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

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 The present paper argues that this envisioning of the political economy of Swedish housing is thoroughly outdated.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.

Keywords:

• political economy
• housing
• Sweden
• neoliberalism

Notes on contributor

Brett Christophers is assistant professor at the Institute for Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University, Sweden.

Notes

I thank Anders Lindbom, Irene Molina and the anonymous referees for their comments on an earlier version of this paper, and Malena Ingemansson for alerting me to the public investigations of the construction sector. The usual disclaimers apply. A comparable process of marketisation has also occurred in the Danish tenant-owned apartment sector, although not until much more recently – beginning in the early 1990s (see Mortensen and Seabrooke 2008: 313–4). Note also that there are important structural and legal differences between the tenant-owned apartment sectors of Sweden and Denmark; Ruonavaara (2012: 99) usefully recounts these.

Sold tenant-owned flats by region. Year 2000–2010. Available from: http://www.scb.se (accessed May 2012).

The state has also substantially withdrawn from the financing of new-build production in Norway; see Ruonavaara (2012: 103).

Data retrieved from http://statistik.forsakringskassan.se/rfv/html/BOB_5_1_2011.html (accessed May 2012); Lindbom (2001: 509); http://statistik.forsakringskassan.se/portal/page/portal/intstat/bof/bob/BOB_tid_kommun (accessed May 2012).

http://www.iut.nu/Facts%20and%20figures/A%20unique%20set%20up_2005.pdf (accessed July 2012).

Malmö is an important exception here; see Lind and Hellström (2006).

http://www.bostad.stockholm.se/upload/Om%20oss/%C3%85rsredovisning/bostadsformedlingen%20verksamhetsberattelse%202011.web.pdf (accessed May 2012), p. 5.

http://www.stenafastigheter.se/sok-fastigheter/sok-fastigheter/Sidor/default.aspx (accessed June 2012).

See especially http://www.hyresnamnden.se/Hyra-i-andra-hand/ (accessed June 2012). For bosatadsrätt, additional information has been extracted from http://www.notisum.se/rnp/sls/lag/19910614.HTM#K7P8 and http://www.bostadsratterna.se/allt-om-bostadsratt/faktablad/andrahandsuthyrning (both accessed June 2012).

By the time this article has been published this situation may have changed: as I explain in the Conclusion, government proposals to deregulate aspects of bostadsrätt letting (including rent levels) are currently (December 2012) working their way through parliament.

A third primary housing-related concern, not considered here, is that of reportedly increasing levels of segregation.

There is also an important empirically-based critique of the conventional argument against rent control. See especially Arnott (1995).

On the latter, see especially the conclusions of the two public investigations SOU (2002) and SFD (2009).

http://www.bostad.stockholm.se/upload/pdf/sprak/2010/Final_kundbroschyr_eng.pdf (accessed June 2012).