Should Liberal-Egalitarians Support a Basic Income? An Examination of the Effectiveness and Stability of Ideal Welfare Regimes

2020 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Sirsch
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
Institutional Complementarity ◽  
Mixed Regime ◽  
Globalized Economy ◽  
Overall Performance

AbstractThe article deals with the question whether an unconditional basic income (UBI) is part of an ideal liberal-egalitarian welfare regime. Analyzing UBI from an ideal-theoretical perspective requires a comparison of the justice performance of ideal welfare regimes instead of comparing isolated institutional designs. This holistic perspective allows for a more systematic consideration of issues like institutional complementarity. I compare three potential ideal welfare regimes from a liberal-egalitarian perspective of justice: An ideal social democratic regime, a mixed regime containing a moderate UBI and a maximal UBI regime where UBI replaces most of the welfare state. These regimes are evaluated with respect to three aspects of justice performance: the scope and neutrality of opportunities provided, institutional complementarities with a dynamic, globalized economy and the policy feedback effects on the political stability of liberal-egalitarian political coalitions. I conclude that the overall performance of a mixed regime is superior to the other regimes.

The stability of basic income: a constitutional solution for a political problem?

2015 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 521-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurgen De Wispelaere ◽  
Leticia Morales
Keyword(s):  
Judicial Review ◽  
Political Stability ◽  
Careful Examination ◽  
The Political ◽  
Basic Income ◽  
Bill Of Rights ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Political Problem ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Recent Policy

AbstractAlthough 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 vulnerable to processes of policy change discussed in the recent policy feedback literature. We then analyse whether constitutionalising basic income in a Bill of Rights protected by strong judicial review would offer a valuable route for boosting basic income’s stability. A careful examination of the decision-making process within judicial review suggests that, caught up in a dilemma between judicial restraint and judicial activism, an enacting coalition would do well not to rely on constitutional mechanisms as the sole avenue for ensuring the political stability of basic income.

22. The impact of public policies

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jørgen Goul Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Path Dependence ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Institutional Complementarity ◽  
Feedback Path ◽  
Economic Perspectives ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the effects of public policy. It first considers economic paradigms and approaches to welfare and documents the overriding historical changes in approaches to the economy, from Keynesian ideas of macro-economic steering to more market-oriented economic perspectives. It then explores the idea of institutional complementarity as expressed in the typologies of welfare regimes, varieties of capitalism, and flexicurity. It also looks at some of the empirical analyses of the effects of welfare policies and the tension between welfare and economic efficiency. Finally, it looks at policy feedback, path dependence, policy learning, social learning, policy transfer and policy diffusion, and policy convergence.

22. The Impact of Public Policies

2020 ◽  
pp. 395-416
Author(s):  
Jørgen Goul Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Path Dependence ◽  
Policy Diffusion ◽  
Policy Transfer ◽  
Policy Learning ◽  
Welfare Regimes ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Welfare Policies ◽  
Institutional Complementarity ◽  
Economic Perspectives ◽  
The Impact

This chapter examines the effects of public policy. It first considers economic paradigms and approaches to welfare and documents the overriding historical changes in approaches to the economy, from Keynesian ideas of macro-economic steering to more market-oriented economic perspectives. It then explores the idea of institutional complementarity, as expressed in the typologies of welfare regimes, varieties of capitalism, and flexicurity. It also looks at some of the empirical analyses of the effects of welfare policies and the tension between welfare and economic efficiency. Finally, it looks at policy feedback, path dependence, policy learning, social learning, policy transfer and policy diffusion, and policy convergence.

The Politics of Hidden Policy: Feedback Effects and the Charitable Contributions Deduction

2018 ◽  
Vol 46 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-80
Author(s):  
Kelly L. Russell
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
The State ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Charitable Organizations ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
Charitable Contributions ◽  
Private Actors ◽  
Over Time

Policy feedback, or the process in which policies create constituencies vested in their maintenance, is a durable feature of the American welfare state. Scholars have shown that policy visibility conditions how feedback effects unfold: for public-private policies—arrangements in which the state delegates service provision to private actors, often described as “hidden” or “submerged”—policy feedback typically galvanizes not citizens but market actors that benefit indirectly from these subsidies. This article extends theories of public-private policy feedback from market actors to charitable organizations through a case study of the charitable contributions deduction. The deduction’s incremental expansion is found to have mobilized charities as powerful stakeholders in the policy’s endurance. Charities’ efforts to protect the deduction, together with the efforts of lawmakers, have couched the policy in a politics of neoliberalism and disguised its effects, insulating it from reform even as elites have netted a greater share of its benefits over time.

scholarly journals Healthcare Reform Repeal Efforts in the United States in 2017: An Inquiry into Public Advocacy Efforts by Key Interest Groups

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 190-204
Author(s):  
John Hoornbeek ◽  
Bethany Lanese ◽  
Mutlaq Albugmi ◽  
Joshua Filla
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Health Insurance ◽  
Interest Groups ◽  
Interest Group ◽  
Healthcare Reform ◽  
The United States ◽  
Business Community ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Design Features ◽  
Feedback Effects

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) was subjected to repeated repeal and replace efforts in the United States Congress in 2017. Attempts to repeal and replace the law failed, but penalties for not complying with its mandate that individuals purchase health insurance were removed in tax legislation passed late in the year and administrative actions taken by President Trump yielded additional concerns about the stability of the law’s reform approach and the expanded health insurance access that it created. This article explores public advocacy efforts by key interest groups from three major policy sectors—health providers, the insurance industry, and the business community—that had served as an “axis of opposition” to past American healthcare reform efforts. It identifies resource and incentive policy feedback effects that appear likely to influence these groups due to design features of the ACA and assesses whether patterns of advocacy efforts in 2017 are consistent with what might be expected if these design features had their predicted effects. Our assessment reveals patterns of interest group advocacy that are consistent with what might be expected to arise from resource and incentive based policy feedback effects, and interest group political dynamics that differ from what was in place prior to passage of the ACA. It also reveals advocacy patterns that are not well explained by resource and incentive based policy feedback effects, and—in so doing—yields insights that are relevant to the design of policy reforms and future research.

scholarly journals When and How New Policy Creates New Politics: Examining the Feedback Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Public Opinion

2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 345-363 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lawrence R. Jacobs ◽  
Suzanne Mettler
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Affordable Care Act ◽  
Policy Design ◽  
Panel Study ◽  
Policy Feedback ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Feedback Effects ◽  
New Politics ◽  
The Affordable Care Act

Following E. E. Schattschneider’s observation that “a new policy creates a new politics,” scholars of “policy feedback” have theorized that policies influence subsequent political behavior and public opinion. Recent studies observe, however, that policy feedback does not always occur and the form it takes varies considerably. To explain such variation, we call for policy feedback studies to draw more thoroughly on public opinion research. We theorize that: (1) feedback effects are not ubiquitous and may in some instances be offset by political factors, such as partisanship and trust in government; (2) policy design may generate self-interested or sociotropic motivations, and (3) feedback effects result not only from policy benefits but also from burdens. We test these expectations by drawing on a unique panel study of Americans’ responses to the Affordable Care Act. We find competing policy and political pathways, which produce variations in policy feedback.

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