Paper/Speech Details of Conference Program for the 27th NISPAcee Annual Conference Program Overview Panel: Behavioral Interventions in Public Sector Author(s) Patrik Pavlovský Comenius University Bratislava Slovakia Title Is Nudging Legitimate Public Policy? Practical and Conceptual Challenges to Legitimacy of Nudging as a Public Policy File Paper files are available only for conference participants, please login first. Presenter Patrik Pavlovský Abstract There´s been a very few psycho-economical concepts in a recency, which would so noticeably catch attention of public policy-makers, as well as that of critical academia, than as it was done by the so called nudging. In very short time span, an admirable number of governments established their behavioral ´nudge units´ with interest of reaping the benefits of nudging and of behavioral sciences in general, for the sake of better public policy. Nudging´s very quick rise into public policy nonetheless bears with itself certain risk. Videlicet, nudging´s conceptual clarity, ethical purity or its actual utility to society were still not unquestionably established by its advocates. There are still many relevant challenges that attack nudging at all these fronts. Can an advocate of nudging reasonably answer to these challenges and thus vindicate its legitimacy as public policy? The goal of this paper is to identify, systematically assess and reasonably answer to the most vocal challenges to nudging´s legitimacy as public policy. Omitting the purely ethical concerns with nudging, this paper will advocate for nudging´s legitimacy in the face of the criticisms of the way it was translated into public policy practice (practical challenges) and in the face of the challenged vagueness of its conceptual skeleton (conceptual challenges). This paper in other words gathers and reviews several critical practical and conceptual challenges that strive to discredit nudging as descriptively legitimate public policy with the goal of vindicating its reputation.
