Lasswell's legacy revisited: critical perspectives on psychological and behavioural public policy

Some of Lasswell's work is highly compatible with the recent trend of behavioural and psychological approaches in public policy. His suggestions to apply psychotherapeutic techniques in policy-making could be directly taken out of the toolkit of modern nudgers. In this paper, however, it is being argued that Lasswell provides a critical perspective. His multi-methodological approach, his contextual orientation and his analysis of science and policy could be highly instructive in both identifying and preventing some of the problems and pitfalls of behavioural public policy.