Hossein Shirazi
Abstract
It is a common assumption that the government’s responsibility in policy-making is to formulate official policies and pave the way for achieving specified objectives. However, little attention has be paid to encouraging citizen participation and inspiring an individual sense of responsibility towards ...
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It is a common assumption that the government’s responsibility in policy-making is to formulate official policies and pave the way for achieving specified objectives. However, little attention has be paid to encouraging citizen participation and inspiring an individual sense of responsibility towards achieving large-scale policy objectives. In fact, most policy objectives cannot be achieved—at least not efficiently—without an individual sense of responsibility on the part of citizens. The question is, how can the government increase citizen participation and help them take on responsibility towards achieving policy objectives? To answer the question, this article argues that the government has to empower citizens. Empowered citizens are able to make optimal decisions under different circumstances, which can improve the quality of one’s life and society. In this respect, this paper recognizes the key role of behavior change policy-making which refers to government interventions to empower citizens and encourage citizen participation. Behavior changes policy-making influences citizens’ beliefs, awareness, and behavior, making them compatible with large-scale government policies. The present study argues that citizen empowerment through behavior change policy-making can get citizens to take on responsibility towards achieving large-scale policy objectives. Besides large-scale policy-making in various areas, it is thus necessary for the government to consider behavior change policy-making in order to get citizen participation in achieving the objectives in a given area. The present study employed rational choice theory as the theoretical framework as research on behavior change emphasizes that an individual acts based on cost–benefit analysis.
