The Big Society and the Conjunction of Crises: Justifying Welfare Reform and Undermining Social Housing

Abstract

The idea of the “Big Society” can be seen as culmination of a long-standing debate about the regulation of welfare. Situating the concept within governance theory, the article considers how the UK coalition government has justified a radical restructuring of welfare provision, and considers its implications for housing provision. Although drawing on earlier modernization processes, the article contends that the genesis for welfare reform was based on an analysis that the government was forced to respond to a unique conjunction of crises: in morality, the state, ideology and economics. The government has therefore embarked upon a programme, which has served to undermine the legitimacy of the social housing sector (most notably in England), with detrimental consequences for residents and raising significant dilemmas for those working in the housing sector.     

Social Housing Agencies and the Governance of Anti-social Behaviour

Current policy and discourse concerning the governance of anti-social behaviour in the UK has emphasised the spatial concentration of disorder on particular social housing estates. Policy has sought to respond by devolving management of the processes of social control to local neighbourhoods. Local authorities, and social housing agencies in particular, are being given an increasing role within multi-agency partnerships aimed at governing local incidences of anti-social behaviour. This paper places this emerging role for social housing agencies within theories of governmentality and wider trends in urban governance and suggests that present developments may be understood through a paradigm of housing governance. Drawing on studies in Edinburgh and Glasgow, the paper examines the role of social housing agencies in the governance of anti-social behaviour. It argues that social housing agencies face a number of dilemmas in reacting to their emerging role and that such dilemmas reflect wider concerns about the new urban governance.     

The Allure of the “Big Society”: Conveying Authority in an Era of Uncertainty

Abstract

The inception and roll out of the UK Government’s Big Society agenda offers an opportunity to consider the changing modalities of contemporary political engagement. Much of the critical scholarship on the Big Society views it as a rationale to legitimize both a reconfiguration of the welfare state and an austerity programme to reduce government debt. While these interpretations are helpful, they explain only partially the appeal of these agendas for politicians and their political parties. The key question explored in this article is why, despite the hostility and cynicism towards ideological projects such as Big Society, do politicians continue to identify and pursue them? I argue that the Big Society agenda is only in part a rationale for austerity and welfare reform; it also provides a discursive setting for politicians to address societal anxieties by offering a navigable route for the future. Although the Big Society agenda has been roundly derided, its Manichean morality tale offers assurance at a time when politics is being reshaped by neoliberal ideology, changing media practices and globalization processes.     

Bitter wins or a long-distance race? Social and political outcomes of the Spanish housing movement

Abstract

This study investigates whether housing movements can produce significant outcomes. In particular, I examine the case of the Platform for People Affected by Mortgages (PAH), the main organization in the Spanish housing movement between 2009 and 2017. First, I discuss how their demands were framed according to specific contexts of legitimation. Second, I distinguish the nature and scope of the outcomes produced by this movement. My analysis uniquely combines a critical assessment of the PAH’s achievements with its unintended consequences and the significant social, political and economic contexts that help to explain its major outcomes. The global financial crisis, the convergence of the PAH with other anti-neoliberal movements and shifts among the dominant political parties determine the opportunities and constraints of the PAH’s development. Within this environment, the housing movement strategically operates by framing the culprits of the economic crisis in a new manner and by appealing to a broad social base beyond the impoverished mortgage holders. I also include the capacity of the movement’s organization to last, expand and increase its legitimacy as a relevant socio-political outcome. This is explained here through the articulation of the PAH’s agency (organizational form and protest repertoire) within the aforementioned contexts.     

Rethinking professional practice: the logic of competition and the crisis of identity in housing practice

The relationship between professionalism, education and housing practice has become increasingly strained following the introduction of austerity measures and welfare reforms across a range of countries. Focusing on the development of UK housing practice, this article considers how notions of professionalism are being reshaped within the context of welfare retrenchment and how emerging tensions have both affected the identity of housing professionals and impacted on the delivery of training and education programmes. The article analyses the changing knowledge and skills valued in contemporary housing practice and considers how the sector has responded to the challenges of austerity. The central argument is that a dominant logic of competition has culminated in a crisis of identity for the sector. Although the focus of the article is on UK housing practice, the processes identified have a wider relevance for the analysis of housing and welfare delivery in developed economies.     

The Egalitarian city: The restructuring of Amsterdam

Since the mid‐1970s, urban policy makers have responded to the pressures of fiscal crisis and unemployment by reducing expenditures and subsidizing business for the purpose of stimulating economic growth. The behaviour of urban governments largely corresponded with the argument of Paul Peterson that cities were forced to pursue economic growth at the expense of redistribution. Nevertheless, the response to economic forces, while generally in a market‐oriented direction, was not uniform within western cities. In particular, the Amsterdam municipality remains notable for its egalitarian policies when compared with London or New York. Housing policy has been a major instrument in maintaining the quality of life for the city's lower‐income population. Because subsidized housing units, as well as recipients of individual housing benefits, are scattered throughout the city, housing policy has sharply restricted spatial inequality of households by income. Moreover, the very large public subsidy involved in housing construction, by keeping rent levels low and thereby raising disposable income, has contributed substantially to popular welfare, mitigating class differentiation and thereby weakening resistance to residential integration of different income groups. This paper examines policies for physical and economic development in Amsterdam and their effect on social and spatial inequality. The conclusion briefly compares Amsterdam's trajectory with that of London and New York, then finally attempts to explain the continuing differences.     

An Introduction to the Special Issue – The Big Society,Localism and Housing Policy: Recasting State–Citizen Relations in an Age of Austerity

Abstract

“The Big Society, Localism and Housing Policy” was the theme of a seminar series funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (2012–2014) in the UK. A collaborative venture between the Universities of St Andrews, Sheffield, Reading and Queen’s University Belfast – it brought together academics, policy-makers and practitioners from across the UK to critique contemporary political debates within the context of devolved policy-making in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The papers in this special issue emerged from that seminar series. Whilst the policy discussions that follow are very much UK focused, the wider narratives around localism, empowerment, citizenship and welfare reform have a much broader international relevance as this editorial introduction explains.     

Institutional Mediation,The Hong Kong Residential Housing Market and the Asian Financial Crisis

While there has been considerable commentary and analysis on the origins and aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis there have been few studies which focus on the housing markets of the countries most directly affected. This is surprising given the importance of housing investment in many Asian economies and that over-inflated real estate was deeply implicated in the crisis. This paper explores the particular dynamics of the Hong Kong housing market and its institutional structure during the Asian Financial Crisis. The paper focuses specifically on the relationship between the development structure and the shaping of the policy process and on the interconnections between the housing market and the wider economy. It explains the apparent resilience of the giant developers during the crisis. More generally, the paper emphasises the importance of endogenous institutional dynamics in mediating the impact of the crisis in Hong Kong     

Homeowner investor subjects as providers of family care and assistance

Abstract

This article asks: What becomes of the idealized asset-accumulating investor subject rallied in asset-based welfare policy and discourse in the context of mounting social risks facing families? It brings into dialogue two disconnected literatures: one on financialized subjectivities, drawing on post-structuralist and Foucauldian analysis, the other on welfare states drawing more heavily on comparative political economy. Drawing on homeowner interviews in Melbourne (Australia), it identifies how parent homeowners’ devise housing strategies to manage their children’s housing welfare risks. Their housing investment and landlordism strategies align with financialized subjectivities, but other strategies subvert or reject these subject positions. Its first contribution is to specify how an Australian refamilization of welfare responsibilities, including for housing, is unfolding as processes of financialization erode the efficacy of growing state social spending. Its second contribution is to challenge the individual subject of asset-based welfare (ABW) and introduce intergenerational assistance as an under-explored contingency for ABW projects, and further driver for welfare inequalities between and within generations.     

Transfers,Contracts and Regulation: A New Institutional Economics Perspective on the Changing Provision of Social Housing in Britain

Social housing policy in the UK mirrors wider processes associated with shifts in broad welfare regimes. Social housing has moved from dominance by state housing provision to the funding of new investment through voluntary sector housing associations to what is now a greater focus on the regulation and private financing of these not-for-profit bodies. If these trends run their course, we are likely to see a range of not-for-profit bodies providing non-market housing in a highly regulated quasi-market. This paper examines these issues through the lens of new institutional economics, which it is believed can provide important insights into the fundamental contractual and regulatory relationships that are coming to dominate social housing from the perspective of the key actors in the sector (not-for-profit housing organisations, their tenants, private lenders and the regulatory state). The paper draws on evidence recently collected from a study evaluating more than 100 stock transfer organisations that inherited ex-public housing in Scotland, including 12 detailed case studies. The paper concludes that social housing stakeholders need to be aware of the risks (and their management) faced across the sector and that the state needs to have clear objectives for social housing and coherent policy instruments to achieve those ends.     

Maintaining an Arm's Length? Housing,Community Governance and the Management of ‘Problematic’ Populations

This paper examines how contemporary social problems of community care, anti-social behaviour, ethnic and racial tensions and the housing of sex offenders are conceptualised in UK housing and urban policy. It explores how and why the populations of social housing areas disproportionately bear the risks arising from these social problems, and how the responses of these populations are subsequently problematised. The redefining of social landlords' roles in managing ‘problematic’ populations is explored, and similarities in the responses to social problems in both private and social housing developments are identified, based around parochial ‘community’ forms of governance. The paper concludes that the increasing secession of local housing governance from a ‘public’ model of provision increases the ‘subsidiarity of responsibility’ upon deprived populations for managing social problems, reflecting a wider imbalance in the societal distribution of risks.     

Social Welfare Movements and Collective Action: Lessons from Two UK Housing Cases

This paper draws on studies of the black minority ethnic voluntary housing movement and of squatters to develop some perspectives on the aims, characteristics and interpretation of 'social welfare movements' in the period since 1960. While much has been written on so-called 'new social movements' in Europe and North America, connections remain underdeveloped between social movement theories and collective action in specific UK policy fields. At the same time, British housing scholars do not often link their detailed empirical material with any of the key strands of contemporary theoretical debates on social movements. This paper suggests that the notion of social welfare movements is potentially applicable in the housing field in Britain, and that particular housing histories may be helpful for further development of propositions or theories about movements.     

Relational housing across the North–South divide: learning between Albania,Uganda, and the UK

Abstract

In this paper, we examine how to understand housing as a relational process. Drawing on research in three diverse cities, we stage an unlikely dialogue that brings together narratives of housing across the global North–South divide. In doing so, we are concerned with thinking housing relationally in two broad senses: first, housing as a relational composite of economy, space, politics, legality and materials, structured by particular relations of power and resource inequality. Second, housing as a space of learning through comparison, which connects geographically and culturally in distinct cities. What do we learn about relational thinking with regards to housing when we compare it across the global North–South divide? In response, we explore a dialogue between a set of cities often off-the-map in debates on housing and urban research: Gateshead (UK), Kampala (Uganda) and Tirana (Albania). In comparing how housing is produced, distributed and inhabited, we seek to contribute to a wider understanding of the relationalities of housing.     

Housing the very poor or the young? Implications of the changing public housing policy in South Korea

Abstract

This paper discusses the reorganization of the roles of the national and local governments in public housing policy alongside decentralization, with particular reference to South Korea. Focusing on policy changes over the past decade, it reveals that rather than retrenchment amid a push towards greater local autonomy, the national government has diversified and expanded its public housing policy, and is increasingly pursuing a universal approach to public housing. Through case studies of Seoul and Gyeonggi, it also shows how the two local governments have become creative suppliers of public housing that is more customized to the local context. In particular, it highlights the rising emphasis on targeting young people rather than the very poor in public housing policies, a shift that is partly a legacy of Korea’s ‘productivist’ welfare state. The paper closes by discussing the implications of this latest policy trend, especially on local–national policy coordination.     

Modern housing estates and the production of the Brazilian city (1937–1960)

ABSTRACT

The social issue of housing has been a focal point in the criticism of Brazilian modernity, and it still plays a central role in the balance of Brazilian democracy. This paper discusses the investments in modern housing made by the welfare system in Brazil and which are related to the country's transition toward an urban society in the late 1930s. The analysis concludes in the 1960s, when these investments ended. The relationship between housing and the industrial economy characterized urban development in Brazil in this period. The latter saw direct state intervention in overseeing the building of houses for urban workers. This process started during Brazil's authoritarian regime [1937–1945], just as the cycle of Brazilian industrial democracy began in the mid-forties. The state housing policy worsened the urban crisis while also increasing the real estate market. It triggered several major controversies including an imbalance in urban classes associated with exclusively rich and poor neighbourhoods. The extension of the housing policy and social benefits to all citizens triggered tensions. These findings explain the challenges of political process, the changes in the housing policy and the swelling of Brazilian urban society.     

The Changing Management of Social Housing: The Impact of Externalisation and Managerialisation

The paper examines how the New Public Management (NPM) project has reshaped housing management in England and Wales. Historical tensions concerning the nature and scope of housing management, and its recent establishment as a public sector profession, have been exacerbated by NPM. In particular, the two central NPM processes of externalisation and managerialisation have led to the provision of new social housing by housing associations and the development of rationalistic management. By exploring the changing nature of housing management in externalised housing associations, the paper illustrates the complex ways in which property and welfare-based approaches to housing management are being played out. It is argued that managerialism has worked to define core business and a property-based approach at the expense of aspects of personal and welfare-based services. This process is being intensified by new technologies as seen through the development of call centres. Housing associations and the regulator have sought to recapture some aspects of the welfare approach to housing management to provide services to increasingly welfare-dependent tenants. However, the paper concludes that the tensions between the property and welfare approaches are likely to lead to the domination of a property-based approach because of the ongoing managerial and external pressures on housing associations.     

Promoting Responsibility,Shaping Behaviour: Housing Management,Mixed Communities and the Construction of Citizenship

This paper examines housing policies aimed at establishing mixed income communities. Based on stakeholder interviews and case study analysis in England and Scotland, the paper pays particular attention to the impact of interventions in housing management. The first part considers the policy context for mixed communities and considers the conceptual basis underlying contemporary housing management through discourses of culture and social control. The second part considers how this agenda has resulted in the adoption of intensive management strategies within mixed communities; illustrated in the development of allocation policies, initiatives designed to tackle anti-social behaviour, and proposals to develop sustainable communities. The main argument is that given that the concept of mixed communities is based on the premise of social housing failure, citizenship has been defined largely in response to private sector interests. This approach to management has been a contributory factor in the construction of social housing as a form of second-class citizenship.     

Swedish welfare state and housing markets: under economic and political pressure

Economic and financial crises are often connected to crises in the housing market. Some housing systems are, however, more sensitive than others. Traditionally, Sweden’s system aimed to protect households from such volatility, but changes in the welfare state model and increased mortgage indebtedness suggest that Sweden’s housing market might have become more exposed to macro pressures. The starting point for this article is an understanding of the Swedish welfare state model in which housing was traditionally a core value and where the link between income and housing outcome has been weakened. Deregulation and liberalization have fundamentally changed the special features on the Swedish housing market. In particular, the rental sector is decreasing in favor of increased ownership and greater speculation. In this article, we aim to give a picture of the grand restructuring of the Swedish housing sector including its implications for the link between income poverty and housing poverty and an understanding of the contradictory reaction of the welfare state to the global financial crisis (GFC). Our results show that affordability is a problem and that the proportion of households at risk of poverty has been increasing when taking housing costs into consideration. However, a combination of the lessons learned in the 1990s crisis and resultant increases in regulation together with a stronger and more immediate recovery than might have been expected meant that Sweden and its housing system came out of the GFC fundamentally intact. However, there must be concerns that future crises will not be so readily addressed.     

POLICY REVIEW Tackling Deprivation on Social Housing Estates in England: An Assessmentof the Housing Plus Approach

The poverty and social exclusion experienced by growing numbers of social housing tenants in England is making landlords' task increasingly difficult. Concentrations of unemploymentand other forms of disadvantagetend to lead to other problems such as indebtedness,crime and vandalism which make such housing estates unpopular and expensive to manage and maintain. In response, housing associations (HAs) in England are increasingly seeking to address these wider problems so that their investment in bricks and mortar is underpinned by efforts to sustain community well-being. This has been termed the 'Housing Plus' (HP) approach.But HP raises questions about social landlords' role vis-a-vis that of other agencies. This paper reviews HAs' progress in implementing HP in England,its impact upon residents' quality of life and links with wider regeneration strategies. While some HAs have achieved notable successes, the overall response has been patchy because of differences of view on mission, resource constraints,the modest scale of initiatives in relation to the severity of the problemsand contradictory housing and urban policies.     

Neoliberalism as entrepreneurial governmentality: contradictions and dissonance within contemporary English housing associations

Abstract

This paper has two aims: to provide a critical commentary on the value of neoliberalism in explaining contemporary housing policy and to critically examine recent practices that have been shaped by ideas most commonly associated with neoliberalism. It begins by distinguishing different interpretative variants of neoliberalism and some of the criticisms regarding its explanatory capability. Taking the example of housing associations in England, the paper makes use of Dardot and Laval’s notion of ‘entrepreneurial governmentality’ to interpret how contemporary welfare professionals attempt to reconcile the competing tensions of individualism and egalitarianism in practice. Amongst the arguments put forward is that the extension of commercialism, commodification and competition have generated new fissures and dissonance within the sector. The conclusion suggests that contemporary variants of neoliberalism are best understood as a rationality that establishes entrepreneurial governmentality across sectors of government, the economy and social life.