These developments suggest a policy window has opened up to push forward the basic income idea in Europe and elsewhere (Kingdon, Reference Kingdon1995). Footnote 2 While much resistance persists among both policy-makers and the general public, quasi-overnight basic income has nevertheless become a credible alternative to orthodox thinking on combating poverty, economic inequality and crisis austerity.
In Finland the newly elected centre-right government announced the introduction of a large-scale basic income experiment in its 2015 Government Programme, and has since taken steps towards establishing a research group with the remit to prepare a pilot study to be conducted in 2017. Footnote 1 In its wake media outlets en masse started airing the basic income idea, while on the ground grassroots movements advocating the proposal mushroomed. The 2013 victory of a Swiss Citizen's Initiative to hold a referendum on the proposal to grant each citizen a €2800 monthly unconditional grant initiated a period of exponential interest in the basic income idea across Europe. A few years ago Philippe Van Parijs, one of the leading basic income advocates, wrote that ‘universal basic income is now far more than just a philosophical pipe dream’ (Van Parijs, Reference Van Parijs2013: 174).
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