Commentarygeoj_469 1..6

Geography, libertarian paternalism andneuro-politics in the UK

MARK WHITEHEAD, RHYS JONES, JESSICA PYKETT AND MARCUS WELSHInstitute of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, Aberystwyth SY23 3DB

E-mail: msw@aber.ac.ukThis paper was accepted for publication in April 2012

This Commentary explores what the implications of the emergence of a putative ‘nudgeocracy’, andassociated forms of neurologically-infused policy development, mean for human geographicalresearch. Drawing on a 3-year research project into the rise of libertarian paternalism within theBritish polity, and our involvement in the recent House of Lords Behaviour Change Inquiry (Houseof Lords 2011 Behaviour change report [HL paper 179] Stationary Office, London), we argue thatgeographical research can make important contributions to the wider political and philosophicaldebates surrounding soft paternalist society.

KEY WORDS: nudge, libertarian, paternalism

Introduction: from Hayek to Thaler

I n John Ranelagh’s 1991 book Thatcher’s peoplethe writer describes an incident that has, for many,come to define the Thatcher era in British politics.

At a Conservative Party policy meeting in the late1970s, Ranelagh describes how Thatcher dramaticallyinterrupted an on-going presentation when sheremoved a copy of Friedrich Hayek’s book The con-stitution of liberty from her briefcase and stated, ‘Thisis what we believe!’ before proceeding to slam thetome on the table. The extent to which the Thatcheradministration was a true harbinger of the new neolib-eral society envisaged by Hayek and his ChicagoSchool acolytes is a matter of debate (see Peck 2010).Thatcher’s rejection of a pragmatic, middle-of-the-road Conservatism, and adoption of a more radicalpath of socio-economic reform, shaped subsequenthuman geographical research. Studies of urban gen-trification, globalisation, financial deregulation, socialjustice and ecological degradation were all influencedby prevailing neoliberal orthodoxies.

Our premise is that we may have witnessed asimilar, if perhaps less dramatic, contemporary ‘Con-stitution of liberty’ moment. In August 2008 Thalerand Sunstein’s 2008 volume Nudge: improvingdecisions about health, wealth and happiness, wasincluded on an official list of recommended summerreading for Tory MPs (McSmith 2010). While lacking

some of the élan of Thatcher’s Hayekian declaration,David Cameron’s promotion of Nudge thinkingappears to be having an impact on the strategies andpolicies of his Coalition government. Even if some aredismissive of this flirtation with nudge, and the liber-tarian (or soft) paternalist philosophies it espouses.

We would resist the temptation to be dismissive. Forexample, through the establishment of the Behav-ioural Insights Team within the Cabinet Office StrategyUnit (for which Richard Thaler acts a special advisor),and the subsequent production of a series ofpan-government strategies for the development ofnudge-type government interventions, the Coalitiongovernment appears to be embedding libertarianpaternalist thinking into its broader gestalt. Longer-term developments in the study of human decision-making (particularly within behavioural economicsand psychology), and of which nudge is just the latestiteration, continue to influence British policy devel-opment. Finally, and perhaps most important, thebroader intellectual movement of which libertarianpaternalism (hereafter LP) is a part represents animportant set of challenges to the hegemonic assump-tions of neoliberalism, which have held sway since therise of Thatcherism.

Taking the current Coalition government’s relation-ship with Nudge at least as seriously as Thatcher’sinfatuation with The constitution of liberty, this Com-mentary explores what the implications of the current

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The Geographical Journal, 2012, doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4959.2012.00469.x

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emergence of a putative ‘nudgeocracy’, and associ-ated forms of neurologically-infused policy develop-ment, mean for human geographical research.Drawing on a 3-year research project into the rise ofLP within the British polity, and our involvement in therecent House of Lords Behaviour Change Inquiry(House of Lords 2011), we argue that geographicalresearch can make important contributions to thewider political and philosophical debates surroundingthe soft paternalist society.

The nature of nudge – the ‘real third way?’

In principle, LP represents a significant challenge tothe conventional, liberal wisdoms concerning the roleof government within society. In his classic 19th-century account of the limitations that must be placedupon the state within a free society, John Stuart Millfamously observed that

The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exer-cised over any member of a civilized community, againsthis [sic] will, is to prevent harm to other. His own good,either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.

(1859 [1985], 68)

For Mill, the so-called ‘harm to others principle’ ofgovernmental limitation was a kind of socio-ethicalimperative, designed to preserve the capacity for per-sonal self-determination in the face of coercivepolitical interference. For latter-day neoliberals, theprinciple became a basis for promoting the voluntarycooperation of the market place as a non-coerciveway of coordinating economic activity, and a way ofencouraging the spontaneous and creative potentialof society to develop (Friedman 1982, 13; Hayek1944, 17).

LP challenges liberal limitations on the role of gov-ernment. It suggests, pace Mill, that there are ways inwhich the state can intervene within ‘harm to self’issues (like unhealthy eating and bad financial plan-ning) without necessarily compromising personalfreedom. It is premised, moreover, on the growingrealisation that market-based forms of coordinationhave proved to be detrimental to long-term social,economic and ecological stability. In relation to thesecond challenge, libertarian paternalists like RichardThaler and Cass Sunstein have drawn on work inbehavioural economics (see Kahneman and Tversky1974; Kahneman et al. 1982) to reveal the variedreasons why the unencumbered marketplace resultsin harmful individual and collective decisionmaking.According to Thaler and Sunstein, bad socio-economic decisionmaking is not merely the inevi-table, but nonetheless marginal, outcome of realworld circumstances (as classical economists wouldappear to believe), but is a significant and systematictrait of human existence. Thaler and Sunstein thusdescribe how various psychological tendencies col-

lectively act to distort human behaviour in relation tomarket expectations (2008, 17–39).

Of course, recognising the systematic nature ofhuman error means little in policy terms unless it canbe combined with a series of correctional techniques.This question inevitably leads us back to LP’s chal-lenge to the ‘harm to others principle’. Thaler andSunstein argue that human behaviour can be chan-nelled along favourable paths without the need forundemocratic forms of coercion. In relation to behav-ioural psychology, Nudge promotes the use of well-rehearsed techniques of corporate advertising as basesfor promoting non-compulsive influence (see Cialdini2007; Frank 1997, 40–1; Twitchell 1996). In relationto insights from cognitive design and engineering,libertarian paternalists argue that simple alterationsto the design of our everyday surroundings, andso-called ‘choice architectures’, can make it easier forpeople to optimise their short- and long-term deci-sionmaking (see Norman 1990 2007 2011). Whatultimately emerges from this fusion of liberal politicalprinciples, corporate psychology and cognitive designare a series of policy tools that seek to set favourabledefaults within daily choice environments (from theplacement of fruit in school canteens to encouragehealthy eating, to the location of betting shops on thehigh streets so as to discourage gambling addiction),and the increasing use of ‘mandated’ or ‘promptedchoice’ (such as registering for organ donationschemes when renewing your driving licence, orbeing encouraged to join your company’s pensionscheme).

In the UK, we are now seeing the systematic appli-cation of libertarian paternalist techniques in fields asdiverse as health (Cabinet Office 2010); fraud anddebt management (Cabinet Office 2012); consumerempowerment (Cabinet Office 2011); environmentalprotection (DEFRA 2007); and pensions and savings(Department of Work and Pensions 2006). Accordingto Thaler and Sunstein such policies embody a realthird way in government (2008, 252–3). This is a thirdway that is less concerned with the balancing ofmarket-oriented policies with social welfare and moreinterested in achieving a balance between the free-doms of the market place and a legitimate role forgovernmental intervention (2008, 252–3).

A brief genealogy of the other Chicago School

Despite its axiomatic association with the currentCoalition government in the UK, the influence of LPphilosophy on British public policy is not withoutearlier foundations. By considering the genealogy ofLP, we uncover the historical origins of its contempo-rary policy manifestations, and illustrate how it mightbe possible to develop different behavioural insightsthat are also applicable to public policy. To these ends,this genealogy seeks to illustrate the varied scientificorigins of LP and to show how, far from being a settled

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policy framework, it is suggestive of a range of differ-ent behaviourally-oriented policy programmes.

Libertarian paternalist influences on British publicpolicy pre-date the Coalition government. It is clearthat the Cabinet Office Strategy Unit experimentedwith softer forms of paternalism under the NewLabour administration (see Jones et al. 2011a 2011b;Whitehead et al. 2011). In 2004, for example, theCabinet Office’s Strategy Unit published Personalresponsibility and changing behaviour: the state ofknowledge and its implications for public policy(Halpern et al. 2004). Drawing on the work of promi-nent behavioural economists like Richard Thaler,Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, and the behav-ioural insights of theorists ranging from Ivan Pavlov toPierre Bourdieu, this document provided a provisionaloutline of the potential utility of new behaviouralsciences for public policy. Subsequent policy experi-mentation and development led to the 2010 publica-tion of Mindspace. Influencing behaviour throughpublic policy (Dolan et al. 2010). Mindspace was pro-duced by the Institute for Government and theCabinet Office Strategy Unit, and seeks to provide aset of policy tools and checklists to guide the appli-cation of behaviour change policies.

The broader epistemological history of LP takes usaway from Whitehall to the city of Chicago in theimmediate post-war period. This is, of course, a timewhen the University of Chicago was an intellectualbreeding ground for the neo-classical economics ofHayek and Friedman, to which LP, in part, responds.During his time at the Illinois Institute of Technology,the American political scientist Herbert Simon devel-oped his theory of bounded rationality. This was atheory that would lay the foundations for modernbehavioural economics and LP (see Simon 19451957). As a quintessential polymath, Simon creativelyfused work in economics and psychology in order tounderstand the systems that limit the ability of indi-viduals and organisations to act rationally. At the heartof Simon’s radical project was an attempt to displacethe rational entrepreneur and consumer as theprimary subjects of economic research. Simon pro-posed that economics (combined with a renewed sen-sitivity to psychology) should be devoted to theempirical study of ‘real people’ in real world decision-making contexts (see Jolls et al. 2000). It is interestingto note that the work of Simon has informed recentwork within economic geography on the cognitivedynamics of human decisionmaking (see Strauss2009).

Simon’s radical intellectual project has been char-acterised by Sent (2004) as old behavioural econom-ics.1 What is perhaps most pertinent to discussions ofcontemporary manifestations of LP is the so-callednew behavioural economics, which would emergeout of the pioneering work of Simon and his col-leagues. The new school of behavioural economicsstarted to develop in the early 1970s, and was led by

the research of psychologists Daniel Kahneman andAmos Tversky (see Kahneman and Tversky 1974;Kahneman et al. 1982). At the heart of Kahnemanand Tversky’s work was a systematic analysis of thenaive judgements that characterise human decision-making. Unlike Simon, they started from a positionof presumed rationality within human behaviour andendeavoured to uncover the reasons why decision-making diverged from this norm (Sent 2004). Thenew behavioural economists studied the regularisedpatterns of divergence from a rational norm andexplored the ways in which these discrepanciescould be corrected. New behavioural economicsfound institutional support from the Alfred P. Sloanand Russell Sage Foundations (Heukelom 20112012). These foundations funded research pro-grammes, conferences and book series, and sought toprovide the platform for the training of a new breedof psychologically literature (behavioural) econo-mists. Richard Thaler was heavily involved in theemergence of the new behavioural economics tradi-tion and would become one of its most prominentacolytes during the 1990s. In many ways, LP repre-sents a technology for mobilising the insights of thenew behavioural economists into mainstream policydevelopment and delivery.

Critical geographical perspectives on theavuncular state

There is an emerging body of critical work analysingnudge-type strategies within policy studies (Wells2010) and philosophy (see Hausman and Welch2010). Geographers can contribute to this project in atleast three important ways (see Jones et al. 2011a2011b). Analysing the impacts of LP on the design andorchestration of spatial environments is one opportu-nity for further geographical research. LP’s apparentfocus on the reconfiguration of choice architectures isa very spatial project, involving the redesigning ofvarious public and private spaces (from the high streetto the kitchen). There is a significant body of work ingeography on the connections between government,power and spatial form. This collective work can offercritical historical and political perspective on the geo-graphical dynamics of soft paternalism (Crampton andElden 2007; Huxley 2006; Philo 1989). Building onresearch into more overt, disciplinary and paternalistexpressions of spatial power (most obviouslyexpressed in spatial systems of observation and sur-veillance), geographers have an important role to playin interrogating the ambient forms of influence asso-ciated with soft paternalism.

Building on Foucauldian-inspired analyses of morepersonalised, self-disciplinary spatial power, relatedwork can contribute to the critical exploration of thepolitical and ethical implications of spaces of defaultchoice, anchoring and prompted action (see Allen2006; Huxley 2011). One thread would be the extent

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to which the soft paternalist act is disclosed to thepublics it is targeted at. While Thaler and Sunsteinclaim that the disclosure of a nudge is crucial toensure that neurological power does not underminedemocratic life, it remains unclear how such acts ofrevelation will act at an aggregate spatial level.Another area of concern relates to the difficulties ofpolitically resisting and contesting nudges. Whilecoercive spatial power may be pernicious, its visualpresence (in, for example, the barricade, securitisa-tion technologies and the police line) provides afulcrum for resistance (see Allen 2006). Within thespaces of softer paternalism it appears that suchobvious markers of power and influence will be farmore difficult to discern (see Jones et al. 2011a).

Geographers could also mobilise an accumulatedanalysis of the nature and power of affective registerswithin everyday life. LP’s concern with the signifi-cance of automatic, sub-conscious and emotionalhuman response systems means that it is in some(admittedly limited) ways a kind of policy-basedexpression of the accumulated geographical knowl-edge on the power of affect (see Thrift 2007). But theredoes appear to be a significant distinction betweenhow contemporary soft paternalist policies view thenature of affect, and the way it has been conceptual-ised within contemporary cultural geography. In manyways, this distinction takes us back to the disjuncturebetween old and new behavioural economists (seeprevious section). Herbert Simon sought to utilise hisnotion of bounded rationality, and its associated rec-ognition of the inherent limitations of the consciousself, as a basis for re-envisioning the human subject asa complex amalgam of rational judgement andeffective intuition. The new behavioural school, andsubsequent libertarian paternalists, appear to havepositioned the more-than-rational component ofthe human subject as a target of correctional,re-rationalisation. Ironically, the correction of sub-optimal, automatic decisionmaking is being pursuedthrough the very same affective channels upon whichbeing-in-the-world appears to depend. In oppositionto this, contemporary work on affectivity in geographysuggests that rather than being a basis for reform,recognising the complex, more-than-rational, co-constitution of humans and their everyday environ-ment should be a basis for celebrating the vibrantunpredictability of life and human development –even if governments might be troubled by such anadmission, especially when discussed in the context ofplanning regimes and foresight analysis (see Thrift2004, 85; and Anderson 2010 on anticipation). Muchwork remains to be done in order to connect contem-porary geographical work on affect with developmentsin British public policy (although see Anderson 20102012; Whitehead et al. 2011). But if a form of greygeographies of affect could be developed (see Peck1999), it may be possible to establish the groundsupon which public policy could begin to more actively

endorse the value of intuition and embrace a moreinexpert component within policy development andimplementation (see Whitehead et al. 2011).

Another possible engagement area for geographersand the nudge agenda concerns human behaviourand decisionmaking. According to Shove (2010),much of the current behaviour change agenda inBritish policymaking is defined by a very naive visionof the nature of human action and its behaviouralprompts. This naive vision is premised upon a highlyindividualised vision of human behaviour, withinwhich a series of externalised behavioural drivers –such as habit, choice environment, values – are iden-tified and then manipulated in order to adjust action(Shove 2010). But if behaviour, as Shove suggests, isactually the evolutionary product of a range of inter-locking socio-technical systems and norms, which aredistributed across space and time, then it appears thatcurrent libertarian paternalist policies are operatingon far too limited a scale to effect long-term behav-ioural shifts across at a population level (2010, 1283).The contemporary work of geographers on the socio-technical context within which behavioural patternsendure and change could provide the basis for chal-lenging the individualising assumptions of thenudging state and question the segmented targeting ofpopulation sub-groups as the focus of correctionalbehavioural intervention (see Hitchings 2009 2011;Whitehead 2009).

* * *In this Commentary we have interrogated the politicaland epistemological significance of the rise of nudgeand LP within British society. It is clear that geogra-phers have much to offer this ongoing debate. Weactually have some first-hand experience of theopportunities and barriers that exist for geographers toparticipate in the public deliberations that surroundthese policy developments. We submitted evidence toHouse of Lord Behaviour Change inquiry in 2011 (seeHouse of Lords 2011). On the basis of this submissionwe were invited to contribute to an expert seminar onbehaviour change policies at Westminster. What wasinteresting to us was the under-representation of geog-raphers specifically, and critical social scientists moregenerally, within the Inquiry’s proceedings. Not onlydid the Inquiry tend to be dominated by psychologists,economists and neuroscientists, but it was also char-acterised by a primary concern with empirical studiesinto the arts of sciences of changing behaviour. Whatwas thus missing was a critical mass of academicwork that was able to interpret the behaviour changeagenda as a whole, and to ask normative questionsabout its ethical implication and broader conse-quences for citizenship in the 21st century.

While the final report of the House of Lords Inquirydid address the concerns that we raised about ethicsand transparency, its main focus was on the efficacy ofbehavioural policy, how academic research on behav-

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iour change could be extended to population-levelstudies, and the processes by which such researchcould be more effectively translated into the policy-making process (see House of Lords 2011). Inessence, the House of Lords Inquiry illustrates thatcurrent academic engagement with libertarian pater-nalist type policies tends to contribute to the moreeffective delivery and assessment of such policies, andnot to a deeper political and sociological analysis ofits purpose and potential implications. We believethat a stronger geographical contribution to suchdebates can help to empower more progressive itera-tions of the so-called nudging society. These progres-sive iterations will undoubtedly be defined by theconstruction of appropriate systems of consultationand engagement in the design and construction ofchoice architecture, which will ensure the democraticlegitimacy of LP. They will also be characterisedby ongoing opportunities to politically resist themore oppressive and deception-based expressions ofnudge.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the support of theLeverhulme Trust who supported our research intoquestions of Libertarian Paternalism. We would alsolike to thank Klaus Dodds for encouraging us to writethis Commentary, and for providing insightful com-ments on its content. Finally, we are grateful to theanonymous reviewer who made valuable suggestionson how to revise this piece.

Note

1 Following Simon’s departure from Chicago, this nascent intel-lectual project found a new home at Carnegie Tech (later tobecome Carnegie Mellon University), where Simon wasappointed to a Chair in the Department of Industrial Manage-ment (Simon 1991).

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