Nudging citizens? Prospects and pitfalls confronting a new heuristic

New insights from psychology and behavioural economics have encouraged a paradigm shift in policy debates towards a focus on ‘Nudge’ strategies that are influenced by an understanding of the cognitive, social and even moral factors driving human decision making. In areas such as environmental policy Nudging holds considerable potential as a tool of government to help change citizen and corporate behaviour. This article notes the strong evidence base for Nudge strategies drawn from the extensive social science literature on how citizens make decisions. It shows, however, that translating behavioural insights into viable policy interventions is far from straightforward and that the powerful insights embedded within Nudge heuristics will be lost if advocates of Nudge fail to address the complexities and challenges entailed in their project.