Basic Income Trials and the Politics of Scale: A Research Agenda

The growing popularity of basic income has led to extensive trials of the policy in numerous settings across the world. However, analysis of the politics of basic income, and in particular the political dynamics preceding and resulting from trial programs, lags. In response, we propose a research agenda that uses political scale to investigate where basic income trials emerge, how individual trials' design and implementation parameters vary, and how those trials influence subsequent policy development. By focusing on the previously omitted variable of political scale, our approach addresses a number of key challenges in evaluating basic income trials. First, we provide a means of identifying negative and partial cases to remedy the small-N problem at the national and regional scales. Second, focusing on a given scale helps to identify specific incumbent programs and policy possibilities influenced by basic income trials. Third, our framework draws attention to the importance of distinct, scale-based political dynamics in both securing basic income trials and converting trial programs into future policy changes.