UBI Piloter's Network
Newsletter 18, January, 2025
New Article on Why social assistance shouldn’t come with strings attached
Neil Howard
Abstract
When the authorities provide social assistance to those in need, it almost always comes with conditions attached. These include behavioural requirements or criteria determining who is and isn’t eligible for support.
Common examples include proving that you’re looking for a job, are too ill to do so, or that you fall into a particular category that policymakers have decided is worthy of aid – for example, working children or single parents.
This approach is problematic for at least three reasons. First, it can be ineffective, because targeted support like this often excludes many who desperately need it. Second, it can be inefficient, because behavioural controls are often ill-designed and inappropriate, while policing them requires expensive, unwieldy bureaucracy.
Third, it is often contrary to human dignity. Evidence from many countries shows that the administrative practices associated with conditions have a tendency towards discrimination and dehumanisation.
So, what is the alternative? Simply put, to provide social assistance unconditionally, without behavioural requirements or targeting. In other words, to provide assistance to all and with no strings attached.
Full Article here.
New: Doctoral scholarship holder ERC Starting Grant project ‘Unravelling the politics of basic income: How responsive are policymakers to public opinion?’
As well as a great job offering for 3 lucky full-time PhD researchers
For more information on the job offering click here
Tijs Laenen
Abstract
In light of growing debates on the idea of basic income (BI), the BI-RESPONS project investigates under which conditions policymakers respond to public opinion about BI. I argue that BI is a scientifically challenging case because it poses a theoretical puzzle that has hitherto not been addressed empirically. On the one hand, BI is a likely case for responsiveness to occur because its introduction would directly impact the lives of many citizens. On the other hand, BI is an unlikely case compared to most other social policies because it is characterized by a lower salience and higher radicalness. The project will solve this puzzle by uncovering (a) which types of policymakers are (un)responsive and to whose opinions they are (un)responsive; (b) in which spatial and temporal contexts they are (un)responsive; (c) through which mechanisms they are (un)responsive, and (d) how their (un)responsiveness to public opinion varies across different BI proposals and compares to that of the well-established social policy of child benefits. These analyses are informed by the newly developed Multi-Level Framework of Contingent Policy Responsiveness, which argues that two of the main contingency factors identified in prior research –salience and radicalness– do not only vary between policy cases but also (a) within these cases, (b) across context and (c) between policymakers. This new theoretical framework is scrutinized empirically within an innovative mixed-methods design that links qualitative in-depth interviews with different types of policymakers to a quantitative public opinion survey in eight European countries that differ with regard to the salience and radicalness of BI. In doing so, the BI-RESPONS project forces a major breakthrough in the research on the politics of BI, and more broadly, expands our knowledge of (social) policy responsiveness and welfare state politics.