Housing management matters: Citizenship and managerialism in the new welfare market

Abstract

This paper addresses three neglected issues in the restructuring of housing policy and provision in the UK in the 1980s and 1990s: first, the relationship between welfare restructuring and management regimes; second, the nature of local variations in the impact of welfare restructuring; and third, the significance of human agency interpretations of change. The paper starts by summarizing the main features of welfare state restructuring and then considers recent manifestations of citizenship and managerialism in housing. Three competing conceptions of citizenship rights are used to examine changing notions of welfare: “market efficiency”, “institutionalized rights” and the “radical challenge” provided by social movements. A four-part typology of the main concepts and themes in the “new public management”—“efficiency”, “downsizing and decentralization”, “excellence” and “public service”—is used to present the main components of change in management regimes. The paper draws on literatures on housing management, citizenship and “the new public management” and on recent research into tenant participation, housing rights and housing advice services. Conclusions are drawn about how tensions between different conceptions of citizenship and public management are implicated with national and global influences at the local level to create particular welfare outcomes.