“United by Music” was the slogan of the 2024 edition of the Eurovision Song Contest, held in Malmö. However, the festive spirit of the event oddly contrasted with what was described as “the largest police operation in Sweden’s history” (Ivarsson, 2024). This operation was mobilized in response to the expected civil protests regarding Eurovision’s decision to welcome Israel’s participation, despite its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza. We examine the temporary disruptions in Malmö’s urban space during Eurovision to understand the dissonance between a peaceful pro‐Palestine movement, a supposedly festive event, and the heightened securitization of the city with its alarmist tones. We aim to understand these contrasts within a broader temporal context and across different geographical scales. We argue that the distinct racialized characterizations of neoliberal authoritarian practices in Malmö during Eurovision are deeply enmeshed with the implications of the Western narratives about Israel and Palestine, the growing influence of the far‐right in Swedish politics, and, ultimately, the identity Malmö aspires to and is perceived to have. Rather than being a local manifestation of isolated authoritarian practices, Eurovision in Malmö opens a conceptual space to explore authoritarianism as a multiscalar discourse and practice. This perspective allows us to move beyond the dichotomy of the “democratic West” versus the “authoritarian others” by revealing the persistence of authoritarian practices in democracies.

This working paper contributes to the comparative research on the financialization of rental housing by investigating the private rental sectors in France and Sweden. It examines and discusses the role of institutional investors in each country’s rental market by using a comparative approach and drawing from an economic geographical and heterodox understanding of financialization as a variegated process. The paper uses secondary statistics, real estate transaction data, documents, and interviews to investigate the role of residential property investors in France’s and Sweden’s private rental markets. It finds that the different historical trajectories of the rental sectors have created distinctive opportunities for property investors in each country. The degree of public housing privatization, the level of corporate ownership of private rental housing, and the legal foundations are essential dynamics for why investments have occurred. In turn, Sweden has a high level of institutional investments in rental housing, while France has experienced less investments. Furthermore, institutional investors have expanded beyond metropolitan areas to medium-sized towns and municipalities in Sweden, whereas investments have mainly occurred in the larger cities in France.

In Scotland, the policy landscape around rent controls is rapidly evolving and full of uncertainty. At this critical moment, an international symposium in Edinburgh brought together activists and academics in similar contexts living with or fighting for rent controls from across Europe and North America. This contribution is organised around reflections from the participants on (1) the history of rent controls in their area; (2) the current rent regulations in operation and their effectiveness; (3) the role of tenants’ organisations and (4) landlord and other pro-real estate lobbies in shaping the discourse around rent controls; and (5) reflections on what a satisfactory resolution on the rent control issue might look like and how it relates to other dimensions of the housing system. Our collective hope is that these reflections contribute to sharpening and clarifying the re-emergence of demands for rent control in Europe and North America as a powerful tool––if insufficient by itself––for shaping a decommodified housing system.

How can struggles for housing justice act as a lens to expand housingresearchers’ understanding of the rental crisis and of the systems thatunderpin this crisis? By presenting papers from Sweden, Spain,Greece, the UK, and Australia this special issue contributes withknowledge on how housing struggles can inform new theoreticaland methodological approaches within the field of housing studies.In turn, the SI presents three tenets that together form a frameworkfor housing scholars: institutionalization as politics, tenants as poli-tical actors, and learning housing justice. We argue that it is crucialfor housing scholars to recenter on struggles for housing justice intheir readings of contemporary housing systems.

Rental housing tenants in Sweden and Europe are increasingly seeing their homes subsumed to market pressures. This thesis provides empirical and conceptual insights into the processes by which market and financial practices and logics shape the housing sector, through a critical analysis of rental housing in Malmö, Sweden. The aim of the thesis is to investigate the role of rental housing within the context of municipal governance and, in turn, to explore how the relationship between rental housing and municipal governance affects residents. Empirically, the thesis focuses on developments in and around the area of Rosengård. The methods used include an interpretive analysis of official documents and secondary statistics, interviews, focus group meetings, participant observations, photos, and analysis of register data. The thesis comprises four papers and a comprehensive summary (the “kappa”).

Inspired by the regulation approach to political economy, the thesis engages with theoretical literatures on trajectories of rental housing market change, the financialization of rental housing, and local-state restructuring. In demonstrating how tenants and residents are affected by municipalities’ governance of rental markets, the thesis offers fresh perspectives on the nature of contemporary Swedish municipal “statecraft”.

The thesis finds that mounting market pressures from the 1980s initially resulted in a relocation of Malmö’s public housing stock to more attractive urban areas, and greater financial independence for the municipal housing company (MKB). In the process, the municipality used its ownership of public housing to support rebranding of the city following deindustrialization. However, more recently, the municipality has integrated management of MKB’s finances into the governance of municipal finances more broadly. The thesis argues that recent examples of public housing privatization and urban renewal have seen the municipal housing stock come to function as a quasi-financial asset, one bearing local urban development-risk and signaling municipal economic flexibility to credit rating analysts. It also argues that residential property investors’ local use of renovations as an investment strategy strengthens their financial position while leading to declining affordability for tenants. Residents experience increasing rent levels, worry, and a lack of influence within – and disclosure of information about – processes of renovation and privatization. Meanwhile, the thesis finds that the spatial distribution of public and private rental housing has changed as a result of municipal governance initiatives to create attractive new urban spaces, with rental tenants being increasingly marginalized. 

In sum, the thesis concludes that market and financial practices and logics are progressively undermining Sweden’s renowned universal housing system, while reinforcing inequality.

Den här avhandlingen analyserar hyresmarknaden i Rosengård och Malmö. Den visar hur lägenhetsrenoveringar i Herrgården leder till högre hyror. Studien finner också att försäljning av kommunens bostäder och stadsutveckling i Törnrosen och Örtagården motiveras av att kommunen anser att ”marknaden” behöver vitaliseras där. Avhandlingen visar hur hyresgäster upplever oro och brist på information i samband med renovering, privatisering och stadsförnyelse. Sammantaget menar avhandlingen att marknadslogiker har försvagat Sveriges bostadssystem, vilket har lett till en ökad ojämlikhet.

Qoraalkan qalin-jabinta ah ayaa lagu falanqeynayaa guryaha ku yaal Malmö, Sweden. Qoraalku wuxuu diiradda saarayaa horumarka Rosengård iyo nawaaxigeeda. Waxay muujineysaa sida dayactirka guryaha ee Herrgården uu u horseedayo kiro badan iyo sida iibinta guryaha degmada iyo horumarinta magaalooyinka ee Törnrosen iyo Örtagården ay sabab u tahay xaqiiqda ah in "suuqa" uu u baahan yahay in dib loo soo nooleeyo. Qoraalku waxa kale oo uu muujinayaa sida ay kiraystayaashu u dareemaan walaac iyo xog la'aan la xidhiidha dib-u-dayactirka, iibinta guryaha dawladda hoose iyo dib-u-cusboonaysiinta magaalada.

Ev tez xaniyên kirê li Malmö, li Swêdê, analîz dike. Ew balê dikişîne ser geşedanên li nav Rosengård û derdora wê. Ew destnîşan dike ku çawa nûvekirina apartmanan li Herrgården ji hêla xwediyên taybet ve dibe sedema kirêyên bilind, û çawa firotina xaniyên şaredariyê û nûkirina bajarî li Törnrosen û Örtagården ji ber hewcedariya têgihîştinek ji bo zindîkirina bazarê tê motîve kirin. Tez her weha destnîşan dike ka kirêdar çawa di dema nûvekirina apartmanan, firotina xaniyên şaredariyê, û nûkirina bajarî de bi fikar û nebûna agahdarî re rû bi rû dimînin. Bi kurtî, tez encam dide ku pratîk û mantiqên bazar û darayî her ku diçe pergala xanî ya Swêdê xera dike û di heman demê de newekheviyê xurt dike.

Bu tez İsveç’in Malmö kentindeki konut piyasasını ve durumunu inceliyor. Rosengård bölgesindeki ve çevresindeki gelişmelere odaklanmaktadır. Rosengård’in Herrgården mahallesindeki apartman tadilatlarının nasıl daha yüksek kiralara yol açtığını ve Törnrosen ve Örtagården'deki belediye konutları satışlarının ve kentsel yenilemenin, nasıl bir piyasa canlandırma fikri tarafından motive edildiğini gösteriyor. Tez ayrıca apartman tadilatları, belediye konutlarının satışı ve kentsel dönüşüm sırasında kiracıların nasıl endişe ve bilgi eksikliği yaşadığını göstermektedir.

Public housing has been one of the primary tools mobilized in Sweden historically to fulfil citizens' right to housing. However, the nominally universal character of public housing in the Swedish context has increasingly been circumvented through processes of segregation, residualisation, gentrification and displacement. Furthermore, previous housing research points to the neoliberal shift of Sweden's housing politics since the early 1990s, encompassing the deregulation of public housing at the national level. Focusing on the example of public housing, this paper argues for a multiscalar and nuanced understanding of housing neoliberalisation in Sweden, by investigating the change of public housing locally. The political landscape of public housing in different localities has been transformed as a result of interacting trajectories of spatial restructuring, financialisation and ideological reconstruction. The paper examines this conjunctural transformation empirically through a case study of public housing in the city of Malmö.

This paper uncovers the local state's complex intersections with the market and its multifaceted relations with the public through an in-depth qualitative case study of municipal housing privatization and urban renewal in one of the heartlands of the Swedish welfare state project, Rosengård in Malmö, Sweden. Drawing on the political-economic literature, I argue that housing privatization is entangled with complex interrelations among the (municipal) local state, the market, and the public and that an exploration of these relations reveals contemporary features of the local state. Hence, this investigation highlights the local state's motivation for privatization, the remaking of a market in a place where the market is believed to have failed, and the powers the local state retains. Additionally, the paper elucidates how the function of public assets changes due to privatization and considers tenants’ and residents’ worries, criticism, and concerns about municipal interventions. Subsequently, by grounding these findings in the historical function of municipalities in Sweden, the study contributes new knowledge on the local state in a deepened neoliberalized and financialized urban landscape.