Power Structures and Privatization across Integrated Rental Markets: Exploring the Cleavage between Typologies of Welfare Regimes and Housing Systems

Abstract

An analysis of Esping‐Andersen’s “Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism” and Kemeny’s classification of dualist/integrated housing markets highlights the usefulness of the concept of power structures in explaining the formation of distinct welfare states and housing systems respectively; nonetheless, the authors’ empirical investigations lead to a diverging number of existing typologies. Kemeny claims that this is an “anomaly” which can be ascribed to the use of the concept of corporatism in Esping‐Andersen’s work, making the distinction between social democratic and conservative welfare regimes obsolete. This claim is challenged from two perspectives: First, the welfare state literature on the formation of distinct regimes is examined more thoroughly and confronted with Kemeny’s understanding of welfare regimes. Second, the paper explores the different privatization paths and diverging power structures in three integrated housing systems in Western Europe, which exposes the weakness of the dichotomous rental housing classification. These two aspects highlight the deficiencies of Kemeny’s approach and provide a new view on the relation between welfare‐state regimes and housing systems.