Public Policy and Behavior Change

• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13109
• Date: 01 November 2019
• Author: Lars Tummers

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 6, pp. 925–930. © 2019 The

Authors. Public Administration Review

published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13109.

925

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Public Policy and Behavior Change

Abstract: Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle societal problems, such as obesity, alcohol abuse, and debt

problems. This article has two goals. First, it aims to highlight how governments can try to change the behavior of

citizens. Government can use policy instruments to do so, including incentives, bans and mandates, information

campaigns, and nudges. However, the government should not be a manipulator that applies policy instruments

without societal support. Therefore, the second goal of the article is to provide a conceptual framework that helps

analyze whether public policies to stimulate behavior change are effective and supported by key stakeholders. This

conceptual framework has five criteria indicating the extent to which there is effective and supported behavior change:

the policy is (1) effective and (2) efficient, and there is support for the policy among (3) politicians, (4) implementing

organizations, and (5) citizens. The article ends with suggestions to study public policy aimed at behavior change.

Lars Tummers

Utrecht University

Changing behavior is often necessary to tackle

societal problems. If we want citizens to

get into debt less often, we need to analyze

how we can help these people save more and spend

less (Brown et al. 2016). If we want people to be

healthier, we need to make sure people exercise

more and consume less sugar and fat (Warburton,

Nicol, and Bredin 2006). If we want to reduce

student absenteeism, we must find ways to stimulate

students to go to school (Rogers and Feller 2018).

There are policy instruments that governments can

use to change behavior. Simply put, these include

financial incentives, bans and mandates, information

campaigns, and, more recently, nudges.

Policy instruments offer concrete opportunities for

governments to stimulate behavior change. However,

governments should not be manipulators that apply

the latest behavior change “tricks” without broad

support, especially when such tricks use human

limitations and biases. Governments need support for

behavior change. Public administration studies show

what can happen when such support is lacking. For

instance, the work of O’Leary (2010) on guerrilla

government shows that public employees who do

not support governmental actions can sabotage

public policies. Hood (2006) vividly illustrates how

public employees can “game” the extensive system

of managing public services by targets and which

strategies can be used to counter this. A recent

overview of change management in the public sector

(Kuipers et al. 2014) highlights the importance of

support by key stakeholders in reforms. More tailored

to behavior change interventions, John (2018) shows

that various behavior change interventions are not

supported by citizens and therefore can backfire. He

also notes that using insights from behavioral science

can improve the effectiveness of policy instruments.

In this article, I aim to provide a short and accessible

overview that informs practitioners and scholars

about a topic of importance—in this case, how

public policies can engender behavior change on the

part of citizens. (For a focus on politicians or public

managers, see, e.g., Bellé, Cantarelli, and Belardinelli

2018; George et al. 2018; Nielsen 2014). I aim

to answer two key questions. First, which policy

instruments are available to change the behavior of

citizens? I discuss four policy instruments: incentives,

bans and mandates, communication campaigns,

and nudges. Second, how can governments analyze

whether behavior change interventions are effective

and supported by key stakeholders? I will develop a

conceptual framework with five criteria for effective

and supported behavior change. This framework can

be used to study behavior change by governments.

The article ends with suggestions for scholars and

practitioners to further understand and stimulate

effective and supported public policies to stimulate

behavior change.

Policy Instruments to Stimulate Behavior

Change

Governments have a number of instruments to

bring about behavior change. Traditionally, public

administration scholars have distinguished the carrot,

Lars Tummers is professor of public

management and behavior in the School of

Governance at Utrecht University. His main

research interests are public management,

stereotypes, leadership, and behavior

change. Related to this, he is developing—

with others—an interdisciplinary field

combining psychology and public

administration, called Behavioral Public

Administration.

E-mail: l.g.tummers@uu.nl.

Viewpoint

Stephen E. Condrey

and Tonya Neaves,

Associate Editors