Although academic definitions of ‘corporatism’ differ, the concept is generally about organisational influence on state politics. Around 1980, Sweden was regarded as the archetype of welfare-state corporatism, but around the turn of the millennium the broad representation of organised interests in state politics was largely abolished. However, in the housing sector, strong interest organisations have continued to play a dominant and institutionalised role. Rents are negotiated collectively between organisations of estate owners and tenants, and these organisations also have strong influence on rental legislation and on housing policy more generally. We argue that this system should be seen as corporatist and to that end suggest a somewhat modified version of Philippe Schmitter’s well-established definition of corporatism. We claim that our ‘view from housing’ may contribute to the increased relevance of corporatism theory also in studies of other welfare sectors where market distribution is increasingly important.

Bo Bengtsson och Martin Grander kombinerar i denna bok en analys av svensk bostadspolitik i dag och över tid med diskussioner kring olika teoretiska perspektiv av relevans för förståelsen av detta område. Bokens utgångspunkt är att bostadsfrågan inte bara handlar om offentlig policy och politik utan också formas av intressekamp mellan olika aktörer.

Den svenska ”bostadspolitiska regimen” vilar på fem institutionella pelare vilkas framväxt och utveckling ingående behandlas i boken. Till sina huvuddrag har dessa varit anmärkningsvärt oförändrade sedan de formades efter andra världskrigets slut, vilket kan förklaras med bostadspolitikens starka stigberoende. Samtidigt har pelarna successivt urholkats framför allt sedan 1990-talet. 

I boken analyseras det partipolitiska spelet om bostadspolitiken,men också de stora intresseorganisationernas roll där det framträder ett tydligt växelspel mellan särskilt hyrespolitikens innehåll och organisationernas inflytande.

Författarna visar att bostadspolitikens utfall har blivit allt mindre generellt inriktat under de senaste decennierna, vilket exemplifieras med allmännyttans utveckling. De diskuterar även i vilken utsträckning bostaden alltjämt kan ses som en social rättighet i Sverige. Boken avrundas med en diskussion om jämlikhet i boendet som en normativ måttstock för bostadsförsörjningen.

A fundamental distinction in welfare state research is the one between universal and selective policies. Consequently, housing researchers often categorize national housing regimes under one of these headings. However, since housing is typically distributed via markets – although with state correctives – and not directly by means of state distribution, the borderline between universal and selective housing policies is seldom clear-cut. This article proposes a framework that can be applied both to housing and other welfare sectors, based on the distinction between a broad and narrow policy field and applicable to institutions, discourses and outcomes on different political levels: national welfare regimes, sector regimes (like housing) and policy instruments.In the article, this framework is applied critically to the Swedish housing regime, which is often understood as being universal. Swedish housing policy and its central policy instruments are analysed in terms of universality and selectivity, together with the housing discourse and the social and economic outcome. The article also discusses how the development of recent years, for example, the increased commercialism of public housing, the spread of so-called social contracts and the recurring ideas about “social housing” can be understood in terms of universal and selective housing policy.

This article applies Hirschman's model of exit, voice and loyalty to a Swedish case of housing renovation in a building with comparatively well-off tenants. Hirschman's framework is particularly well suited for understanding the housing market with its heterogeneity and high transaction and attachment costs, and accordingly strong loyalty and voice. Our study indicates that the exit-voice-loyalty framework is a useful tool for analysing renovation processes, since these trigger both voice and exit behaviour. We argue that renovations can be considered as critical junctures to an existing tenant-landlord relation, thereby exposing power relations on the housing market. In the case studied, tenants were not able to affect the scope of the renovation directly, but tenant voice did affect the process as well as the outcome in other respects. The capable tenant group makes this a "most likely case" for testing the limits of tenant influence in housing renovation processes.

Housing renovation is a common concern to owners, tenants and to society at large. In addition to the high economic costs, the implementation of housing renovation usually have a long-term impact on the society and the built environment. This is a theoretical paper that develops a system model for understanding sustainable housing renovation as a system phenomenon which has multiple sustainability goals, complicated dynamic processes, diverse actors, and a sophisticated institutional environment. It identifies the key challenges of a sustainable housing renovation system, namely the conflicting sustainability goals and the conflicting stakeholder interests. To address these two challenges, the paper suggests an innovation approach in which the process of innovation (linear versus organic) and the typology of innovation (product versus process and business versus social) toward sustainable housing renovation are discussed.

This theoretical paper introduces a conceptual framework for empirical study and comparison of collaborative civil society housing (CSH). We suggest that CSH communities satisfy four criteria to a lesser or higher extent: (1) autonomy, (2) participatory democracy, (3) internal solidarity and (4) external solidarity. Drawing primarily on empirical examples from the scholarly literature on co-operative housing, we claim that all CSH communities face challenges that may lead to the erosion of these civil society criteria. We argue that such challenges are general social mechanisms that manifest themselves in various types of situations, for instance, when apartments are transferred or refurbished.

In this article, we discuss the role of solidarity in collaborative housing in relation to the trajectory and discourse of the Danish idea of co-operative housing (andelstanken). Our analytical perspective draws on the concept of social mechanisms and a framework suggested by the social scientist Steinar Stjernø. We argue that collaborative housing based on individual (home) ownership of shares and user-rights to apartments are susceptible to the mechanism of “conflicting interests between different categories on the housing market”. Moreover, we suggest that this mechanism has a tendency to further the economic interests of residents, at the expense of the external solidarity with groups looking to access affordable housing. Our argument is supported by theoretical reflection, the historical trajectory of co-operative housing in Scandinavia and empirical analysis of the Danish case.

Housing renovation, in contrast to new construction projects, has to take good care of the tenants who are already living in the building. What are the theoretical and practical implications concerning the transformation from a technology-and-engineering-focused renovation approach to a more user-oriented one? What are the mechanisms of strategy change? Based on our case we argue that the mechanisms of strategy change are based on the interplay between external disturbance and internal renewal. External disturbance is the trigger of strategy change, but it does not, in itself, necessarily lead to strategy change, and particularly not for an innovative new strategy. The internal new competence is the source of changing from an old strategy to an innovative new strategy. The real estate industry needs to undergo a transformation from the rationalistic technology- and engineering-focused renovation model (TEF model) to a more inclusive approach. We suggest a user-oriented model (UO model) where user involvement is seen as integrated in the whole process of renovation.