Towards a Liberal Behavioural Political Economy: The Constitutional Approach and the Role of Capable Agency

This paper discusses Shaun Hargreaves Heap’s (SHH) approach to behavioural political economy. It starts with a summary of SHH’s interpretations of core findings in behavioural economics and the implications he draws for institutional analysis and design. It moves on to his arguments advocating autonomy as a fundamental normative criterion for policymaking and also explains the concept of a ‘constitutional perspective’ on behavioural public policy. The paper then expands upon SHH’s arguments in two ways. First, it elaborates on the notion of agency that we think is implicit in SHH’s writings. In this context, the paper establishes connections between SHH’s framework and self-determination theory (SDT); it argues that SHH emphasises autonomy but pays insufficient attention to two other important dimensions of agency: competence and relatedness. Second, the paper explores the institutional implications of an agentic perspective for behavioural public policy by discussing the economic and political conditions conducive to fostering people’s agentic capabilities and sense of agency. Here, the paper expands on SHH’s framework by connecting it also with the Bloomington School of political economy and the empirical literature on public deliberation. Both explore the reflexive relationship between institutional structure and individuals’ agentic capabilities that is central to SHH’s framework. By developing SHH’s analysis in these directions, this paper aspires to provide a coherent and constructive engagement with his work, thus contributing to the ongoing discourse in the field of behavioural political economy as well as enhancing our understanding of the central roles of agency, agentic capabilities, and civic engagement in the realm of policy formulation and institutional design.

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