Table of Contents - 6 How Attractive is a Basic Income for European Welfare States? - 14 Preface - 8 Acknowledgements - 12 Part One - Policy Objectives - 40 In Search of the Double-Edged Sword - 42 Basic Income and its Cognates: Partial Basic Income versus Earned Income Tax Credit and Reductions of Social Security Contributions as Alternative Ways of Addressing the ‘New Social Question’ - 54 Activation and the Burden of Working: On Instrument Choice by a Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian Government - 86 Arguing for a Negative Income Tax in Germany - 108 Hush Money or Emancipation Fee? A Gender Analysis of Basic Income - 122 Prospects for Basic Income in an Age of Inactivity? - 138 Basic Income and Social Europe - 156 Basic Income at the Heart of Social Europe? Reply to Fritz Scharpf - 162 European Basic Income or the Race to the Bottom:Why Politicians Might Come to Think the Unthinkable - 171 Bibliography - 187 Part Two - Political Chances - 196 Clues and Leads in the Debate on Basic Income in the Netherlands - 198 The History of an Idea:Why Did Basic Income Thrill the Finns, but not he Swedes? - 225 From Concept to Green Paper: Putting Basic Income on the Agenda in Ireland - 239 Short Cuts and Wrong Tracks on the Long March to Basic Income: Debating Social Policy Reform in Germany - 248 Ups and Downs of Basic Income in Denmark - 258 What Reforms are Needed for the Minimum Insertion Income (RMI) in France - 269 The VIVANT Experiment in Belgium - 277 Notes on the Contributors - 286 Index - 288