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The micropolitics of behavioural interventions: a new materialist analysis

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Abstract

Behavioural approaches are increasingly used in both the global North and South as means to effect government policy. These interventions aim to encourage preferred behaviours by subtly shaping choices, applying incentives or employing punitive measures. Recent digital technology developments extend the reach of these behavioural approaches. While these approaches have been criticised from political science perspectives, in this paper we apply an innovative mode of analysis of behavioural policy approaches founded in a ‘new materialist’ ontology of affects, assemblages and capacities. This perspective enables us to explore their ‘micropolitical’ impact—on those who are their subjects, but also upon the wider sociocultural contexts within which they have been implemented. We examine two different behavioural interventions: the use of vouchers to incentivise new mothers to breastfeed their infants (a practice associated with improved health outcomes in both childhood and later life), and uses of debit card technologies in Australia to limit welfare recipients’ spending on alcohol, drugs and gambling. In each case, we employ a materialist methodology to analyse precisely what these interventions do, and what (in)capacities they produce in their targeted groups. From these we draw out a more generalised critique of behavioural approaches to policy implementation.

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Notes

  1. Neo-paternalism increases the conditionality, surveillance and regulation of the behaviours of individuals receiving government support (Mead 1997). It differs from ‘old’ paternalism as neo-paternalism is committed to specifically changing individual behaviours, where ‘old’ paternalism does not necessarily have an explicit behavioural change focus. (Dee 2013).

  2. There is no current evidence that behavioural approaches are more cost effective. See, for example, Klein and Razi (2018).

  3. Following Deleuze and Guattari, Buchanan (Buchanan 2017, p. 465) argues that an assemblage should not be considered as a “thing”, but as a “purely formal arrangement or ordering that functions as a mechanism of inclusion and exclusion”. In the analysis that follows, we focus upon the relations, affects and capacities thus assembled or arranged.

  4. This shift from macropolitical to micropolitical assessment poses the question of whether the new materialisms lack a critical component. To establish the criticality of his materialist approach, Deleuze drew upon a further aspect of Spinoza’s thought: his ethics of becoming (Spinoza 2000). Spinoza sought to replace humanist and other moralities with the simple ethical principle that we should always interact in ways that enhance others’ capacities to feel, think or act; and conversely to oppose actions that reduce such capacities or replace them with incapacities (Deleuze 1988, p. 22–23). We apply this ethics of becoming, and evaluation of the (in)capacities that behavioural approaches produce, when we discuss the use of behavioural interventions in the final section of this paper.

  5. In this paper, we use the terms ‘Indigenous’ and ‘First Nation’ to reference the pre-European inhabitants of the Australian continent, and ‘settler’ to connote the subsequent migrations from Europe and elsewhere.

  6. The concept of development that underpins Closing the Gap continues to be used by policymakers to encompass a range of norms that underpin liberal capitalist ways of being, specifically promoting economic productivity and individual responsibility through enforcing formal employment, individual home ownership and children excelling in numeracy and English literacy.

  7. The researchers suggest several possible explanations for the reduction of birth weight, including how income management increased stress on mothers, disrupted existing financial arrangements within the household and created confusion as to how to access funds (Doyle et al. 2017). Researchers suggested implementation issues as a possible explanation for the reduction in school attendance (Cobb-Clark et al. 2017).

  8. Forrest is a key figure in the development of the mining and iron ore industry in Australia, operating in the Kimberley and elsewhere, through his company, Fortescue Metals Group (Fortescue), and later his philanthropic Foundation Minderoo.

  9. This was a 13-month study of the implementation of the Cashless Debit Card trial in the East Kimberley region of Western Australia. It gathered interview data from people using the card, community leaders, community services and policymakers, to understand the design, logic and impact of the card. These interviews were triangulated with discourse analysis of policy documents and speeches regarding the CDC, and participant observation insights generated while living in the East Kimberley throughout the trial lead up and implementation periods (Klein and Razi 2018).

  10. The private company Indue was contracted by the Department of Social Services and Department of Human Services to develop the technology and run the trial in Ceduna and the East Kimberley. It owns the intellectual property from the trial and was paid A$10.8 million of the A$18.9 million spent on the trial (up until April 2017). Other corporations have also engaged in the CDC process, including the Commonwealth Bank who helped the Minderoo Foundation to refine technologies of the CDC.

  11. Behaviourism was a psychological perspective on human and animal behaviour that treated organisms as a ‘black box’ into which stimuli are fed and out of which behaviours emerge (Hatfield 2003). Cognitive psychologists disputed this model, seeking to delve inside the black box of the human mind to make sense of the mechanisms that intervene between stimulus and response, addressing issues such as volition, reasoning and emotion (Festinger 1962).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield, HD1 3DH, UK

    Nick J. Fox

  2. School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Level 4, John Medley Building, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Elise Klein

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Correspondence to Elise Klein.

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The study by Klein and Razi (2018) had ethics approval granted through the University of Melbourne research ethics procedures.

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Fox, N.J., Klein, E. The micropolitics of behavioural interventions: a new materialist analysis. BioSocieties 15, 226–244 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-019-00153-9

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