies, R. and Malecka, M. (2016), Nudges, Recht und Politik: Institutionelle Implikationen. In Drerup, J. and Dessauer, A.V. (Eds.), Zeitschrift Für Praktische Philosophie, 3(1): 487–530.Google Scholar
Lepenies, R. and Małecka, M. (2018), The Ethics of Behavioural Public Policy. In Lever, A. and Poama, A. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Ethics and Public Policy (pp. 513–525). Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lin, Y., Osman, M., Harris, A. J. L. and Read, D. (2018), ‘Underlying wishes and nudged choices’, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 24(4): 459–475.Google ScholarPubMed
Lindblom, C. E. (1959), ‘The science of “muddling through”’, Public Administration Review, 19(2): 79–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lodge, M., and Wegrich, K. (2016), ‘The rationality paradox of nudge: Rational tools of government in a world of bounded rationality’, Law & Policy, 38(3): 250–267.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, M. (2018), ‘What makes interdisciplinarity difficult? Some consequences of domain specificity in interdisciplinary practice’, Synthese, 195: 697–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacLeod, M. and Nagatsu, M. (2018), ‘What does interdisciplinarity look like in practice: Mapping interdisciplinarity and its limits in the environmental sciences’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A, 67: 74–84.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McGoey, L. (2012), ‘The logic of strategic ignorance’, The British Journal of Sociology, 63(3): 553–576.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mols, F., Haslam, S.A., Jetten, J. and Steffens, N. K. (2015), ‘Why a nudge is not enough: A social identity critique of governance by stealth’, European Journal of Political Research, 54(1): 81– 98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mulderrig, J. (2017), ‘Reframing obesity: A critical discourse analysis of the UK's first social marketing campaign’, Critical Policy Studies, 11(4): 455–476.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nimishakavi, S. (2016), The long-lasting wages of neglect: Flint residents plagued again by water crisis. Non-Profit Quarterly. Retrieved from: https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/10/10/long-lasting-wages-neglect-flint-residents-plagued-water-crisisGoogle Scholar
Norman, D. (2002), ‘Emotion & design: attractive things work better’, Interactions, 9(4): 36–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nutley, S., Morton, S., Jung, T. and Boaz, A. (2010), ‘Evidence and policy in six European countries: diverse approaches and common challenges’, Evidence & Policy, 6(2): 131–144.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Newman, J. (2016), ‘Deconstructing the debate over evidence-based policy’, Critical Policy Studies, 11(2): 211–226.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keltner, D., Oatley, K and Jenkins, J.M. (2014), Understanding Emotions Hoboken NJ: Wiley.Google Scholar
Oliver, A. (2017), The Origins of Behavioural Public Policy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ossewaarde, R. (2007), ‘The New Social Contract and the Struggle for Sovereignty in the Netherlands’, Government and Opposition, 42(4): 491–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parsons, W. (2002), ‘From muddling through to muddling up’, Public Policy and Administration, 17(3): 43–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pedwell, C. (2017), ‘Habit and the Politics of Social Change: A comparison of nudge theory and pragmatist philosophy’, Body & Society, 23(4): 59–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pykett, J. (2018), ‘Geography and neuroscience: Critical engagements with geography's “neural turn”’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 43(2): 154–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanders, M., Snijders, V. and Hallsworth, M. ‘Behavioural science and policy: where are we now and where are we going?’ Behavioural Public Policy, 2: 144–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sent, E.-M. (2004), ‘Behavioural Economics: How Psychology made its (Limited) Way back into Economics’, History of Political Economy, 4: 735–760.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shove, E. (2010), ‘Beyond the ABC: climate change policy and theories of social change’, Environment and Planning A, 42: 1273–1285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simon, H.A. (1957), Models of man: Social and Rational, London: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Stillman, S. (2017), Can Behavioural Science Help in Flint. New Yorker. Retrieved from: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/can-behavioral-science-help-in-flintGoogle Scholar
Strassheim, H. (2017), ‘Bringing the political back in: reconstructing the debate over evidence-based policy. A response to Newman’, Critical Policy Studies, 11(2): 235–245.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, K. (2008), ‘Re-engaging with rationality in economic geography: behavioural approaches and the importance of context in decision-making’, Journal of Economic Geography, 8: 137–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strauss, K. (2009), ‘Cognition, context, and multimethod approaches to economic decision making’ Environment and Planning A, 41, 302–317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R (2018), The Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist's Defence of the Market Economy Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. (2015), Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioural Economics, Penguin, LondonGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H., and Sunstein, C. R. (2008), Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth and happiness, London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Weiss, C. (1979), ‘The Many Meanings of Research Utilization’, Public Administration Review, 39(5): 426–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
White, M. D. (2013), The manipulation of choice, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, M., Jones, R., Pykett, J., Howell, R. and Lilley, R. (2017), Neuroliberalism: Behavioural Government in the 21st Century. Taylor & Francis.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, M., Jones, R., Howell, R., Pykett, J. and Lilley, R. (2018), ‘Neuroliberalism: Cognition, Context and the Geographical Bounding of Rationality’, Progress in Human Geography, 43(4): 632–649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolfe, S.E. (2012), ‘Water Cognition and Cognitive Affective Mapping: Identifying Priority Clusters within a Canadian Water Efficiency Community’, Water Ressource Management 26: 2991–3004.CrossRefGoogle Scholar