Professor Louise Haagh
Professor

Profile

Biography

Professor Louise Haagh researches and writes about problems relating to the democratisation of human development, economic justice, modalities of institutional change, and social transformation. Louise is also known for her advocacy for a broader humanist, democratic defence of basic income that sets this reform in the context of a human development perspective on freedom and the problem of democratisation of the public sphere. She has four books forthcoming with Palgrave, Polity, and Routledge on this topic.

You can find out more about Louise and her work on her website LouiseHaagh.net. 

Louise Haagh obtained her doctorate in Politics from St. Antony's College, Oxford University, and held a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at St. Antony's from 1998 till 2001. In 2001 she took up a lectureship at the Politics Department of the University of York where she is now a Professor.

Since 2017 Louise has been contracted by the World Health Organisation(WHO), the public health agency of the United Nations, to advise in its work on the European Health Equity Status Report(HESR). WHO plans to publish the HESR every four years as an instrument in advancing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Louise's work on Universal basic income policies and their potential for addressing health inequities was published in June 2019 by the WHO.

Louise has conducted a series of surveys on the function of developmental institutions and on sources of human motivation in the context of different welfare systems. Her comparative empirical work has focussed on labour market institutions, welfare systems and developmental transformation in developing and mature economies, including Chile, South Korea, Brazil, Nordic states and the Anglo-liberal economies, primarily Britain. In the context of her work on economic security she has acted as expert for a range of international organisations and public bodies, most recently the Council of Europe for a period of three years. Her work on basic income has featured in a range of public fora and media. In 2016 she was key-note speaker at a public debate held in the Danish parliament on basic income, and in 2017 witness to an inquiry into the subject held by the Work and Pensions Committee of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. In 2017 her writing was featured by a number of independent think tanks and media, including: Compass, The Royal Society of Arts and Manufacture, and Social Europe. She has participated in a number of recent public or radio debates on the topic, including Bristol Festival of Ideas, BBC World Service, R1 of Denmark, Reality Check - FM4 Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, and the RSA podcast series.

Since 2014  she has been the co-chair elect of the international registered charity, Basic Income Earth Network. She is active in forging public debate between actors interested in basic income, including political parties and the union movement, as exemplified in this public debate between Louise Haagh acting as Chair of BIEN, the Danish LO, and Member of Parliament for the Alternative and Shadow Spokesperson for employment and social affairs, Torsten Gejl.  A write-up about the background behind her engagement with basic income. Her work has been cited in the New Scientist (What Happens if we Pay People Just to Live? - by Hal Hodson.), and she has an article forthcoming in the Magazine Nature – Human Behaviour.

Louise Haagh has been a visiting fellow at a series of research institutes and universities internationally, including Cornell University (USA), Yonsei University (South Korea), and the Brazil Centre at Oxford University. She has held research fellowships from The British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust and has carried out a series of research trips funded by these institutions and the Nuffield Foundation in the Americas and East Asia since coming to York. This work has focussed on the relationship between institutions and human motivation and to that end testing standard behavioural models informing mainstream economics and public policy, as exemplified in (World Development).

Her recent work focusses on drawing out a different account of varieties of capitalism in terms of the role of public sector development, institutional change and democratisation, as exemplified in Policy and Politics; Polity, and Basic Income Studies.

Louise Haagh has also undertaken work under the auspices of several international organisations and public bodies, including the World Bank Social Protection Department, The Council of Europe, The Korean Labor Institute, The World Bank Social Development Department, The Organisation of American States, the International Labour Organisation, and the Canadian Council of Welfare, among others.

In 2014 Louise Haagh’s contribution as a teacher at York was celebrated by her student nomination as one of the 86 present and former staff nominated ‘Faces of Fifty’, demarcating the university’s 50^thAnniversary.

“The quality of her teaching in both lectures and seminars is absolutely outstanding. I was lucky enough to have her as my lecturer and tutor.”
- Faces for Fifty nomination

Cited in New Scientist feature 22 June 2016: What Happens if we Pay People Just to Live? - by Hal Hodson.

BBC World Service Programme ‘In the Balance’ broadcast 19 November 2016.

Panel debate on basic income at the Bristol Festival of Ideas.

Research

Overview

Professor Louise Haagh currently does research on comparative welfare state development in the United Kingdom and Denmark and on basic income and institutional and welfare transformation around the world.

Louise Haagh has been a visiting fellow at a series of research institutes and universities internationally, including Cornell University (USA), Yonsei University (South Korea), and the Brazil Centre at Oxford University. She has held research fellowships from The British Academy and the Leverhulme Trust, and has carried out a series of research trips funded by these institutions and the Nuffield Foundation in the Americas and East Asia since coming to York. This work has focussed on the relationship between institutions and human motivation, and to that end testing standard behavioural models informing mainstream economics and public policy, as exemplified in Science Direct.

Her recent work focusses on drawing out a different account of varieties of capitalism in terms of the role of public sector development, institutional change and democratisation, as exemplified in Policy and Politics; Polity, and Basic Income Studies. Louise Haagh is a world poverty, labour studies and social policy specialist working in the field of comparative labour market institutions, welfare regimes and the political economy of development.

Louise Haagh’s current research focusses on institutional, ethical and public finance aspects of welfare reform in OECD and middle-income countries.  Louise Haagh is writing a book on ‘Basic Income, Welfare States and Human Development Freedom’. She is writing a book for Polity on ‘The Case for Basic Income, and planning a handbook on basic income for Routledge.

In 2015 she participated in a collation of papers engaging with Piketty’s book Capital in the twenty-First Century, to include a response by Piketty. 

Louise Haagh is engaged in a number of international research networks related to her research on development, welfare state, and basic income, with a current focus on the distributive and institutional aspects of economic instability in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Recent engagements include membership of a task force set down by the President-elect of the American Political Science Association, Carole Pateman, on Democracy, Social Justice, and Economic Security in a Volatile World, and membership of a Council of Europe committee of experts, financed by the European Commission, to consider innovative policies to combat poverty in Europe (see ‘external activity’ for links). Other international engagements in 2010 included a key-note speech on Basic Income and Public Finance, at the international conference on 'Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?', University of McGill, Canada, April 15-16, and a plenary speech on ‘Basic Income, Systemic Inequality and Public Policy’, at the Basic Income Earth Network Bi-Annual International Congress, São Paulo, Brazil, 30-June-2nd July, 2010. As a prelude to the conference, she formed part of a small delegation to discuss the feasibility of implementing Brazil’s law on basic income with President of Brazil, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Louise Haagh has also recently undertaken research funded by the British Academy on the relationship between market and welfare reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition, she has been recently engaged in a research network on Perspectives on Work in Europe coordinated by the Institute of Ethics and Poverty Research at the University of Salzburg. In 2011 she took over as joint editor-in-chief of Basic Income Studies. In June 2014 she was elected co-chair of the Basic Income Earth Network, BIEN.

[picture insert, meeting with President Lula of Brazil to discuss implementation of Basic income in Brazil, July 2010]

Projects

Dr Haagh's recent and current research students are:

*  Toprakkiran, Nihan – Welfare State Development in Turkey

* O’Connor, Matthew – Industrial Relations and Labour Welfare in Brazil after Lula

• Tijerina Sepulveda, Walid – Industrial policy and Decentralisation in Mexico
• Smithsarakarn, Phohnthip – Universal Pension Reform and Social Rights in Thailand
• Jervis, Robin Mark – Cooperatives and Working Life in Britain
• Lais, Dimitrios – Neo-Governmentality – a Framework
• Lee, Tae-Hoek – Regional Cooperation in Latin America (completed 2015)
• Song, Wonseop - Political Economy of State Transformation: South Korea (completed 2015)
• Yang, Donqing - Social Policy Reform in China (completed 2015)
• Farhad Morit Moshtagh Sefat – Political Economy of Iran: Culture vs. Institutions (Begun June 2010)
• Christian Becerril – The State and Anti-Poverty Policy in Mexico (completed 2013)
• Sang-Hyeb Lee – The Developmental Welfare State and Labour Market Reform in Korea (completed 2011)
• Craig Wirt – Missing Link? The Role of Collective Bargaining in Connecting Political to Social Democracy: The Case of Bolivia under Morales (completed 2010)
• Rowan Allport – Development and EU Accession in Malta (completed 2011)
• Angel Chen – Regionalism and Regionalisation in South East Asia (completed 2010)
• Jesús Mena-Vazquez – Expanding the Horizons of Poor People - The Importance of Economic Security (completed 2007)

Supervision

Dr Haagh would be interested in supervising students in the following areas

• Basic Income
• Welfare States and Social Justice
• Comparative Development and Institutional Change - Institutional and Comparative Systems Theory
• Comparative Labour Studies
• Development and Democratisation
• Theories and Policies of Development Governance
• Political Economy of Institutions and Development
• Latin American Politics and Political Economy
• Theories and Policies related to Poverty
• Politics of Labour Market Reform
• The Ethics and Political Economy of Work and Development

Publications

Selected publications

You can see a full list of Louise's publications on her personal website LouiseHaagh.net

External activities

Memberships

Louise has her own website with in-depth details of her external activities

Professor Louise Haagh is elected co-chair and acting chair of the Basic Income Earth Network (BIEN). BIEN is a registered charity with headquarter in Brussels with the aim to connect individuals interested in basic income and foster informed debate about this topic around the world.

She is co-editor-in-chief of the academic journal Basic Income Studies

Louise Haagh is a Trustee of the Citizens’ Income Trust of the UK.

Louise was contacted by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the public health agency of the United Nations, to advise in its work on the European Health Equity Status Report(HESR). WHO plans to publish the HESR every four years as an instrument in advancing the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Louise participated as an expert advisor during meetings of the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts(SAGE) held in UN City in Copenhagen, Denmark, 24-26 April 2018, and 6-8 November 2018.

Between 2010-2013 Louise Haagh acted as expert for the Council of Europe in a project financed by the European Commission to advance human rights in Europe after the economic crisis. Louise Haagh gave a plenary address at the Council of Europe’s presentation of the report at the CoE headquarters in Strasbourg. The result of this work was published in the following report:

• Council of Europe, Living in Dignity in the Twenty-First Century, co-authored with four other contracted experts (Ugo Mattei, Emilio Santoro, Diane Roman, Laurent Bonelli).

In the year 2010-11 Louise Haagh was selected to act as a member of the task force set up to investigate the problem of Democracy, Economic Security and Social Justice in a Volatile World under the auspices of the American Political Science Association headed by President-elect Prof. Carole Pateman: Michael Goodhart, University of Pittsburgh, Task Force Chair; Carole Pateman, University of  California, Los Angeles, Ex Officio, 2010-11 APSA President;Archon Fung, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University;  Varun Gauri,World Bank; Siri Gloppen, University of Bergen (Norway); Louise Haagh, University of York (UK); Patrick Heller, Brown University;Enrique Peruzzotti, University Torcuato Di Tella (Argentina); Anja Rudiger, National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (New York);Hans Peter Schmitz, Maxwell School, Syracuse University;Guy Standing,University of Bath (UK); Brian Wampler, Boise State University;Susanna D. Wing, Haverford College.

• "Democratic Imperatives: Innovations in Rights, Participation, and Economic Citizenship", American Political Science Association Task Force Report, Washington D.C., pp.88, released June 4^th 2012.

Invited talks and conferences

• Louise Haagh on Basic Income and Public Finance, keynote speech at the international conference on 'Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?', University of McGill, Canada, April 15-16 2010.
• 2015 talks include invited keynote speech on ‘Freedom, the Economy and Institutions - Analytical Blind-spots in BI Research’, at the ‘Future of Basic Income Research’ conference hosted by the Max Weber Institute at the European University, Florence, Italy, on 26-27 June 2015.

In December 2015, Louise Haagh gives a talk on ‘Basic Income and Transformation of Welfare States’, at the London School of Economics.

Recent Activity:

• In September 2016 Louise gave a keynote speech at the Danish parliament buildings on basic income in a Nordic welfare state context.
• October 2016 she participated in a panel debate at the Bristol Festival of Economics on basic income.
• In November 2016 she participated in a BBC World Service panel debate on the topic: BBC World Service Programme ‘In the Balance’ broadcast 19 November 2016.
• In December 201 she have the keynote speech to inaugurate the formation of BIEN Iceland, in Iceland
• In January 2017 she acted as expert witness to an Inquiry into Citizens Income held by the Work and Pensions Committee of the UK parliament: Kingdom.
• In February 2017 she published an article with the think tank Compass, which was later reproduced in the debate forum Social Europe:
• In March 2017 she held the Keynote speech at the annual meeting of BIEN Denmark, in a panel debate with member of the Danish parliament for the Alternatives, Torsten Gejl, and head consultant for the Danish national organisation of trades Unions (LO), Christian  Christian Sølyst
• In March 2017 she published an article with the British think tank Royal Society of Arts, and participated in a Radio Podcast organised by the RSA with Labour MP Jon Cruddas, and journalist for the Financial Times, John Thornhill.

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Louise Haagh speaking at the Danish parliament in Copenhagen about Basic Income Debate and the Nordic Model, at the Nordic Conference on Basic Income Models, Copenhagen September 22-23rd 2016.

Basic Income: The Nordic Model

Debate 3

Media coverage

Radio interview (in Danish P1 Orientering) 23 September 2016.

In March 2017 Louise took part in a radio debate hosted by the Royal Society of Arts, with Labour MP Jon Cruddas, and John Thornhill, Innovation Editor at the Financial Times

RSA Radio - Is Basic Income the right response to the new world of work?