Jim Kemeny Research Articles

About Housing Systems and Underlying Ideologies

ABSTRACT This contribution is a reflection on the critical analysis of Mark Stephens of the theoretical work on housing systems by Jim Kemeny. It concludes that the analysis of Stephens is a great incentive to continue the debate on housing and welfare started by Kemeny. The core of the review is that Stephens focusses on the so-called maturation of social rental housing as a replacement of government subsidies: can non-profit housing compete with commercial housing under smart conditions for social sustainability? Stephens is right that this maturation thesis does not hold and he provides convincing evidence for this. However, Stephens contribution neglects an important part of Kemeny’s work: the link between housing and more in particular the role of home ownership in welfare states. Here is work to be done! This contribution concludes with emphasizing the link between housing and welfare systems and its underlying ideologies. Rules of the games such as laws for social rental housing are important, but even more important than laws are day to day beliefs among citizens and professionals of what is right and wrong in housing practice. In other words it needs further research to explore the role of housing in practice of populism and COVID19. How do underlying housing ideologies play a role in current practice and how do and can they change policies and practices in housing in different continents?

The inversion of the ‘really big trade-off’: homeownership and pensions in long-run perspective

The hypothesis of a trade-off between homeownership and welfare state provision, first proposed by Jim Kemeny around 1980, is a foundational claim in the political economy of housing. However, the evidence for this hypothesis is unclear at both macro and micro levels. This paper examines the link between welfare and homeownership at the macro level using new long-run data and a multilevel modelling approach. It shows that the negative cross-sectional correlation between homeownership and public welfare provision observed in the earliest available data disappears and becomes neutral by the 1980s and possibly positive subsequently. Within-country trajectories vary, but are significantly positive in more countries than significantly negative, suggesting that in some contexts welfare and homeownership are complements rather than competitors. The paper posits a dual ratchet effect mechanism in both pension benefits and homeownership capable of producing this inversion, and further suggests that rising public indebtedness and the debt-stabilising effects of welfare states may account for the emergence of complementarity in the pension‒homeownership relationship. The latter supports the hypothesis that some countries have avoided the trade-off by ‘buying time’ on credit markets.

Kemeny revisited: the new homeownership-welfare dynamics

This article connects homeowner subjectivities and state practice to specify how the post-war homeownership-welfare dynamic has radically transformed since the 1980s. Specifically, this article revisits, 35 years on and against the onset of financialized capitalism, Jim Kemeny’s seminal thesis on the relationship between homeownership and welfare. Focusing on Australia, as a less considered case in the liberal Anglophone cluster, it traces how the state actively overhauled the local post-war homeownership-welfare dynamic from the late 1970s. The analysis establishes how this refurbishment outdates Kemeny’s thesis by rendering features of the post-war homeownership model ineffective and, more significantly, by fashioning new homeowner subjectivities—namely, the investor subject. By bringing together Foucauldian perspectives (mortgage biopolitics) with Marxian political economy, this state-sensitive account both responds to Kemeny’s unexpected silence on the active hand of the Australian state in structuring its homeownership-welfare dynamic, and contributes to the asset-based welfare critique by emphasizing its post-1980s features and the structural drivers that explain its persistence, despite its unequal wealth and welfare outcomes.

Housing Theory, Housing Research and Housing Policy

Jim Kemeny in 1992 criticized existing housing research for neglecting social theory and being overly positivist and policy focused. The result has been a strengthening of the conceptual basis of housing research in general, but also a growing schism between researchers who focus on policy relevancy and those that pursue more theoretical work. This paper challenges this schism and argues for theoretically based and policy-relevant research. First, the paper argues that the policy-making process is complex and can vary between different countries, situations and over time. Therefore, it is argued that many styles of research can influence policy in the right circumstances. Second, the paper challenges the idea that there can be theoretically free housing research arguing that all research has a theoretical foundation even though in many studies it is not explicit. Finally, the paper engages with the debate about where theory for housing research should come from and what it would look like.

Why Housing Studies Still Lacks Social Theory and What to Do about It

The Focus articles of Hannu Ruonavaara (This issue) and David Clapham (This issue) are both in dialogue with Jim Kemeny’s writing and, particularly, two of his claims made in Housing and Social The...

A Qualitative Examination of Jim Kemeny’s Arguments on High Home Ownership, the Retirement Pension and the Dualist Rental System Focusing on Australia

ABSTRACTA key aspect of Jim Kemeny’s argument is that in advanced economies that have high levels of home ownership, the age pension is only adequate if you have low accommodation costs. A related argument is that these societies will be dominated by what he calls a dualist rental market. In this rental market regulation is minimal and landlords hold sway. Kemeny’s thesis, was given added support by Castles’ (1998) more extensive comparative analysis. He concluded that his findings were ‘extremely supportive’ of Kemeny’s conclusion. In this paper, I use in-depth interviews to test Kemeny’s thesis. The circumstances of older homeowners and older private renters in Australia are compared. All of the interviewees were dependent solely or primarily on the government age pension. The interviews indicated that almost all of the older homeowners felt that the age pension was adequate. They were able to consume adequately, engage in leisure activities, run a car, go on holiday and they had little anxiety about their financial situation. This was especially so in the case of those interviewees drawing the couples pension. In contrast, most of the older private renters suffered from severe financial stress. Invariably they had to use a large proportion of their income to pay for accommodation, and as a result, they found it difficult to purchase basic items and any unexpected expense precipitated much anxiety. Their limited resources severely impacted on their capacity to sustain social contacts, engage in leisure activities and look after their health. In addition to having limited resources, many had minimal security of occupancy. The interviews strongly substantiated Kemeny’s original thesis. They illustrated that within a dualist rental market the housing tenure and attendant accommodation costs of a person dependent on the government age pension are crucial determinants of their capacity to live a decent life.

Introduction to the Special Issue – A Theory of Housing: Problems and Potential

2008 was the 25th anniversary of Housing, Theory and Society and its antecedent the Scandinavian Journal of Housing and Planning. To mark the occasion a plenary debate was organized at the European Network for Housing Research conference in Dublin on 8 July 2008. This special issue has arisen from that debate. The subject of the debate was the role of theory in housing research. Clearly this fits with the journal’s objective, established by former editor Jim Kemeny in 1999, which is to stimulate the application of theory to housing research. This followed Kemeny’s call in his book Housing and Social Theory (Kemeny 1992) for a more theoretically informed housing research. This call was accepted by many people and the articles published here reflect on the impact this has made.

The Role of Theory in Housing Research: Partial Reflections of the Work of Jim Kemeny1

Jim Kemeny has made a major contribution to housing studies over a long period. Foremost has been his call for and development of the place of theory in housing research. This essay reviews this contribution, although without claiming that the review is comprehensive and exhaustive. The review pursues the question, common to Kemeny s writings, as to how an engaged housing research agenda can simultaneously be theoretically rich. Four themes or threads to Kemeny s work are explored: the privatization of housing, the relationships between housing and welfare, the place of power in social relations and the politics of constructionism within the field of housing politics. The essay concludes with a discussion of the possibilities for advancing housing research within a post-structuralist setting and how Kemeny s works might relate to such a setting. Whatever difference might be observable between these approaches, however, a commonality between them is explored and appraised. 1. This paper was an invited address to a conference organised by the Housing and Community Research Unit, University of Tasmania, ‘The Pursuit of Theory: Contemporary Debates in Housing and Urban Research’, 14–5 February, 2007

Threats to the Dutch Unitary Rental Market

Abstract Social rental housing has once again captured a strong position on the Dutch political agenda. This has happened especially since the European Commission sent a letter to the Dutch government indicating that the Dutch social rental sector was not considered EU-proof from the viewpoint of the European Union's competition policy. The letter coincided with criticisms from Dutch politicians that housing associations had not been performing well enough for some time, given their abundant resources. However, in an international context, the Dutch social rental sector is often regarded as a good system for providing affordable housing to those who need it, without the sector being marginalized and stigmatized. Jim Kemeny has classified this market as one in which the social rental sector in due course competes with the private rental sector on equal or almost equal terms as a unitary rental market. The starting point of this paper is whether the achievement of a unitary rental sector is threatened by th...

Housing and the New Welfare State: Wobbly Pillar or Cornerstone?

This paper is concerned with the question of how to depict the housing-welfare state relationship, with special reference to the present period. It begins with a discussion of how housing can be seen as both the wobbly pillar under the welfare state and a cornerstone. The paper then examines two different perspectives, variously giving explanatory weight to economic and cultural factors. The first, derived from the work of Michael Harloe, provides an explanation of the tendency of social housing to move towards a residual role, but has nothing to say about the growing significance of housing markets and housing wealth in relation to the contemporary welfare state. The second, originated by Jim Kemeny, is based on international correlations of homeownership rates and levels of welfare state expenditure. It is argued that this approach has limited, and diminishing, relevance in the context of the early 21st century. The paper suggests that in the present period housing, especially the housing wealth of owner occupiers, provides governments with the opportunity to pursue welfare restructuring. This idea is explored by reference to evidence from Great Britain, a country with a high level of homeownership and an active programme of public service reform.

Property Owning and Democracy-Do the Twain Ever Meet?

ABSTRACT Starting from the Conservative assertion that home ownership fosters politically active and virtuous citizens, this paper examines two lines of argument in housing theory; (a) Jim Kemeny's thesis that owner occupation is closely linked to increasing privatism, i.e. a growth in lifestyles centred around the home and privacy rather than the workplace or the public affairs in a society, and (b) Peter Saunders' thesis that home owners will organise and mobilise politically in defence of their property interests if and when various government agencies threaten to remove their tax subsidies. To test these propositions empirically, data on the effects of the rapid and comprehensive dismantling of tax privileges to Swedish home owners in the 1980s and early 1990s are confronted with data on political interest, participation and knowledge as well as civic trust and responsibility from the Swedish election surveys of 1979, 1985 and 1991. Contrary to Conservative beliefs, home owners do not stand out as 'democratic examples'; with the exception of political knowledge and party membership, they are no more 'civil' or 'democratic' than other citizens. There is also not much to support Kemeny's 'privatism' or Saunders' 'reaction-to-threat' theses. Although home owners in Sweden saw their tax privileges diminishing rapidly during the 1980s and early 1990s, they do not show the distinctive patterns of change in democratic orientation and spirit predicted by these two housing theorists. To allow for an even more conclusive test of Kemeny's 'privatism' thesis, however, one must overcome the mismatch of income definitions in housing statistics and election survey data.

Book review

Jim Kemeny From Public Housing to the Social Market. Rental Policy Strategies in Comparative Perspective. London and New York, Routledge, 1995. Khakee, A., I. Elander and S. Sunesson (eds) (1995) Remaking the Welfare State: Swedish urban planning and policy‐making in the 1990s. Aldershot: Avebury, 320 pp. Tore Sager (1994) Communicative Planning Theory, Aldershot: Avenbury, 288 pp.

Book Reviews : From Public Housing to the Social Market Jim Kemeny London, Routledge, 1995, 194pp, £40.00 hbk

Book Reviews : From Public Housing to the Social Market Jim Kemeny London, Routledge, 1995, 194pp, £40.00 hbk

Reviews

Housing and Social Theory. by Jim Kemeny. Routledge 1991, 192 pp, £35.00 Hb. Wrong Side of the Tracks? Impacts of Road and Rail Transport on the Environment: A Basis for Discussion. Transport and Environment Studies 1991, 272 pp, £45 Pb. The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. by Donald A. Schon. Avebury, Aldershot. 1991, 374 pp, £10.95 Pb. Cambridge Landscape Guidelines: A Manual for Management and Change in the Rural landscape. by Cambridgeshire County Council. Cambridgeshire County Council and Granta Editions. 1991, 86 pp, £9.95 Pb. Thirty‐nine Steps to Housing Finance Reform. by John Hills. Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, 1991, 48 pp, £7.50. Infrastructure and Regional Development. edited by R. W. Vickerman. Pion, London. 1991, 209 pp, £25.00 Pb.

Book Review: Housing and Social Theory JIM KEMENY, 1992

Book Review: Housing and Social Theory JIM KEMENY, 1992

Valerie Karn, Jim Kemeny and Peter Williams, Home Ownership in the Inner City — Salvation or Despair?, Gower, Aldershot, 1985. 162 pp. £16.50.

Valerie Karn, Jim Kemeny and Peter Williams, Home Ownership in the Inner City — Salvation or Despair?, Gower, Aldershot, 1985. 162 pp. £16.50.

The Kemeny approach and the case of Finland

According to Jim Kemeny, there is a group of advanced capitalist societies which can accurately be characterized as home‐owning societies. In home‐owning societies owner‐occupation dominates the consumption of housing, the cost‐rental housing sector is not large and it functions as a means for housing those unable to buy a house. Home‐ownership is a privatized form of housing consumption and its domination reflects the general nature of society. The aim of this article is to test if this approach is applicable to the Finnish housing system. The system of tenures in post‐war Finland is briefly described and discussed. The structure of tenures in Finland is increasingly similar to that of the home‐owning societies. This justifies the view that Finland can be considered as one of the home‐owning societies. This conclusion can serve as a starting point for further research informed by the hypotheses, observations and concepts included in the theory. The Finnish case also highlights the need for further elabor...

Low income home ownership and housing policy

Public Housing and Private Property 1970–1984. by Stephanie Cooper. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 178. £18.50. Low Cost Home Ownership. edited by Philip Booth and Tony Crook. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 264. £18.50. Home Ownership in the Inner City: Salvation or Despair? by Valerie Karn, Jim Kemeny and Peter Williams. Aldershot: Gower. 1985. pp. 162. £16.50.

The Great Australian Dream reconsidered: A review of Kemeny

Abstract This paper evaluates Jim Kemeny's analysis of the causes and consequences of mass home ownership in Australia. The first part of the paper summarises Kemeny's position, and the second questions the adequacy of some of the key theoretical and historical aspects of his argument. The critique pivots on three theoretical themes: firstly, Kemeny's apparent failure to recognise that home ownership is simply a category of consumption which is given historical, political and economic specificity by the social relations of housing provision; secondly, Kemeny's tendency to ‘fetishise’ home ownership; and thirdly, the problematic way in which Kemeny attempts to account for state housing policy formulation. Historical material is presented to show how these theoretical and conceptual problems result in Kemeny developing a questionable explanation of the development of mass home ownership in Australia, and tentative policy implications are offered. Although the paper concentrates on Kemeny's contribution to A...

Book Review: The Myth of Home Ownership: Private versus Public Choices in Housing Tenure by JiM KEMENY. London: Routledge. 1981. pp. 179. £6.95 Homes fit for Heroes: The Politics and Architecture of Early State Housing in Britain by MARK SWENARTON. London: Heinemann. 1981. pp. 216. £14.50

Book Review: The Myth of Home Ownership: Private versus Public Choices in Housing Tenure by JiM KEMENY. London: Routledge. 1981. pp. 179. £6.95 Homes fit for Heroes: The Politics and Architecture of Early State Housing in Britain by MARK SWENARTON. London: Heinemann. 1981. pp. 216. £14.50