La faisabilité politique d'un revenu inconditionnel. Analyse comparative des débats politiques sur l'allocation universelle, l'impôt négatif et le revenu de participation dans cinq pays de l'OCDE (1970-2003) / The Political Feasibility of an Unconditional Minimum Income : A Comparative Analysis of political Debates on a Basic Income, a Negative Income Tax, and a Participation Income in five OECD countries (1970-2003)

Vanderborght, Yannick
(2004)

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Authors
Supervisors
Molitor, Michel
 ;
Van Parijs, Philippe
Abstract
(en) The idea of introducing an "unconditional minimum income" constitutes one of the most controversial reform proposals in the field of social policy. Under this label or alternative designations such as "basic income" or "citizen's income", one generally refers to the payment of an income by a political community to all its members, on an individual and regular basis, without means test or work requirement. Such a benefit would differ from existing minimum income schemes, since the latter are means-tested, targeted at the needy, and related to work requirements. Even if it has already been considered by utopian thinkers during the nineteenth century, the proposal has mostly been discussed from the 1960s onwards, first in North-America and later in Europe. In all countries where this idea has been debated, significant oppositions have slowed down or even stopped its political progress. Nowhere a true unconditional minimum income has been implemented, and some have concluded that it was "politically unfeasible". The research question which constitutes the main thread of this thesis is the following: is it possible to identify explanatory factors which determine the political feasibility of an unconditional income in industrialized countries? To answer this question, the thesis starts with a theoretical overview of the scientific literature on "basic income" and related proposals (a "negative income tax" and a "participation income", in particular), as well as of comparative welfare state research. It also focuses on the misleading interpretations of the very notion of "political feasibility" that are too often found in political science. It then turns to a systematic comparison of historical outcomes in five OECD countries: Belgium, Canada, France, Ireland and the Netherlands. In this perspective, a significant part of the thesis is devoted to a Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) of the political feasibility of an unconditional income. We show that when it is used together with in-depth analyses of cases, QCA is superior to purely quantitative or qualitative techniques for the study of a small number of cases (small-N). In the case of this research, the Qualitative Comparative Analysis shows that the political feasibility of an unconditional income is negatively affected by the existence of a system in which unions run the subsidized unemployment insurance systems (a so-called Ghent system) or, more surprisingly, by the presence of a social movement advocating the introduction of such a minimum income scheme. From this, one can infer that a major redistributive reform which would take the form of an unconditional income is much more feasible if it is debated outside of the public sphere where many actors can express their views. As should be the case for all studies using Boolean algebra, in the concluding chapter of the thesis one then goes back to a detailed comparative analysis of cases to test this hypothesis. The crucial impact of labor unions and social movements is confirmed, but somewhat qualified, and the importance of taking institutional factors into account - such as the liberal character of the welfare system - is strongly emphasized.
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Vanderborght, Y. (2004). La faisabilité politique d’un revenu inconditionnel. Analyse comparative des débats politiques sur l’allocation universelle, l’impôt négatif et le revenu de participation dans cinq pays de l’OCDE (1970-2003) / The Political Feasibility of an Unconditional Minimum Income : A Comparative Analysis of political Debates on a Basic Income, a Negative Income Tax, and a Participation Income in five OECD countries (1970-2003). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/65458