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A Monstrous Hybrid: The Political Economy of Housing in Early Twenty-first Century Sweden

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  • Brett Christophers

Abstract

In the leftist Western political imagination, Sweden continues, for many, to represent a vision of a 'better', more egalitarian political-economic model than the neoliberal capitalism that has come to dominate the Anglo-American world in particular; and its housing system is widely regarded as an integral component of this alternative, social-democratic model. The present paper argues that this envisioning of the political economy of Swedish housing is thoroughly outdated. Yet it insists, equally, that the competing envisioning of Swedish housing advanced by prominent scholars within Sweden - of a radically (neo)liberalised domestic housing system - is not accurate either. Rather, Swedish housing in the early twenty-first century constitutes a complex hybrid of legacy regulated elements on the one hand and neoliberalised elements on the other. Recognising this hybridity is essential, the paper submits, to understanding the nature and source of the most pressing issues facing the Swedish housing sector today. The system's hybridity, moreover, is 'monstrous' - following Jane Jacobs's coining of the term - in the sense that those issues reveal the pivotal role currently played by the Swedish housing system in the creation, reproduction and intensification of socio-economic inequality.

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  • Brett Christophers, 2013. "A Monstrous Hybrid: The Political Economy of Housing in Early Twenty-first Century Sweden," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(6), pages 885-911, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:18:y:2013:i:6:p:885-911
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2012.753521
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Brett Christophers, 2022. "Mind the rent gap: Blackstone, housing investment and the reordering of urban rent surfaces," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 59(4), pages 698-716, March.
    2. GLUMAC Brano & CABALLE FABRA Gemma, 2018. "Housing in a Mobile World: A Definition of Flexible Housing and the Classification of Solutions," LISER Working Paper Series 2018-16, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    3. Donner, Herman & Kopsch, Fredrik, 2016. "Housing Tenure and Informational Asymmetries," Working Paper Series 16/3, Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Real Estate and Construction Management & Banking and Finance.
    4. Ergen, Timur & Kohl, Sebastian & Braun, Benjamin, 2021. "Firm foundations: The statistical footprint of multinational corporations as a problem for political economy," MPIfG Discussion Paper 21/5, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    5. Buendía, Luis & Barredo, Juan & Balay, Juan, 2022. "Foreign sector and welfare state in Sweden: From complementarity to tensions," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 310-319.
    6. Cody Hochstenbach & Richard Ronald, 2020. "The unlikely revival of private renting in Amsterdam: Re-regulating a regulated housing market," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(8), pages 1622-1642, November.
    7. Richard Waldron, 2021. "Housing, place and populism: Towards a research agenda," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(5), pages 1219-1229, August.
    8. Justin Kadi & Sako Musterd, 2015. "Housing for the poor in a neo-liberalising just city: Still affordable, but increasingly inaccessible," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 106(3), pages 246-262, July.
    9. Westerdahl, Stig, 2021. "Yield and the city: Swedish public housing and the political significance of changed accounting practices," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    10. Anders Lund Hansen & Henrik Gutzon Larsen & Adam Grydehoj & Eric Clark, 2015. "Financialisation of the built environment in Stockholm and Copenhagen," Working papers wpaper115, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    11. Viktor Skyrman, 2023. "An Antidote for Securitization? How Covered Bonds Fuel Household Indebtedness in Sweden’s Financialized Growth Model," Working Papers PKWP2314, Post Keynesian Economics Society (PKES).
    12. Guy Baeten & Sara Westin & Emil Pull & Irene Molina, 2017. "Pressure and violence: Housing renovation and displacement in Sweden," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(3), pages 631-651, March.
    13. Jenny von Platten & Karl de Fine Licht & Mikael Mangold & Kristina Mjörnell, 2021. "Renovating on Unequal Premises: A Normative Framework for a Just Renovation Wave in Swedish Multifamily Housing," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-32, September.
    14. Matthew C. Record, 2021. "Offsetting Risk in a Neoliberal Environment: The Link between Asset-Based Welfare and NIMBYism," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(11), pages 1-21, November.
    15. Karin Grundström & Christine Lelévrier, 2023. "Imposing ‘Enclosed Communities’? Urban Gating of Large Housing Estates in Sweden and France," Land, MDPI, vol. 12(8), pages 1-19, August.
    16. Brett Christophers, 2021. "A tale of two inequalities: Housing-wealth inequality and tenure inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 53(3), pages 573-594, May.

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