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1. Introduction: How Popular is Basic Income? -- 1.1. Basic income: From a disarmingly simple idea to a deceptively simple one -- 1.2. The popularity of basic income -- 2. Popular Support for the Ideal-typical Basic Income -- 2.1. Across the board -- 2.2. Individual differences -- 3. Popular Support for Differently Designed Varieties of Basic Income -- 3.1. Across the board -- 3.2. Individual differences -- 4. Reasons for Supporting or Opposing Basic Income -- 4.1. Across the board -- 4.2. Individual differences. 5. Conclusion: Implications for the Political Feasibility of Basic Income -- 5.1. Eight political challenges and their opportunities -- 5.2. A research agenda. .

Tijs Laenen has written an insightful and important book that not only tells the reader what to make of popular support for basic income, but also how it affects the prospect of basic income becoming policy reality in our near future. A must-read for anyone taking basic income seriously! Jurgen De Wispelaere, Assistant Professor, Stockholm School of Economics, Riga (Latvia) & Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University (Finland) Tijs Laenen, himself an expert in the design and conduct of opinion polls, offers us an invaluable overview of the popularity of basic income across the developed world. His book is an indispensable tool for those who have an interest in the future of basic income and, more generally, in the feasibility of social protection reforms. Yannick Vanderborght, Professor of Political Science at Université Saint-Louis - Bruxelles (Belgium) This book provides a state-of-the-art overview of the popularity of basic income among the general public. Using data from a wide array of public opinion polls conducted in different countries and years, the book first charts popular support for the ideal-typical version of basic income, broadly defined as a "periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirement". On top of that, the book maps popular support for the many other, differently designed varieties of basic income that are part of real-world proposals, pilots, and experiments -- including, for example, a participation income, a negative income tax, and a stakeholder grant. By investigating how and why support for different types of basic income varies across countries, evolves over time, and differs between individuals with different characteristics, this book offers crucial information about the political constituencies that can be mobilized in favor of (or against) the introduction of basic income, thereby contributing to our knowledge on the political feasibility of basic income. Tijs Laenen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences of Tilburg University, the Netherlands, where he holds a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship, and at the Centre for Sociological Research of KU Leuven, Belgium, where he is coordinator of the "Basic Income in Belgium" project.

A recurring theme in welfare state research is that public support for social welfare is related to the institutional design of welfare policies. However, strong empirical evidence for the institutional embeddedness of welfare attitudes has been lacking to date, and the underlying theoretical mechanisms remain underexplored. This article diverges from the widespread macro-perspective of welfare regime theory, by shifting the focus of its analysis from countries to income benefit schemes within the heterogeneous welfare context of the Netherlands. Based on the 2006 Welfare Opinions Survey, results show that the institutional design of three differently organized benefit schemes (the people's pension, workers' unemployment insurance and social assistance) is meaningfully related to popular perceptions of self-interest, programme performance and welfare deservingness. These intermediate perceptions, in turn, appear to have a significant impact on the social legitimacy of welfare allocation to the target groups of the schemes: pensioners, unemployed people and social assistance recipients.

AbstractThis research note investigates how people combine their views on two radically opposing welfare reforms: a universal basic income and a fully means‐tested welfare state. Using data from the 2016–2017 European Social Survey, we found that support for transformative welfare reform is rooted in perceptions of the performance of the current system. The preferred direction of reform, however, strongly depends on the specific aspects of the welfare state people are happy or unhappy with. At the country‐level, we show that underperforming welfare states—in terms of higher poverty rates and lower social spending—increase popular demand for transformative welfare reform, in either direction. These findings are of crucial importance for ongoing debates about the future of the welfare state.

PurposeIn the social policy literature, it is often assumed that universal policies are more popular than selective ones among the public, because they supposedly generate broader self-interested coalitions and are considered morally superior. The present article revisits and challenges this assumption.Design/methodology/approachThe article critically reviews the existing empirical literature on public support for universal and means-tested welfare schemes.FindingsThe main conclusion is that the popularity of universal vis-à-vis selective welfare remains very much an open question. First, the studies that are typically cited to support the claim that universalism is indeed more popular are inconclusive because they conflate the institutional design of welfare programs with their respective target groups. Second, there is considerable variation in public support for universal and selective welfare across countries, time and policy domains.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings suggest that future research should focus on scrutinizing under which circumstances – when, where and why – universal social policies are more popular than selective ones.Originality/valueThe article makes an original case for considering perceived welfare deservingness of social policies' target groups alongside the policy design when studying popular support for differently targeted welfare schemes.

In light of the ever‐growing shift towards activation in European welfare states, the present article examines the relationship between citizens' welfare generosity (i.e., support for social rights) and welfare conditionality (i.e., support for social obligations) with regard to the unemployed. Using data from the 2014 Belgian National Elections Study, we found that generosity and conditionality appear to be two sides of the same coin. The two factors are negatively correlated, and most of their respective attitudinal drivers are quite similar in strength, yet opposite in direction. In addition to self‐interest and conventionally recognised ideational beliefs, such as egalitarianism and individualism, beliefs about welfare deservingness – an explanatory factor that has remained understudied in the field – are particularly influential in shaping people's welfare preferences. A stronger emphasis on criteria of deservingness such as control, attitude and reciprocity considerably lowers support for social rights and strengthens support for social duties.

AbstractAlthough a basic income (BI) has already been widely debated, the COVID-19 crisis further intensified the discussion about this periodic cash payment that is unconditionally delivered to all. However, it remains unclear whether the crisis spurred a wave of public support for its introduction. To investigate this, we aim to answer two research questions: (1) How did support for a BI evolve in reaction to the COVID-19 crisis? and (2) To what extent did the evolution in support differ across regional contexts and social groups with varying levels of deprivation? We rely on a natural experiment by analysing data from the Belgian National Elections Study that was collected both before and during the pandemic. The results indicate an increase in support for a BI due to the pandemic, although it seems short lived and not necessarily specific to a BI. Importantly, however, the increase in popularity is only observable in the high-unemployment French-speaking region of Belgium and among relatively deprived groups.

Welfare attitudes in times of crisis and austerity / Bart Meuleman, Wim van Oorschot and Tijs Laenen -- Welfare criticism in times of economic crisis : perceptions of moral, economic and social consequences of the welfare state, 2008-2016 / Bart Meuleman and Sam Delespaul -- The perceived abuse of welfare benefits in times of crisis : change or stability in the achilles' heel of welfare state legitimacy? / Femke Roosma -- The ambivalence of material vulnerability as a foundation for welfare dependency attitudes : social distrust or dissatisfaction with the system? / Christian Staerklâe, Jessica Gale and Emanuele Politi -- Changes in Russians' attitudes : what accounts for reduced preferences regarding public welfare provision? / Dimitri Gugushvili and Wim van Oorschot -- Religiosity and support for the welfare state / Heikki Ervasti -- How popular deservingness perceptions mediate the link between unemployment policies and their public support / Tijs Laenen -- The legitimacy of public pensions in an ageing Europe : changes in subjective evaluations and policy preferences, 2008-2016 / Bernhard Ebbinghaus and Elias Naumann -- Welfare nationalism before and after the 'migration crisis' / Maureen A. Eger, Christian Albrekt Larsen and Jan Mewes -- Increasingly connected? : political distrust and dissatisfaction with public services in Europe, 2008-2016 / Lisanne de Blok, Atle Haugsgjerd and Staffan Kumlin -- Institutions versus market forces : explaining the employment insecurity of European individuals eight years after the 2008 financial crisis / Heejung Chung -- Change or continuity in Europeans' welfare attitudes? / Tijs Laenen and Wim van Oorschot.