SPUR Project

2008 Winner (11 of 15)

Changing Citizens' Behaviour: How is Government doing it, and Whom are They Targeting?
Supervisor: Professor Perri 6 (Graduate School – BLSS)

This project analysed the types of "tools of government" or policy instruments that the New Labour government has used to pursue its distinctive agenda of trying to change the behaviour of individual citizens, e.g. initiatives to encourage people to seek work, to take out pensions, to change their diet, to reduce smoking, to discourage teenage pregnancy, to combat anti-social behaviour, to discourage problem gambling, to participate in local decision making, to recycle more domestic waste, to combat bullying etc. They have used various instruments sometimes combining different instruments in a single initiative.

Student tasks included extending the mapping of (i) policy instruments and of (ii) target groups associated with policy initiatives taken by eight major Government spending departments from 1997. This work had already been completed in a previous project for the years to February 2006. The student's principal task was to extend the analysis to cover the period to the end of June 2007, when Mr Blair resigned as Prime Minister. In addition the student worked with the Project Director to extend the analysis to cover initiatives in fiscal policy taken by the Treasury. Analysing the Treasury's initiatives presents some distinct methodological problems, which are not raised by the analysis of the spending departments' initiatives and this task therefore involved developing the methodology for this stream of work.

Project poster