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JURGEN DE WISPELAERE An Income of One’s Own? An Income of One’s JURGEN DE WISPELAERE Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2121 JURGEN DE WISPELAERE An Income of One’s Own? The Political Analysis of Universal Basic Income AUT 2121 AUT JURGEN DE WISPELAERE An Income of One’s Own? The Political Analysis of Universal Basic Income ACADEMIC DISSERTATION To be presented, with the permission of the Board of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities of the University of Tampere, for public discussion in the lecture hall Linna K 103, Kalevantie 5, Tampere, on 12 December 2015, at 12 o’clock. UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE JURGEN DE WISPELAERE An Income of One’s Own? The Political Analysis of Universal Basic Income Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2121 Tampere University Press Tampere 2015 ACADEMIC DISSERTATION University of Tampere School of Social Sciences and Humanities Finland The originality of this thesis has been checked using the Turnitin OriginalityCheck service in accordance with the quality management system of the University of Tampere. Copyright ©2015 Tampere University Press and the author Cover design by Mikko Reinikka Distributor: [email protected] https://verkkokauppa.juvenes.fi Acta Universitatis Tamperensis 2121 Acta Electronica Universitatis Tamperensis 1618 ISBN 978-951-44-9988-3 (print) ISBN 978-951-44-9989-0 (pdf) ISSN-L 1455-1616 ISSN 1456-954X ISSN 1455-1616 http://tampub.uta.fi Suomen Yliopistopaino Oy – Juvenes Print 441 729 Tampere 2015 Painotuote For Leti, unconditionally Table of Contents Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 7 Tiivistelmä .................................................................................................................. 9 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................... 11 List of Original Articles ............................................................................................ 13 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 15 1.1 Why Basic Income? .................................................................................. 16 1.2 The Political Analysis of Basic Income ...................................................... 18 1.3 Policy Context: Basic Income and Welfare Regimes ................................. 20 1.4 Overview of the Dissertation .................................................................... 22 2. Basic Income – An Idea Whose Time Has Come? ................................................ 24 2.1 Early Beginnings: Two Radical Proposals .................................................. 26 2.2 The Ascent of the Basic Income Idea ........................................................ 28 2.3 The (Unbearable Lightness of) Basic Income Reality ................................ 30 2.3.1 Legislative Efforts ......................................................................... 30 2.3.2 The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend .......................................... 33 2.3.3 Iran’s Basic Income Out of Price Subsidies ...................................... 35 2.3.4 Basic Income Cognates as Stepping Stones? ..................................... 39 2.4 Political Lessons in a Constrained Policy Environment ............................ 44 2.5 Under the Hood: Diversity Within the Basic Income Idea ....................... 47 3. The Many Faces of Universal Basic Income .......................................................... 49 3.1 Dimensions of Basic Income .................................................................... 49 3.1.1 Universality ................................................................................. 50 3.1.2 Individuality ................................................................................ 51 3.1.3 Conditionality ............................................................................. 52 5 3.1.4 Uniformity .................................................................................. 54 3.1.5 Timing ........................................................................................ 55 3.1.6 Modality ...................................................................................... 56 3.1.7 Generosity .................................................................................... 58 3.1.8 Financing .................................................................................... 59 3.2 Basic Income: From Social Ideal to Social Policy ...................................... 61 4. The Political Feasibility of Basic Income ............................................................... 63 4.1 A Model Framework ................................................................................ 65 4.2 A Policy in Search of a Constituency? ....................................................... 67 4.3 Building Coalitions: The Struggle for Strategy ......................................... 71 4.4 Bootstrapping Basic Income? The Stability Problem ................................. 74 5. The Public Administration of Basic Income ......................................................... 78 5.1 Uneasy Bedfellows: Why Basic Income Ignores Administration ............... 79 5.2 Outline of a Framework for Basic Income Administration ....................... 82 5.2.1 Four Administrative Tasks ............................................................. 83 5.2.2 Economizing on Administration .................................................... 85 5.3 The Administrative Efficiency Thesis Re-examined .................................. 86 5.4 Practical Bottlenecks in the Implementation of Basic Income ................... 88 5.5 Failed Compromise? Participation Income in Practice .............................. 89 5.6 Basic Income Administration as Politics ................................................... 91 6. Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................ 94 6.1 Basic Income Politics: A Battle on Two Fronts .......................................... 94 6.2 Administration Redux: Design, Implementation and Politics ................... 96 6.3 Where Next? Political Trajectories ............................................................ 97 References .............................................................................................................. 101 ORIGINAL ARTICLES ........................................................................................ 121 6 Abstract This dissertation examines the political feasibility of an individual, universal and unconditional basic income, a policy that radically departs from the mainstream means-tested and work-dependent perspective on income maintenance in the traditional welfare state. The basic income idea has gained considerable traction in both policy and scholarly communities, but its politics remains little understood. Scholarly attention in recent decades has focused largely on the ethics and economics of basic income, with marginal effort spent on political analysis. In addition, existing political studies are predominantly focused on descriptive case studies with only a few engaging in analytical examination of the role between design, implementation and politics. This dissertation engages in a political analysis of the basic income proposal by reviewing both extant descriptive country studies and the rapidly growing scholarly literature on basic income. Since basic income in its fully developed version is nowhere implemented at this moment, robust empirical evidence is scant. Instead, this study proceeds by systematically applying established policy theories and evidence from analogous schemes (such as Alaska, Brazil or Iran) to the basic income proposal. The results of this study are presented in six articles, published in peer-reviewed political science and policy journals. The main contribution of this dissertation is twofold. First, whereas the orthodox view suggests basic income advocates face an uphill battle against political actors and a general public that is broadly skeptical about giving “money for nothing”, I argue that there exists a second critical political frontline. A widespread tendency to think about basic income as a general idea rather than a set of specific policy proposals obscures the extent to which key design dimensions produce internal disagreement and division between basic income supporters. This internal division has a major impact on the political stability of a broad enacting basic income coalition. Second, this dissertation argues that the internal tensions inherent in basic income design become salient once we consider basic income implementation. In contrast to the bulk of basic income research which eschews administrative analysis, this study adopts a public administration perspective and identifies a range of key implementation challenges that need to be carefully resolved for basic income to 7 become a practical policy proposal. Furthermore, I demonstrate that these administrative challenges are decidedly political in nature, reinforcing the potential for persistent internal disagreement amongst basic income advocates. 8 Tiivistelmä Väitöskirja käsittelee henkilökohtaisen, universaalin ja vastikkeettoman perustulon poliittista toteutettavuutta. Perustulo poikkeaa politiikkana radikaalisti perinteisen hyvinvointivaltion valtavirtaisista tarveharkintaisista ja työsidonnaisista näkökulmista toimeentulon tukemiseen.

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