Abstract
AbstractRecent surveys in China, South Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Italy, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, the USA, Japan, Hungary, and Denmark indicate that citizens generally are positive toward state nudging. However, less is known about differences in the support for nudging across socio-demographics and political party preferences, a research gap recently identified in the literature. This article investigates the relationship between the support for nudging and trust in public institutions through a population-representative survey in Sweden. It also analyzes differences in the support for nudging across political party preferences in two ideological dimensions: the economic left-right and cultural GAL-TAN spectra. Data were collected in December 2017 through a custom web survey, using Reisch and Sunstein's (2016) questionnaire. The respondents (N = 1032) were representative of the adult population with regard to gender, age, education, job sector, household income, living region, and political party preference. Sweden was found to belong to the cautiously pronudge nations (along with Japan, Hungary, and Denmark), contrary to hypotheses in previous research. Differences in the support for nudging were found along the economic left-right and GAL-TAN spectra. Individual nudges’ variation in support, polarization, and politicization are analyzed and discussed.
Highlights
Nudges are behavioral change techniques designed to help people make better decisions for themselves or society without violating their freedom of choice (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008)
We introduced a subcategory of controversy: politicization, the number of political party preferences as significant predictors, and found that the two most controversial nudges were the two most politicized ones
This article has investigated the public support for nudging and its relationship with socio-demographics and political party preferences, a research gap recently identified in the literature
Summary
Nudges are behavioral change techniques designed to help people make better decisions for themselves or society without violating their freedom of choice (Thaler & Sunstein, 2008). They have influenced public administration in many countries (Whitehead et al, 2014; OECD, 2017). There are several academic debates on governmental nudging. One concerns its alignment with citizens’ preferences and its effectiveness compared with conventional policy tools
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