BIEN Congress 2020, call for papers, deadline extended

Thematic areas

Headline theme: Basic income, the ecological crisis and a new age of automation

Can basic income play a role in tackling the multifaceted ecological and social crises confronting the world today? As climate change and the ‘new age’ of automation continue to re-shape the globe, can and should basic income form part our answer to these challenges? For instance:

• Can basic income be part of a Green New Deal or is a Job Guarantee a better way forward?
• Can basic income promote ‘de-growth’ and genuine sustainability?
• Should automation and digitisation be used as a justification for basic income? What is the evidence regarding the impact of these technological processes on the availability of jobs?
• Is basic income an adequate replacement for any technological unemployment that may occur (now or in the future)?

We invite submissions related to all aspects of our headline theme, and/or our other thematic areas below.

Other thematic areas:

• Basic income in Australia and New Zealand — What are the specific opportunities and challenges for a basic income in the Australian and New Zealand contexts?
• Political strategies for achieving basic income — What are the most effective political strategies for achieving a basic income on a national or regional level within 10 years? Are basic income experiments a dead end? Are the political campaigns built around the Swiss Referendum and Andrew Yang’s US Presidential Campaign a better way forward? Are there other alternatives?
• Basic income and gender — Can basic income be an instrument for a redefinition of traditional gender roles and a redistribution of unpaid work? Or would it just reinforce the sexual division of labour?
• Poverty, inequality and social injustice — How might basic income address structural inequalities and oppression across vulnerable groups (for example age, disability, LGBTIQ+, culture, locality) during transition and later phases? How might progressive policies, social movements, activists and other actors play a role in shaping the basic income policy agenda to redress poverty, inequality and social exclusion?
• Basic income and Indigenous communities — Can basic income play a role in reducing socio-economic inequalities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities? Can basic income play a role in self-determination for Indigenous communities?

• Basic income and the end of workfare — What are the social, economic and health consequences of workfare regimes? What role could basic income play in ameliorating them?
• Basic income and migration — What are the appropriate criteria for deciding who should be entitled to a basic income within a particular nation state?
• Basic income and the creative arts — What role can basic income play in supporting the creative arts and artists in contemporary society?
• The macroeconomics of basic income — How would basic income affect economic growth, labour supply and inflation?
• Basic income versus basic services — Are these complementary policies or competing alternatives?
• Post-capitalism and basic income — Is basic income a pathway to a post-capitalist future?
• Modelling basic income schemes — This theme calls for specific modelling of the static costs of basic income schemes in different national and regional settings.
• Funding a basic income — What is the optimal taxation mix for funding an adequate basic income scheme in different national and regional settings?
• Challenges of implementation — How can tax and transfer systems be integrated to accommodate the introduction of basic income schemes in different national and regional settings?