ABSTRACT
In the context of debates on regulatory reform, Martin Lodge and colleagues have applied the approach to analyze different approaches to regulation in general and have shown how particular debates on the performance and shortcomings of regulatory institutions to the predictions of grid-group cultural theory. The potential advantage of using cultural analysis as a diagnostic tool in understanding public sector reform is that, in principle, it permits the identification of possible styles or approaches to institutional reform, grounded in foundational analysis of a very limited number of fundamental forms of social organization that are both mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive. The scope and limits of reform through cultural demolition are raised sharply by the expansive claims made recently for the power of 'nudge' approaches to shift the behaviour of individuals and groups in directions desired by reformers.
