Should an Ethical Public Servant Nudge?

Public servants around the world have embraced nudges. Using nudges, public servants can encourage individuals towards a particular choice by changing the way the decision is presented. There are now over 200 institutions applying behavioral insights to public policy, with dedicated behavioral insights teams in countries such as Japan, Singapore, UK, Australia, and Germany. It is so popular that the approach has been described as a “policy movement” and the “default policy option.” Advocates argue that by using nudges and behavioral insights, public servants can help people make better decisions. Yet critics from both academia and the public claim that the use of nudges is unethical. It is seen as a manipulation of people’s choice, and contradicts ideals of transparency in government. This chapter explores the ethical challenges to using nudges and behavioral insights and asks – should an ethical public servant nudge? The chapter first looks at the concepts of nudge and behavioral insights and their increasing use in public policy then explores the debates around the ethics of nudge. The chapter concludes by arguing that many of the ethical issues relate to particular interpretations of nudge and behavioral insights and considers if it is ever appropriate for public servants to nudge

Introduction: The need for further research on the European Parliament

The introduction is structured in four sections. It first makes an assessment of the very vast scientific literature that has been devoted to the European Parliament (EP), and explains that it is structured according to two dimensions: disciplines and methods. It then examines the six main topics addressed by scholars studying the EP. In a third section, it analyses the evolutions of the research in the field, underlining its recent decline, and deals with issues such as routinisation and over-specialisation. The introduction, moreover, underlines the need for new research agendas to account for the many evolutions of the EP. It finally describes the contents of the volume, which is structured in four parts, dealing respectively with the place of the EP within the EU political system, its role in the EU policy-making, its election and internal politics, and lastly its impact on EU policies