Research and innovation result from, and add to, the growing interest in behaviour change. Public policy makers must now have a decent grounding in subjects such as behavioural economics, social psychology and even neuroscience. The rational utility-maximising man of neo-liberal economic theory has been replaced by a more complex, idiosyncratic, game-playing subject. We are all becoming experts in the apparently hard-wired decision-making heuristics (rules of thumb) that lead people to put the short term over the long term, to follow the crowd and to fill in missing knowledge by what is expected rather than what is there. The goals of behaviour change have also driven innovation ranging from new forms of social marketing ('five a day', for example) to emerging models of co-production (the Expert Patient Programme is often cited).
For argument's sake
While we would all presumably like policy to be based on the best knowledge available about what influences behaviour, the more ambitious claims made for behaviour change strategy are subject to several important critiques. For libertarians, the idea of government seeking to manipulate public behaviour can be seen as a further unwelcome extension of the state's reach. For some on the left there are the criticisms, first, that conditionality seems only to be applied to the disadvantaged and thus is a form of victim blaming and second, that policies which reward active service users may give extra benefits to those with more confidence and influence. Many schools are ambivalent about putting greater emphasis on parental engagement as this could further disadvantage and stigmatise those from poorer families. Finally, many social scientists object to the simplistic and overblown claims of behaviour change, pointing out that behaviours are complex, reflexive and socially embedded.
These are all legitimate objections, but they are unlikely to reverse the growing interest in behaviour change driven as it is by powerful social, fiscal and political forces. Indeed, behaviour change can be seen to figure in what is emerging as the key ideological battleground between Labour and the Conservatives.
David Cameron's party is developing what can be seen as their own third way. Whereas Thatcherite Conservatives eschewed social ambition and were sceptical about the state and Labour has tended to combine a big social project with confidence in the capacity of the state, today's Tories seek to combine a commitment to goals such as social justice and community cohesion with a critique of big government. This is what opposition ministers mean when they talk about pursuing 'progressive ends through Conservative means'. Responding to the Tory critique and to public perceptions that services are not delivering value for money, Labour has sought to make the case for an 'enabling state'.
Ministers promise greater decentralisation to local government and local institutions and more power to service users, including innovations like personal budgets in social care that were until very recently seen as highly controversial.
