This study aims to examine the newly emerging political spheres formed by the interaction of various actors in the process of institutionalizing Seongnam Youth Dividend (YD). Many studies on basic income have focused on presenting the normative justif...
This study aims to examine the newly emerging political spheres formed by the interaction of various actors in the process of institutionalizing Seongnam Youth Dividend (YD). Many studies on basic income have focused on presenting the normative justification of basic income, or designing a policy model and evaluating its effectiveness. These studies regard basic income as an idea with normative justification and rational policy design. However, it is necessary to examine why the idea of basic income attracted attention in a specific time and space and what discussions and institutional practices emerged in the process of institutionalizing this policy. In what historical and political context did the idea of basic income draw attention as a feasible policy? To make the idea of basic income a real policy, what strategies of persuasion and mobilization did the policymakers make? Who became interested in this policy, and how did these various actors ally, conflict, and compromise? Through this process, which character of the policy strengthened, while what weakened?
By conducting in-depth interview and discursive analysis, I examined the formation and transformation of the policy-network of YD. Specifically, I trace the trajectory of the issue of YD which changed by the interaction of various actors - basic income activists, politicians, media, small business owners, etc. -. Also, I analyzed which figures, discourses, and indicators became powerful links representing several actors in this policy-network, while which actors failed to form an alliance or remained in the periphery of the network.
Chapter 2 examines the background in which the idea of basic income attracted attention as a feasible policy in Korea in the 2010s. Basic income could be a real policy as the basic income movement, which began in the late 2000s, met the rise of universalism in welfare policy after the debate over free school lunch program in 2010. In the late 2000s, some left, green political activists, and social policy scholars, each for different reasons, support basic income as a new agenda of social movement and social policy. Since the early 2010s, they began working together centered on Basic Income Korean Network (BIKN), and they agreed to justify basic income as “dividend of common wealth”. Meanwhile, Seongnam City Government, run by Lee Jae-myung, paid attention to basic income as a means to solve the problem of inequality and to make the state’s duties to social security the object of public discussion on behalf of the slogan of “universal welfare” whose political power weakened. The idea of basic income could be discussed at the policy level, as Seongnam City Government sought advice from BIKN on the pilot basic income.
Chapter 3 describes how the policymakers of YD organized a network that can make the idea of basic income a real policy. They connected the concept of dividend of the common wealth, the generational category of youth, and local currency. They proposed basic income as a new way to solve the youth problem, which has been a major social problem since the late 2000s, and sought to publicize basic income by making the best use of the popularity of youth discourse. The policymakers proposed paying YD in local currency. To do so, they problematized inequality between large capital and small capital, and presented a blueprint that welfare and the economy could circulate centered on consumption, not labor. They made local small business owners allies of this policy by presenting YD as relevant to the economic interests of small business owners through local currency.
Chapter 4 describes the process of changing this policy-network in three phases from September 2015, when Seongnam City Government announced YD, to April 2019, when Gyeonggi Province Government expanded YD to Gyeonggi Youth Basic Income. The first phase is during the Park Geun Hye government, which conflicted with local governments over welfare budgets, opposed the introduction of YD, and debates over the introduction of YD by politicians and media began. The Park Geun Hye government, the ruling party, and conservative media emphasized independence through labor as a virtue of youth and opposed the introduction of YD. In contrast, politicians of the Democratic Party and progressive media which advocated this policy, called for the difficulties of the youth and emphasized the need for social support for the youth. In their debate, YD was publicized as a cash transfer program to the youth rather than as a basic income pilot. The key issue was whether youths deserve welfare benefits.
The second phase is when the policy-network was reorganized around basic income, with basic income rapidly emerging as an agenda that received public attention after the shock of AlphaGo in the spring of 2016. The public of YD reassembled around basic income by resetting their positions and strategies, and the activists of welfare state movement became a new member of the public. Some researchers of BIKN suggested them a political alliance. However, numbers of welfare activists rejected the suggestion because basic income violates the principle of social security. Meanwhile, as politicians and the media treated YD and basic income as “Lee Jae-myung’s policy,“ YD, which emerged through a coalition of various actors, were attributed to the individual brand of Lee Jae-myung, which poses a risk of reducing the basic income agenda to capricious political disputes.
The third phase is when the policy-network was reorganized around local currency in 2017, when the Moon Jae In government linked YD to plans to compensate for small business owners’ losses from raising the minimum wage under the stance of income-led growth. In order to support small business owners, various studies, laws, and institutions were formed and distributed toward strengthening the connection between social security benefits and local currency.
YD spread in the form of ‘local currency connected welfare benefits’ to many regions. In this process, the confrontation between recipients’ right of choice and small business owners’ economic interests became a new point of friction. Soon after, the center of gravity tilted toward strengthening the recipient’s convenience as a consumer. This is because the Moon Jae In government presented the issue amount of local currency as a measure of the effect of revitalizing the local economy. Local governments have greatly eased restrictions on franchisees of local currency to increase the issue amount of local currency by strengthening the convenience of recipients. As a result, the local currency connected welfare benefits deepened inequality between large capital and small capital rather than revitalizing the grassroots economy.
Without presupposing overall norms or narratives through the institutionalization process of YD, this study aimed to reveal the alliances that strengthens or weakens the specific character of YD or interference challenging such alliances by describing the formation and transformation of the policy-network of YD. Basic income is still an open network in which its character can change through intervention and translation of various actors. I hope this study will be helpful for those who want to explore the emerging political spheres formed in the process of institutionalizing YD, and those who want to make a constructive connection between the radical possibility of basic income and the real conditions in which basic income is situated.