Just do it! Shifting dimensions of social innovation in Basic Income advocacy and experiments

This working paper is a slightly revised verion of the conference paper Pel, B. & Backhaus, J. (2016), Just do it; Shifting dimensions of social innovation in Basic Income experiments, presented at the Interpretive Policy Analysis conference 5-7 July 2016, Hull (UK). It builds on an in-depth case study on the Basic Income and the BIEN network, and uses the case to test and develop the co-production framework on Transformative Social Innovation developed within the TRANSIT project. The paper presents a case study on the Basic Income as a social innovation with strong transformative ambitions towards a re-constituted social security system. The principled advocacy for it has evoked somewhat intractable controversies about expected effects. However, there is also a recent trend towards more pragmatic approaches. Whether through crowdfunding or through governmental experimentation, these initiatives seem to bypass the principled debates and aim for concrete demonstrations instead. ‘Just do it’ seems to be the motto. Mistrusted as watering down by principled Basic Income advocates, eagerly followed by media and attractive for local authorities, the involved protagonists clearly struggle to untangle the innovative and reproductive ramifications of this shift in approach. This debate is clarified and deepened by highlighting how new forms of activism and experiments entail shifting dimensions of social innovation. 

Citation

Pel, B. and Backhaus, J. (2016) Just do it! Shifting dimensions of social innovation in Basic Income advocacy and experiments, (TRANSIT working paper # 6), TRANSIT: EU SSH.2013.3.2-1 Grant agreement no: 613169.