Jurgen De Wispelaere

University of Bath | UB · Institute for Policy Research

This paper focuses on an emergency basic income (EBI) as a tool for avoiding financial insecurity during the time of pandemic. The authors argue that paying each resident a monthly cash amount for the duration of the crisis would serve to protect them from the economic fallout.They suggest three reasons why the EBI proposal is particularly well-sui...

In the wake of several recent crises, universal basic income has emerged as a serious policy solution. Not only is basic income pitched as a tool to mitigate the effects of a diverse set of emergencies , it has been argued that successive crises have importantly contributed to the surge in media and policy interest in basic income. In this article...

In 2015, Juha Sipilä’s newly elected centre-right coalition government committed to launching a Basic Income experiment in its Government Programme. This propelled Finland onto the international scene and portrayed it as one of the leaders in Basic Income policy development. Yet the specifics of the Basic Income experiment—its design and implementa...

This article explores the connection between two related but distinct models of basic income proposals in the context of a pandemic emergency. While COVID-19 appears to have increased interest in basic income, this often ended up taking the form of a temporary emergency basic income (EBI) instead of a permanent universal basic income (UBI). In this...

This short paper reflects on the key lessons we can learn from the political debate around and policy experimentation with (emergency) basic income schemes in the context of the COVID‐19 pandemic. While the pandemic crisis initially seems to have opened up a policy window for introducing a basic income as a crisis instrument, theoretical arguments...

This themed issue, guest-edited by Jurgen De Wispelaere and Troy Henderson, is devoted to examining, first, whether the widespread use of immediate and unconditional cash transfers as a policy response to the socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 crisis has provided a boost to cash transfer programmes generally and to emergency basic income (EBI) p...

In the area of social protection systems, the Latin American and Caribbean region is characterized by structural gaps in coverage and sufficiency, owed especially to widespread labour informality. To offset these deficits, the region has accumulated vast experience in social protection through the introduction of cash and in-kind transfers as non-c...

Purpose: This article focuses on the risk that work disability policies lock people into work disability rather than promote durable health and return to work. We outline the concept of a work disability trap as a heuristic device to explore this policy paradox inherent in the design of most social insurance systems. Materials and methods: This...

Basic income experiments have emerged across Europe in recent years, but until now analysis has focused on their design and the scientific interpretation of their results, rather than the subsequent policy impact of these projects. This special issue addresses this gap. The papers all focus on whether and how the European basic income experiments h...

An increasingly influential claim is that exit-based empowerment through an unconditional basic income offers the cornerstone of an effective strategy for supporting precarious workers in contemporary labor markets. However, it is plausible to assume that supporting the 'power to say no'-to avoid or leave unattractive jobs-will empower precarious w...

There is a strong case to be made for granting each individual a basic income as a condition for securing dignity and respect. By contrast, an economy of esteem eschews universality and equality attached to each person and instead focuses on the differential ranking of persons, which appears to poorly fit with the idea of a universal basic income....

Universal basic income (UBI) is emerging as one of the most hotly debated issues in development and social protection policy. But what are the features of UBI? What is it meant to achieve? How do we know, and what don’t we know, about its performance? What does it take to implement it in practice? Drawing from global evidence, literature, and surve...

De Wispelaere, Halmetoja and Pulkka describe how in 2015 a newly-elected centre-right coalition government committed to launching a Basic Income experiment. Since then, Finland has been propelled onto the global stage, and portrayed as one of the leaders in Basic Income policy development. The authors describe the specifics of the Basic Income expe...

Finland is widely considered a frontrunner in the European basic income debate, primarily because of the decision by Juha Sipila ̈’s centre-right coalition government to design and conduct the first national basic income experiment (2017–2018). The Finnish basic income experiment builds on several decades of public and policy debate around the meri...

In the space of a mere five years, basic income has become something of a global policy phenomenon. The proposal to grant all permanent residents of a political territory a regular cash transfer on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement (Van Parijs and Vanderborght, 2017) is actively discussed at the highest levels of policy-ma...

In 2015 the newly-elected Finnish Prime Minister Juha Sipilä committed his centre-right coalition government to launching a basic income experiment. A two-year randomised controlled trial (RCT) started in January 2017. Finland was initially hailed as spearheading a new paradigm shift in European welfare policy, with advocates and decision-makers ar...

Childhood looms large in our understanding of human life, as a phase through which all adults have passed. Childhood is foundational to the development of selfhood, the formation of interests, values and skills and to the lifespan as a whole. Understanding what it is like to be a child, and what differences childhood makes, are thus essential for a...

This article develops the position we have taken in debate with Anthony Atkinson that a participation income (PI) would be problematic from an administrative and political point of view. We argue that Atkinson remains far too optimistic about the magnitude of administrative difficulties a PI would face. Negotiating these difficulties will inevitabl...

Basic income advocates propose a model that they believe will dramatically improve on current welfare programmes by alleviating poverty, reducing involuntary unemployment and social exclusion, redistributing care work, achieving a better work–life balance, and so on. Whether these expected social effects materialise in practice critically depends o...

Although basic income has surged in policy interest in recent years, political research has not kept up with the debate in the trenches. In this article, we tackle a political problem any enacting coalition must face: how to ensure the political stability of a basic income over time. We first demonstrate how basic income schemes are particularly vu...

A basic income is typically defined as an individual’s entitlement to receive a regular payment as a right, independent of other sources of income, employment or willingness to work, or living situation. In this article, we examine what it means for the state to institute a right to basic income. The normative literature on basic income has develop...

Following the success of a recent Swiss Citizens’ Initiative to grant each citizen an unconditional income guarantee and the Finnish Government's plans to conduct the first national pilot project, the idea of a basic income as a citizens’ right has gained much prominence in the policy debate. This article reviews a number of policy developments on...

A widespread argument in the basic income debate is that the unconditional entitlement to a secure income floor improves workers' bargaining position visa -vis their employers. Basic income effectively grants all (potential) workers an exit option from an employment relation that fails to take her interests into account. It gives them the "power to...

Policy interest in the basic income (BI) proposal is booming, but remarkably little attention is spent on systematically examining political strategies to build robust enabling coalitions in favour of BI. This article reviews two thorny problems that affect the coalition-building efforts of BI advocates: the problem of cheap political support sugge...

Europe is experiencing rapidly accelerating poverty and social exclusion, following half a decade of financial crisis and austerity politics. The key problem behind Europe's malaise, in our view, is the economic disenfranchisement of large parts of its population in the winner-takes-all-society. This article proposes that we examine the contributio...

En este artículo presentamos las ideas básicas que subyacen a la teoría política republicana y establecemos una línea de demarcación entre la perspectiva republicana y el libertarianismo de izquierdas, el cual tiene en la renta básica de Alaska su plasmación institucional más natural e inmediata. A partir de ahí, abordamos tres conjuntos de problem...

It is a well-known fact that the demand for transplant surgery significantly outstrips the supply of available organs. In an attempt to increase the number of available organs, many countries have begun to rethink their approach to cadaveric donation. In this chapter we focus on the problem that in many cases the donor’s next-of-kin posthumously ve...

This paper provides a qualified defense of the permissibility of safely performed male circumcision. Permitting circumcision can contribute to the wellbeing of parents and children by facilitating intimate relationships that are grounded in joint participation in cultural traditions. However, not all cultural or religious practices that facilitate...

This article outlines a republican perspective on disability. We argue that a commitment to ensuring the republican freedom of disabled citizens offers a promising account of what disabled citizens are owed as a matter of justice. A republican perspective offers a particular diagnosis of the injustice of disability disadvantage, both in relation to...

We challenge the view, typically assumed by advocates of unconditional basic income (UBI), that its administration is uncontroversial. We identify three essential tasks which, from the point of view of the administrative cybernetics literature, any income maintenance policy must accomplish: defining criteria of eligibility, determining who meets su...

In this paper we re-examine Hugh LaFollette’s proposal that the state carefully determine the eligibility and suitability of prospective parents before granting them a ‘license to parent’. Assuming a prima facie case for licensing parents grounded in our duty to promote the welfare of the child, we offer several considerations that complicate LaFol...

This article considers the implementation of a universal basic income, a neglected area in basic income research. We identify and examine three important practical bottlenecks that may prevent a basic income scheme from attaining the universal reach desired and proclaimed by its advocates: i) maintaining a population‐wide cadaster of eligible claim...

Résumé Cet article envisage la mise en œuvre d'une allocation universelle, un sujet peu traité dans les travaux de recherches menés sur le revenu minimum. Nous relevons et étudions trois freins majeurs susceptibles d'empêcher un régime d'allocation universelle d'atteindre la portée universelle souhaitée et prônée par ses partisans: a) gérer le regi...

Auszug Dieser Artikel untersucht die Umsetzung eines universellen Grundeinkommens, das ist ein für dieses bisher vernachlässigter Forschungsbereich. Wir beschreiben und erläutern drei wichtige praktische Engpässe, die verhindern könnten, dass das System des Grundeinkommens die von den Befürwortern gewünschte und behauptete universelle Deckung errei...

Resumen En el presente artículo se estudia la aplicación de la renta básica universal, un asunto al que no se ha prestado atención en las investigaciones sobre la renta básica. Definimos y examinamos tres importantes obstáculos que pueden impedir que una renta básica alcance el objetivo de la universalidad que desean y proclaman sus defensores: a)...

Since 1982, each Alaskan has received an equal share of the returns to the Alaska Permanent Fund (APF), a publicly owned investment portfolio funded by the state’s oil revenue. These returns come in the form of a Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) allocating an annual grant of roughly $1,200 to each man, woman, and child who meets the residency requirem...

For much of the last two decades, debate around the proposal of a universal basic income (BI) centered on arguing the ethical and economic case for instituting a policy that grants each adult citizen a guaranteed income as a right, without a means test or work requirement (Van Parijs 1992, 1995; Dowding et al. 2003; Standing 2005; Widerquist et al....

In his latest defence of opt-out organ donation, Ben Saunders argues that opt-out does not depend on presuming consent but instead entails a donor tacitly consenting to making her organs available for transplantation.1 Consent is implied, not merely presumed, in the absence of a registered objection because consent is always an act—a purposeful act...

Basic income advocates typically praise the administrative efficiency of universal income maintenance.This article exposes several misconceptions, unwarranted generalisations or careless assumptions that permeate discussion of the administrative properties of basic income. Each of these obscures a significant constraint on the possibility of admini...

This article tackles the current deficit in the supply of cadaveric organs by addressing the family veto in organ donation. The authors believe that the family veto matters-ethically as well as practically-and that policies that completely disregard the views of the family in this decision are likely to be counterproductive. Instead, this paper pro...

This article critically examines the Disability Act 2005, which regulates access to public services for disabled people in Ireland. We examine the competing conceptions of disability rights advanced by the government and the disability sector during the debate on the legislation, and offer an interpretation of disability rights as the justiciable r...

Anthony Atkinson's proposal for a participation income (PI) has been acclaimed by social philosophers and policy experts as a workable compromise given the problems besetting an unconditional basic income (UBI). While some see PI as the first step towards a fully unconditional scheme, others regard PI as superior to UBI on ethical grounds as well a...

Advocates of altruism maintain that altruism is an inherently beneficial and, therefore, morally desirable motivational disposition towards furthering other people's good. In this paper I dispute this claim by showing various ways in which altruism might come into conflict with plausible moral demands. The underlying problem is always one of moral...

As the debate on unconditional basic income, basic capital and cognate schemes matures, it has become necessary to rethink the idea of universalism in welfare policy. In this paper De Wispelaere (Lecturer in Equality Studies, University College Dublin) and Stirton (Lecturer in Law, University of East Anglia) argue that research should move beyond d...

In this chapter I comment on Andreas Suchanek's paper "What is Meant by Consent", published in the same volume. In this commentary I challenge Suchanek’s essay on two grounds. First I argue that his critique of the justificatory role of consent theory largely misses its target, and therefore does not invalidate justificatory consent theory in gener...

In recent years welfare policy has been through turmoil. Because of large shifts in a number of key trends — demographic, socio-economic, political — immense pressure has been put on the traditional pillars of the modern welfare state, causing them to ‘crumble’ (Goodin, 2000). The outcome can today be viewed in terms of widespread inequality, pover...

Philippe Van Parijs’s ethical justification of basic income is based on the argument that job resources must be shared equally. Underlying this idea are two important claims: (1) all individuals in society hold an ex. ante entitlement in job resources and (2) job resources are tradable: First, I present the real-libertarian argument for sharing job...

It is at present in most jurisdictions very difficult to adopt a child in cases in which one is not already connected to the potential adoptee by ties of blood or marriage. Putting aside the financial burden that the process inevitably involves, governments and adoption agencies impose strenuous requirements on potential adoptive parents. They seek...