Measuring and explaining support for basic income among Finnish political parties.
Lindsay Stirton (University of Sussex) and Jurgen De Wispelaere (University of Bath/Tampere University)
In this paper we propose to contribute to the understanding of the link between increased policy attention and effective political support for basic income by examining the positions of Finnish political parties during eleven election cycles (1979-2016), using a specially constructed dataset. Modelling support for basic income as a response to a party's left-right position (as determined by the Comparative Manifesto Project's estimates) reveals a paradox: while more left-wing parties are more likely to support basic income, across the political spectrum any given political party is likely to be at its most favourably disposed to basic income when it is otherwise at its most right wing.