Nudging Policy or Crowding It Out? Green Nudges as Ideational Technologies

This chapter interrogates the use of green nudges in pro-environmental policy through the lens of ideas as ideational technologies with political lives. An ideational technology is defined as an idea which transforms how other technologies are conceived to be used. This chapter argues that the idea of nudging facilitated a transformation in how the state was conceived as being able to act in society, focusing on the political economy of the United Kingdom. It then shifts to investigate how nudging and behavioral policy more generally is currently being used in pro-environmental policymaking in the United Kingdom, with an emphasis on the emerging hypothesis that nudging may be "crowding out", more meaningful environmental policy. This chapter grounds this discussion within the political economy of the United Kingdom today.