Jim Kemeny

Comparative housing and welfare: Theorising the relationship

Housing accounts for a high proportion of the capital investment component of welfare, and is the largest single item in household budgets. It also plays a major part in defining life styles and structuring the urban environment. It is argued that in the light of this, housing must cease to be treated as the poor relative of the four pillars of welfare and the vital role it plays must be recognised, especially in terms of synergy with other dimensions of welfare – notably pensions – that sets limits to the way welfare states are organised. Differences in how housing is organised between countries therefore need to be given much closer and more theoretically informed attention by welfare researchers than has been the case hitherto. In this article a first step is made toward this end.

Corporatism and Housing Regimes

According to Torgersen (1978), education, health care, social security and housing are the four pillars of the welfare state. However, he describes housing as the “wobbly pillar under the welfare state” because to a far greater degree than education, health care and social security, housing is a market product. When examining welfare, the equivocal position of housing between state and market leads welfare researchers to focus on one or more of the other pillars (Torgersen, 1987, p 117; Wilensky, 1975, pp. 7–9). Because housing straddles both state and market, it is probable that vested market interests are more prominent in housing than in other welfare sectors. For this reason the housing market is likely to reflect the power balance between different interest groups particularly clearly, especially in comparison with other important welfare sectors where the market still plays a much more limited role. The market dependency of housing therefore makes it especially interesting for the study of power in welfare research. In this article I discuss the place of housing in the welfare system, emphasizing the dimension of power. I begin with a survey of the difference between integrated rental markets and dualist rental systems. This is followed by an examination of Esping‐Andersens thesis presented in Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (1990), focusing on his concept of regime and his application of corporatist theory to his welfare regime typology. My examination points to a clear connection between countries with an integrated rental housing market and countries viewed by leading corporatist theorists as classic examples of society with a corporatist power structure.

Non-profit Housing Influencing, Leading and Dominating the Unitary Rental Market: Three Case Studies

The distinction between dual rental systems and unitary rental markets is refined and developed. In particular, unitary rental markets are defined as markets in which barriers to non-profit providers competing on the rental market are removed, reserving the term ‘integrated rental markets’ for markets in which non-profit providers are sufficiently developed to be able to compete without the need for invasive regulation. The study also develops the distinction made in previous work between markets in which non-profit providers influence, lead and dominate the market. Case studies are then presented: Switzerland, where non-profit renting is weakly influencing, Sweden where it is leading, and the Netherlands where it is dominating. It is concluded that while in both the Netherlands and Sweden there is evidence of continual deregulation consistent with a tendency from unitary to integrated markets, there is no evidence of consistent change in that direction and even signs of some retrograde changes.

Toward a theorised housing studies: A counter‐critique of the provision thesis

Abstract Haywards critique of my Australian work (Housing Studies Vol 1 No 4) was based upon a perspective that takes the provision of housing as its starting point. In this paper I reply to that critique, both in terms of the wider conceptual concerns it is based upon and the substantive critique of my analysis of home ownership in Australia. I argue that the ‘provision thesis’, as I term it, involves a mistaken focus upon what should or should not be the substantive focus of housing research, instead of, as would be more fruitful, developing a theoretically adequate approach to the study of housing as a whole. The critique of my Australian work exemplifies the problems that can arise when provision is taken as the starting point for any analysis of housing to the exclusion of other concerns.

The significance of Swedish rental policy: Cost renting: Command economy versus the social market in comparative perspective

Abstract Recent literature on the Swedish rental system has missed the central significance of the Swedish system for international comparative purposes by neglecting the rent‐setting system and by unwittingly adopting an Anglo‐Saxon perspective. In this paper I attempt to rectify this by developing a comparative conceptual framework for the analysis of rental systems. I outline the post‐war history of the Swedish rent‐setting system, and argue that this constitutes an example of a unitary social rental market in the making, whereby public and private renting are integrated and public renting expands to become market leader for rent‐setting purposes. According to this model, public renting is allowed to compete with private renting such that its cost structure increasingly determines the rent levels on the rental market as a whole. This ‘market strategy’ constrasts to the Anglo‐Saxon model in which public renting is segregated from private renting, its growth suppressed (or even reversed through discounte...

Defining housing reality: Ideological hegemony and power in housing research

Abstract An understanding of the dynamics of the research process and an awareness of the power structure of research can contribute towards heightened awareness of researchers in developing new ways of thinking and breaking down hegemonic perspectives. The task of this discussion is to begin a process of internal dialogue among housing researchers based on moving towards a more explicated awareness of the implicit paradigms and opaque power structures which determine what become and what do not become accepted wisdoms. When a constructivist perspective taken from the sociology of science is applied to housing studies it is argued that dominant paradigms can be discerned. These can be understood in relation to the organisation of housing research both institutionally and in disciplinary terms, while sustenance of existing paradigms, or the development of new ones, are achieved through pervasive interpersonal micro processes.

The Social Construction of Housing Facts

The image of science as a detached pursuit of objective truth has come under increasing attack in recent years, and there are now a substantial number of studies of a range of natural sciences which indicate how their findings are socially constructed. In this paper a similar analysis is applied to housing studies, to show how the socially constructed nature of the natural sciences is not unique but also applies to housing studies. The discussion is in three parts: the construction of the data which constitute housing facts; their use to assemble concepts and themes; the refraction of these “facts” and concepts through the research power structure to create a socially constructed pattern of accepted truths and their unaccepted counterparts.

A Critique and Reformulation of the New Urban Sociology

It is argued that Marxian urban sociology as developed in the last decade requires substantial reformulation if it is to make any further progress. The problem with the approach is that although the new urban sociology was founded on a Marxist critique of traditional urban sociology its analytical perspective has remained economistic. Crucially, this has resulted in the concept of class being neglected as a result of having been displaced by a focus on basic economic processes, such as the declining rate of profit and the changing organic composition of capital, in relation to urban structure. The need is argued for more sociological dialectical analysis rather than abandonment and reversion to Weberian analysis.

Both rationed and subsidised: Jersey's command economy in housing

ABSTRACT The bailiwick of Jerseys special constitutional position has given it the opportunity to develop its own economic, cultural and policy strategies. Becoming an off-shore tax haven, with a flat rate income tax of 20 per cent, no VAT, no inheritance tax and no capital gains tax, has brought with it the need to strictly limit residency. A key instrument in this has been housing policy and draconian measures have been introduced by the States of Jersey to ration access to housing through a complex series of stacked housing rights directly linked to residency rights. At the same time, the high cost of housing on Jersey that has resulted from economic pressures has forced the States to subsidise housing to certain categories of those who fulfil the residency requirements. This paper describes Jerseys unique and little known housing system. It is suggested that Jerseys housing policy strategy can be fruitfully understood in a broader international comparative context and in relation to other tax-haven...

Rule Systems Theory: Applications and Explorations

Rule Systems Theory, or Social Rule System Theory, is one of the routes that have been taken in developing ideas stemming from a central conceptual problem of post-war sociology: integrating micro and macro levels of sociological analysis. Many sociologists have tried to formulate an integrated synthesis, notably Talcott Parsons (structural functionalism), Norbert Elias (figurational or process studies), Anthony Giddens (structuration) and Randall Collins (interaction ritual chains), to name but a few of the better known. Rule Systems Theory is another attempt at a synthesis, in which Tom R. Burns has been central both as a leading representative and as a network-builder and mentor. On the back cover, Falm and Carson describe the perspective as follows: