The universal basic income (UBI) has found its way into public debates and has prominent advocates across almost all political camps. In many debates, it is presented as a solution for the consequences of a large variety of current societal challenges, such as unemployment, over-education, ecological crises, gender inequality and issues related to digitalization and automatization. While UBI has been discussed broadly from an expert position, we know very little about the population’s perceptions of UBI. Thus, to shed light on the public legitimacy of UBI as a radically different concept of social justice and citizenship, our contribution uses data from large group discussions where participants explicitly refer to the UBI as an option for a future welfare state. By comparing debates in Slovenia and Germany, we unearth that the perspective adopted by the participants towards a UBI is strongly shaped by the welfare institutions of the countries in which they live and the social justice principles embodied in those institutions.

Four distinct visions of health care solidarity emerged from our Deliberative Forums on health care in the UK, Norway, Germany and Slovenia, which we term exclusive solidarity, universal solidarity, contributory solidarity, and equalitarian solidarity. These visions reveal national differences in citizens' ideas about the appropriate risk-community for healthcare, as well as the rights and duties of the members of this community. To some extent, these visions are related to the institutional organization of healthcare, and the history of healthcare institutions in these countries. They are often compatible with the attitudes expressed in large public opinion surveys. But the unusual opportunity provided by the Deliberative Forums for allowing participants to fully articulate their ideas and their justifications for their values also allows us to identify more coherent and measured rationales for these differences in public opinion, and their implications for the future politics of the welfare state.

The article deals with inequalities in exercising the right to participate in elementary schools in Slovenia. We chiefly focus on the participation of children in various participatory practices such as class communities represented by class representatives, school communities in some cases represented by school representatives, the Children’s Parliament etc. Our findings (based on thematic analysis of 15 focus groups with 157 children) show that class representatives and forum participants are most often selected based on their personality traits (eloquent children actively involved in class and outside school activities, children with exemplary behaviour who are driven, independent, reliable, trusted and popular among classmates and teachers) and/or their high educational attainment. They are perceived to have better opportunities and talents than other children and, in principle, come from families which are not socio-economically deprived. On the contrary, pupils from disadvantaged socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, children with behavioural, emotional and learning difficulties do not receive the opportunity to actively participate and are (at best) merely represented. Using both the Rawlsian approach to the conceptualisation of justice (1971, 1999) and the recognition approach (Fraser, 2001), we assess whether the arrangement and practice of child participation in schools in Slovenia may be considered just. We argue that, according to the first approach, the arrangement of child participation in elementary schools in Slovenia can be considered just under certain conditions whereas, according to the second approach, less so. Child participation lacks substantive equality in participation outcomes even though in principle all children have the same right to participate.

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