How to Increase the Likelihood of Making the Sustainable Development Goals a Reality: An Enhanced Model of Deliberative Democracy and the Role for Psychologists Within It

Abstract

This chapter examines in four ways the potential for a greater role to be played by psychologists in the formulation of policies that help realise the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). First, this chapter considers the primacy of Behavioural Economics as the main social science contributing to policy formation generally and addresses some of the difficulties psychology thus has in inserting itself more centrally into policymaking around the SDGs. Second, it makes a case that standard models of policymaking are insufficient for the SDGs and that variants of the models within the deliberative democracy school present themselves as candidate models in this space. Third, it gives an outline on some relatively new ways to access public opinion as a direct input for policymaking; a critical consideration here is that any one method has to take account of the need to make participants more aware of the consequences of their opinions within any deliberative democracy exercise, with potential lessons included from futurology and gaming. Fourth, it argues that psychologists need to be prepared to adapt to newer modes of policymaking for SDGs, where non-statutory actors such as social entrepreneurs or philanthropists are likely to play bigger roles.