The Application of Hirschman’s Exit-voice Framework to Housing Studies: A Review and Some Ways Forward

Abstract

Albert Hirschman’s 1970 work Exit, Voice and Loyalty, which considers the interaction of responses to dissatisfaction with an organization, product or country, has been drawn on by social scientists to look at concepts as diverse as health care provision, marital relationships, shareholder activism and strike activity. This paper reviews ways that the exit–voice framework has been drawn on to discuss issues related to housing: first, homeowners’ responses to neighbourhood decline and homeless people’s response to policing of their space; second, council tenants’ response to opportunities to buy their council home or to become involved in participation schemes; and third, private tenants’ responses to dissatisfaction in their homes. We suggest that this work could be extended through closer attention to the interaction of different types of exit and voice. Finally, we suggest that the exit–voice framework could be used to give insight into the development and influence of tenant collective voice in different types of housing systems.

Key Words:

• Hirschman
• Exit
• Voice
• Loyalty
• Housing
• Political science

Acknowledgements

This article is based on research undertaken by Elinor Chisholm while in receipt of a PhD scholarship from the University of Otago. We thank four anonymous reviewers of this article for their very useful comments.

Notes

1. In all of these spheres, moving on might be prompted by reasons other than dissatisfaction with the status quo, but Hirschman’s focus was specifically on responses to dissatisfaction.

2. The use of Exit, Voice and Loyalty as a reference in discussing concepts that the author himself criticized has long precedence. Citing Hirschman, Bogdanor (1976) argues that the possibility of exit to private schools makes voice more likely to influence teachers and administrators to improve the quality of education. Yet, in Exit, Voice and Loyalty, Hirschman precisely discusses this phenomenon, and comes to quite the opposite solution. Considering the situation where a school declines, and parents send their children to private schools, Hirschman argues that while this exit “may occasion some impulse toward an improvement of the public schools”, this gain is “far less significant than the loss to the public schools of those member-customers who would be the most motivated and determined to put up a fight against the deterioration if they did not have the alternative of the private schools” (1970, 45–46).

3. Security is also relevant to homeowners. Drawing on van Gelder (2010), as Hulse and Milligan (2014) do, security depends on a legal right to occupy a property, de facto occupation and a perception of the right to stay. Their sense of security – and the extent to which this supports them to exercise voice – may be determined by the law surrounding ownership and the size and conditions of their mortgage.

4. While two types of rental systems exist, there is increasing convergence between the two (Hoekstra 2009). In Sweden, for example, the non-profit sector has become increasingly responsible for housing less well-off households (Ruonavaara 2012) and housing is becoming increasingly marketized (Christophers 2013).