Varieties of Basic Income: The Political Economy of Universalism in European Welfare States

While in recent years basic income has evolved from a marginal policy idea to a serious item on the policy agenda, there is surprisingly little engagement with questions of how to integrate universal and unconditional basic income schemes into the existing institutional configuration of the developed welfare state.

Turning Failure into Success? Revisiting the Political Narrative of the Finnish Basic Income Experiment

With Lindsay Stirton

This project proposes an in-depth examination of the politics of the Finnish basic income experiment (FBIE), which ran in 2017-2018 and was the starting point of (and a major inspiration for) the new wave of basic income trials around the world. Basic income trials have been very influential in pushing basic income onto the international policy agenda, notwithstanding they are controversial and the resulting evidence and lack of immediate policy impact has led to disappointment or even abandonment of the idea. The FBIE in particular is often characterised as a “failure” in this respect: the results are considered underwhelming while policy impact on Finnish welfare state developments appears non-existent.