Using rich ethnographic data and first-hand experience, Ball presents a detailed account of Australia’s attempts to incorporate behavioural insights into its public policy.
Ball identifies three competing interpretations of behavioural public policy, and how these interpretations have influenced the use of this approach in practice. The first sees the process as an opportunity to introduce more rigorous evidence. The second interpretation focuses on increasing compliance, cost savings and cutting red tape. The last focuses on the opportunity to better involve citizens in policy design. These interpretations demonstrate different ‘solutions’ to a series of dilemmas that the Australian Public Service, and others, have confronted in the last 50 years, including growing politicisation, technocracy and a disconnect from the needs of citizens. Ball offers a detailed account of how these priorities have shaped how behavioural insights have been implemented in policy-making, as well as reflecting on the challenges facing policy work more broadly.
An essential read for practitioners and scholars of policy-making, especially in Australia.
Author(s): Sarah Ball
Series: Routledge Research in Public Administration and Public Policy
Publisher: Routledge
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 157
City: London
Cover
Half Title
Series Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Table of Contents
List of table
List of abbreviations
Chapter 1 Introduction
What are behavioural insights?
Conceptual framework
The case
Structure of the book
Chapter 2 What are behavioural insights?
The first behavioural insights team
The contribution of behavioural science
The contribution of behavioural economics
Libertarian paternalism
Nudge
Randomised controlled trials as a key method
Evidence-based policy-making
A model for behavioural policy-making
Issues and concerns with the use of the behavioural insights framework
Challenges to the primacy of cognitive behavioural science
Challenges to nudge
Challenges to the use of RCTs
Challenges to the EBPM rhetoric
The expansion of the ‘behavioural insights’ framework
Chapter 3 How can we understand policy-making in practice?
Interpretive lens
Interpretive political science
Tradition
Dilemma
Translation
Chapter 4 Dilemmas: Why was behavioural public policy an appealing innovation?
Coombs Royal Commission on Australian government administration
Politicisation versus responsiveness
Capability concerns and EBPM
Thodey Review and calls to revisit Coombs
Behavioural economics and the APS
Chapter 5 The introduction of the Behavioural Economics Team
Day 1
Who is BETA?
Chapter 6 What does a behavioural policy team do?
What does BETA do?
Behavioural public policy as a meta-instrument
Chapter 7 The same name for different things?
Behavioural public policy represents finding ‘what works’
Behavioural public policy represents nudging
Behavioural public policy represents using citizen-centred design
Chapter 8 The influence of traditions
Two communities or two traditions?
A third tradition?
Chapter 9 Traditions in conflict
Selecting projects
Designing projects
Evaluating success
Chapter 10 Cobbling it all together: The policy process in action
Dissemination
Discovery
Diagnosis
Design
Delivery
Back to dissemination
Conclusion
Chapter 11 Behavioural insights: What happens to innovation when it travels?
Translation matters
Policy worker discretion
References
Index
