All Tools are Informational Now: How Information and Persuasion Define the Tools of Government

Abstract

The toolbox of governments increasingly resembles a set of information cues and prompts whereby public actors use their authority to define messages to be received by various publics and organisational actors. Citizens and other targets of government policy, such as organisations and interest groups, may be influenced by the content of messages, the framing of the argument or request, and whether the information presents a default in the presentation of choices, so that citizens or other actors are guided to choose certain outcomes and not others. The traditional tools of government, law and finance, need a supportive informational context to be effective, which is increasingly being realised by governments and other public sector organisations. Recent developments in British government show that the distinction between nudge-like interventions and the traditional policy instruments cannot be sustained. These informational tools have increased the capacity of government; they can help alleviate the problems of too great a reliance on top-down forms of intervention and mitigate the crowding out of motivation. In short, an informational approach to the use of the tools of government can complement and enhance more traditional forms of intervention.

Keywords: nudge, tools of government, behavioural economics