4 - Critiques and controversies

Summary

Given its status as a relatively gentle form of power nudging has nevertheless been associated with a surprising number of critiques and controversies. The emergence of nudging policies resulted in the House of Lords’ Science and Technology Committee (UK) conducting a thorough review of the relative effectiveness of nudging compared to other behaviour change techniques. The Committee's report also explored the ethics of using nudging techniques and their broader implications for democracy (House of Lords 2011). In the United States, Cass Sunstein's appointment as director of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs led radio talkshow host Glenn Beck to describe him as “the most dangerous man in America” (Cole 2014; see also Sunstein 2013). It is perhaps unwise to question too deeply why Beck believed Sunstein (and his nudging ideas) to be so dangerous. Beck's hyperbolic assertion is, however, likely connected to a broader concern that nudging reflects a form of shadowy governmental overreach into personal liberty. In addition to being critiqued from the right, nudging has also been subject to sustained critique from the left. The sociologist Frank Furedi has, for example, suggested that the principles of nudging reflect the latest invocation of elitist notions of false consciousness (2011a; 2011b). In this context, Furedi argues that the practices of nudging rest on the misleading and demeaning assumption that ordinary people do not have the intellectual capacity to know what is in their own best interest and thus require constant moral guidance (2011b).

Critiques of nudging are so numerous and diverse that it is increasingly difficult to discern which concerns are worthy of reflection and which simply reflect a reactionary pile-on mentality. In his A Manifesto for Applying Behavioural Science (2023) Michael Hallsworth provides a comprehensive summary of the main concerns that have been raised against the use of behavioural science (and by definition nudging) in public policy (see Text Box 4.1).

In this chapter we shall reflect on these critiques in varying degrees of detail. We shall argue that the veracity of these critiques varies according to which particular form of nudging is being discussed (see Chapters 1 and 2).