Nudging through Consensus

Abstract

With its emphasis on organizational minimalism, how does ASEAN induce change in its members’ policies? This paper examines the impact of consensus within ASEAN on haze mitigation in the Indonesian archipelago. When ASEAN articulates its environmental initiatives with a strong consensus, this clarity in its norms incentivizes emulation. The stronger the consensus within the group, the more compelling it becomes for members to adopt the agreement. Such prosocial behavior reflects nudging. Strong ASEAN consensus is a precursor of nudging that leads to dimmer hotspots. This study draws on discourse analysis of ASEAN summit statements on the haze, R programming to analyze NASA data on the brightness of peatland hotspots, and a case study to illustrate the causal mechanism. The findings identify ASEAN’s role in environmental governance, particularly with respect to when consensus-based nudging is more or less likely to incentivize member states to curb transboundary haze.