From Apathy to Action: Applying Behavioral Public Policy to Increase Civic Participation in Recess Forums

Conventional theories of participatory democracy often rely on the rational choice model, assuming that citizens participate when the expected benefits outweigh the costs. However, evidence from Indonesia's recess forums-legislative outreach mechanisms meant to solicit citizen input-shows persistently low levels of engagement, indicating behavioral frictions beyond simple cost-benefit reasoning. This paper adopts a Behavioral Public Policy (BPP) framework to analyze cognitive, emotional, and social barriers to citizen participation. Drawing from behavioral economics and psychology, we identify key biases such as present bias, social norm ignorance, and distrust aversion that inhibit public involvement. We propose a set of low-cost, scalable behavioral interventions-nudges, framing techniques, personalized reminders, and feedback loops-to redesign recess mechanisms for enhanced civic engagement. Empirical illustrations and pilot designs are provided based on field observations in East Java. This study contributes to a post-rational understanding of public participation and offers practical implications for democratizing local governance through behaviorally informed institutional reforms.