D Cowan
Biographic Data
| ID | 22477 |
|---|---|
| NAME | D Cowan |
| GIVEN NAMES | D |
| FAMILY NAME | Cowan |
| SIGNATURE | COWAN D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9750-8262 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 101 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 5 |
The housing crisis goes to law
This paper considers how constructions of a ‘housing crisis’ have impacted on judicial consideration of the rights of applicants for social housing and homelessness assistance. Drawing on Bacchi's framework for appreciating problematisations (What's the problem represented to be?) and understandings of housing crisis, we examine how crisis is translated into three elements of the passage of homelessness law: decision letters, witness statements a…
Dysfunctional governance: Crisis, scandal, tragedy, emergency
Our current age is commonly and widely understood as being beset by poly or pluri-crises. This means that terms such as crisis, scandal, tragedy and emergency—terms that were once understood as applying to exceptional circumstances—have become associated with normality. At the same time, questions have arisen about the ability of governments and practices of governance, to deal with the intertwining nature, volume and complexity posed by contempo…
Licensing as governance: The case of the UK private rented sector
Across the UK private rented sector, an increasingly prominent regulatory instrument has emerged: registration and licensing of landlords and property. Expanding from the most risky housing – HMOs – to encompass defined geographical areas or the entire sector, registration and licensing now appear to be key tools for managing the sector. This paper analyses the different licensing regimes operating across the UK’s constituent jurisdictions agains…
The object(s) of legality
In this article, we argue for the relevance of studying the association between objects and people as co‐constituting legality in everyday life rather than solely focusing either on people or on ‘icons’. Indeed, we go further and argue that scholarship is in danger of producing an impoverished version of legal consciousness if it fails to look beyond the human actors, the people in society. Studying objects and associations, and their role in the…
Local authority intervention in private renting: From compliance to hardline enforcement
Drawing on data from two empirical projects concerned with local authority enforcement of standards in the private rented sector, this article argues that there are signs of greater use of formal enforcement approaches, and that these approaches are increasingly ‘hardline’. This finding runs counter to the existing scholarship on regulatory enforcement, which emphasizes securing compliance over formal enforcement. Securing compliance is also inte…
The business of universities: A case study of halls of residence
In this article, we discuss the changing modes of provision of English Universities’ halls of residence from University provision to a complex marketplace in which private provision dominates. We frame our analysis around five themes familiar to discussions of privatisations of public sector institutions: financialisation, affordability, infrastructure, regulation, and partnerships. We draw on our original research, which comprises a survey of 50…
Displacements: Objects and Relationality
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the 'Save PDF' action button
Marginalisation, Grenfell Tower and the voice of the social-housing resident: A critical juncture in housing law and policy
This paper draws on historical institutionalism to consider the impact of housing-policy responses following the Grenfell fire on the marginalisation of the social-housing resident. We consider three specific policy responses: reform focused on conditions of rented properties; the social-housing White Paper; and building regulation and building-safety reforms. We suggest that, in historical institutionalist terms, each is part of a matrix of refo…
Charitable purposes and the shaping effects of money
We address a curious omission from both the literature on the law of charity and socio-legal studies – the effect of apparently extraneous factors, such as politics and ideology, as well as the searching for money on the charitable purposes and identities of the public who are to benefit from the charity. This is a curious omission because even the law accepts that the idea of public benefit in charity law is a sociological concept, albeit one th…
Governing canal life
This article focuses on the governance of canals in England and Wales. The Canal & River Trust (CRT), the owner and manager of the waterways, has a statutory responsibility to grant ‘certificates’ or licences. The licence constructs a category called ‘continuous cruisers’ who live aboard their boat. Drawing on a sample of interviews with ‘continuous cruiser liveaboards’ (CCLs), we discuss how their governance by the CRT has gradually encroached o…
Introduction: Celebrating Phil Thomas at 80
As this Special Supplement of the journal that he founded demonstrates, Phil Thomas has had an enduring influence on the socio-legal project in the United Kingdom and internationally. In part, this has been achieved by the establishment of a leading journal in the field, which for half a century has been responsible for publishing challenging articles and constantly enriching and disrupting accounts of its perimeters. Phil's commitment to the jou…
Regulating Home: A Case Study
In this article, we draw on recent scholarship on home, property and regulation to develop an idea of home as being co-constituted by, and through, three different types of regulation – regulation of the self, regulation of life, and regulation as enforcement. We demonstrate how a focus on the mundane in regulation, as opposed to the spectacular, impacts on the making and unmaking of home in this context. Rather than draw on traditional housing t…
A perennial problem? On underoccupation in English council housing
Addressing the issue of underoccupation has been a prominent feature in English social housing policy since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government was formed in 2010. A key move under the Coalition’s welfare reform agenda was the implementation of the underoccupancy penalty—the so-called ‘bedroom tax’—from April 2013. However, while this policy triggered high-profile protests, it does not represent a novel policy preoccupation. Va…
Reducing Homelessness or Re‐ordering the Deckchairs
The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 has come into force trumpeting nothing less than the need for a ‘culture change’ among local housing authorities implementing it. Although it aims to reduce homelessness, it is more likely to hide long‐term systemic issues in the housing system. It is argued that the 2017 Act's significant alterations are likely to result in a re‐ordering of the deckchairs on the Titanic of housing policy. Following a biography…
Thank heavens for the lease”: Histories of shared ownership
Drawing on and developing Kingdon’s multiple streams analysis, this article examines the development of one aspect of the UK’s low cost home ownership programme: shared ownership. We demonstrate how key human and non-human policy entrepreneurs were able to set the agenda from 1973–1983 in favour of shared ownership; they neutralized the alternatives, while retaining some of their instruments; and solved a number of early problems by bringing key …
Esther Sullivan: Manufactured Insecurity: Mobile Home Parks and Americans' Tenuous Right to Place
Producing the Product: A Case Study of Law and Its Absence
In this article, we seek to develop socio‐legal studies through a rupturing of the ideas behind the social and the legal, ideas that are most often presumed to exist and are used to explain that which is already there. The ubiquity of law and the omniscience of society have become givens. We use a product called shared ownership as a case study, arguing that the product was given life by a legal document (the lease) which itself represented the t…
Uses of Macro Social Theory: A Social Housing Case Study
This article reflects on the use of macro social theoretical perspectives to explain micro social issues, using social housing allocations as a case study. In contrast to a number of social theoretical examinations of social housing allocation schemes in recent years, spanning socio‐legal studies, we argue that ‘cookie‐cutter’ theories may overlook other positions and counter‐factual scenarios. We draw on a sample of local authority allocation sc…
What's the Use of a Hashtag? A Case Study
Although there are now sophisticated techniques for the analysis of social media, socio-legal studies has yet to draw on them fully. In this article, we demonstrate how Twitter can produce insights about protest, law, and legality, through a case study of protests against the 'bedroom tax'. The first involved challenging a policy in the courts using a test case or cases. We discuss the litigation strategies and the mess they created and counterpo…
Nicholas Blomley Rights of Passage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow. Abingdon, UK: Routledge–Glasshouse, 2011, 134 p
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Jurisdiction and Scale: Rent Arrears, Social Housing, and Human Rights
This article draws on the recent work of Mariana Valverde on jurisdiction and scale to frame a study of the interaction between mandatory possession proceedings brought by one particular type of social housing provider – housing associations – and national as well as human rights law. It was the explicit political choice to focus social housing provision on housing associations, as opposed to local authorities, which opened up the mandatory posse…
Yeah but, no but’ – P innock and P owell in the S upreme C ourt
This note considers the S upreme C ourt decisions in M anchester CC v P innock and H ounslow LBC v P owell . It is argued that there are a number of remaining outstanding questions around proportionality, including: deference; section 89, H ousing A ct 1980; procedural issues; ‘publicness’; and the future landscape
Cultural competence: Definition, delivery and evaluation
It is again suggested that people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities comprise a disproportionately high percentage of mental health inpatients. Furthermore, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) concluded the Department of Health (DH) did not have 'due regard' to the Race Equality Duty, retaining major concerns regarding the ability of the DH to ensure future compliance (CRE, 2007). In light of these ongoing problems the DH publi…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Legal Consciousness: Some Observations
This article argues that US studies of ‘legal consciousness’ have much to offer UK socio‐legal studies. It is, perhaps, surprising that so little attention has been paid to this set of understandings. I seek to rectify that imbalance in the transatlantic relationship by outlining legal consciousness and its critiques. I then draw on homelessness applicant interview data to discuss their ‘legal consciousness’, illustrating the importance of the va…
Pretty Boring Stuff: District Judges and Housing Possession Proceedings
In this article, we demonstrate how judgecraft, though mundane in the context of housing possession proceedings in England, involves the client-processing mentality suggested in Lipsky's work on street-level bureaucracy. Although they may be regarded as mundane, the consequences of these proceedings may well be dire, producing homelessness and other forms of extreme housing need. Lipsky helps us, because his work enables us to think about the fac…
Judgecraft: An Introduction
Judgecraft emerged recently as a common theme in our work, although it would also be fair to say that we had not, at that early stage, thought through its parameters. As UK academics working in the comparatively recent socio-legal terrain of empirical research into judges and judging, \nwe were both simultaneously searching for the appropriate tools to frame our work. Yet, that framework did not seem to exist, or, at least, did not seem to transl…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Policing Unauthorized Camping
We argue that the links between welfare, policing, and exclusion, though rarely made explicit, nevertheless form the undercurrent of the modern neo‐liberal state. In making this argument, we draw particularly upon the voluminous literature which amplifies the seminal work of Foucault, especially as it relates to government. Thereafter, we apply this set of understandings to the way in which the unauthorized encampments of Gypsies and Travellers a…
Policing the housing crisis
In this paper, we argue that the ‘crime control housing crisis’ which has engulfed social housing is qualitatively different from most previous and current understandings of housing crisis (which have been of a quantita tive nature, or been resolved to that). By contrast, the crime control housing crisis is a crisis precisely because it appears insoluble. All hous ing problems and policies now have to be legitimated by reference to this crime con…
Adjudicating the Implementation of Homelessness Law: The Promise of Socio-Legal Studies
This paper offers a re-consideration of the contexts within which discretionary homelessness decision making takes place. Drawing on socio-legal studies, it is argued that one such context (which has regularly been ignored within the housing studies literature) is compliance with the law. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data of internal reviews of homelessness decision making, the paper considers how far (and under what conditions) initia…
Community, neighbourhood, responsibility: Contemporary currents in housing studies
Community, neighbourhood and responsibility have emerged as prominent themes in contemporary housing policy and practice in the UK. They imply questions of fundamental importance regarding the fact
The business of universities: A case study of halls of residence
In this article, we discuss the changing modes of provision of English Universities’ halls of residence from University provision to a complex marketplace in which private provision dominates. We frame our analysis around five themes familiar to discussions of privatisations of public sector institutions: financialisation, affordability, infrastructure, regulation, and partnerships. We draw on our original research, which comprises a survey of 50…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Risking Housing Need
It is commonly suggested that social housing is allocated on the basis of ‘need’. The authors, however, suggest that the concept of risk provides a much better explanation of the complex interplay of interests involved in the allocation process. In particular, risk explains developing allocation methods in low‐demand areas. The thesis is exemplified by drawing upon data derived from the authors' original research on the rehousing of sex offenders
Meeting the Need: The Response of Local Authorities' Housing Departments to the Housing of Ex-Offenders
This paper outlines the possible routes of access to public sector housing for offenders released from prison. The authors argue that the Housing Act 1985, Part III, and the Children Act 1989, Part III, provide a legislative framework which may well be wide enough to accommodate applications from homeless ex-offenders. The results of this empirical survey of local authority housing departments showed, however, that many local authorities do not i…
Displacements: Objects and Relationality
An abstract is not available for this content. As you have access to this content, full HTML content is provided on this page. A PDF of this content is also available in through the 'Save PDF' action button
Actor‐network Theory, Implementation, and the Private Landlord
Rage at Westsinster: Sociolegal Reflections on the Power of Sale
This article analyses several diverse strands of Westminster City Council's unlawful policy of selling off council homes, one of the most significant political scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. After setting out the story of the events and adjudications in this saga, the article considers three discursive sites: political constructions of ownership, law's constructions, and constructions of law. The latter two sites are located within a discussion…
New angles on homelessness
The House of Lords, in a recent judgment, has argued that those lacking the “capacity to understand and respond” to an offer of accommodation and most children under 16 cannot apply for accommodation under the Housing Act 1985, Part 111. Instead, they might be able to use the National Assistance Act 1948, section 21(1) or the Children Act 1989, section 20(1). This article analyses the effect of their Lordships' judgment on the Housing Act 1985, P…
The object(s) of legality
In this article, we argue for the relevance of studying the association between objects and people as co‐constituting legality in everyday life rather than solely focusing either on people or on ‘icons’. Indeed, we go further and argue that scholarship is in danger of producing an impoverished version of legal consciousness if it fails to look beyond the human actors, the people in society. Studying objects and associations, and their role in the…
Local authority intervention in private renting: From compliance to hardline enforcement
Drawing on data from two empirical projects concerned with local authority enforcement of standards in the private rented sector, this article argues that there are signs of greater use of formal enforcement approaches, and that these approaches are increasingly ‘hardline’. This finding runs counter to the existing scholarship on regulatory enforcement, which emphasizes securing compliance over formal enforcement. Securing compliance is also inte…
Marginalisation, Grenfell Tower and the voice of the social-housing resident: A critical juncture in housing law and policy
This paper draws on historical institutionalism to consider the impact of housing-policy responses following the Grenfell fire on the marginalisation of the social-housing resident. We consider three specific policy responses: reform focused on conditions of rented properties; the social-housing White Paper; and building regulation and building-safety reforms. We suggest that, in historical institutionalist terms, each is part of a matrix of refo…
Charitable purposes and the shaping effects of money
We address a curious omission from both the literature on the law of charity and socio-legal studies – the effect of apparently extraneous factors, such as politics and ideology, as well as the searching for money on the charitable purposes and identities of the public who are to benefit from the charity. This is a curious omission because even the law accepts that the idea of public benefit in charity law is a sociological concept, albeit one th…
Governing canal life
This article focuses on the governance of canals in England and Wales. The Canal & River Trust (CRT), the owner and manager of the waterways, has a statutory responsibility to grant ‘certificates’ or licences. The licence constructs a category called ‘continuous cruisers’ who live aboard their boat. Drawing on a sample of interviews with ‘continuous cruiser liveaboards’ (CCLs), we discuss how their governance by the CRT has gradually encroached o…
Reducing Homelessness or Re‐ordering the Deckchairs
The Homelessness Reduction Act 2017 has come into force trumpeting nothing less than the need for a ‘culture change’ among local housing authorities implementing it. Although it aims to reduce homelessness, it is more likely to hide long‐term systemic issues in the housing system. It is argued that the 2017 Act's significant alterations are likely to result in a re‐ordering of the deckchairs on the Titanic of housing policy. Following a biography…
Uses of Macro Social Theory: A Social Housing Case Study
This article reflects on the use of macro social theoretical perspectives to explain micro social issues, using social housing allocations as a case study. In contrast to a number of social theoretical examinations of social housing allocation schemes in recent years, spanning socio‐legal studies, we argue that ‘cookie‐cutter’ theories may overlook other positions and counter‐factual scenarios. We draw on a sample of local authority allocation sc…
What's the Use of a Hashtag? A Case Study
Although there are now sophisticated techniques for the analysis of social media, socio-legal studies has yet to draw on them fully. In this article, we demonstrate how Twitter can produce insights about protest, law, and legality, through a case study of protests against the 'bedroom tax'. The first involved challenging a policy in the courts using a test case or cases. We discuss the litigation strategies and the mess they created and counterpo…
Cultural competence: Definition, delivery and evaluation
It is again suggested that people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities comprise a disproportionately high percentage of mental health inpatients. Furthermore, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) concluded the Department of Health (DH) did not have 'due regard' to the Race Equality Duty, retaining major concerns regarding the ability of the DH to ensure future compliance (CRE, 2007). In light of these ongoing problems the DH publi…
New angles on homelessness
The House of Lords, in a recent judgment, has argued that those lacking the “capacity to understand and respond” to an offer of accommodation and most children under 16 cannot apply for accommodation under the Housing Act 1985, Part 111. Instead, they might be able to use the National Assistance Act 1948, section 21(1) or the Children Act 1989, section 20(1). This article analyses the effect of their Lordships' judgment on the Housing Act 1985, P…
Local Connection and Disconnection: R v Newham London Borough Council, ex parte Tower Hamlets London Borough Council
Meeting the Need: The Response of Local Authorities' Housing Departments to the Housing of Ex-Offenders
This paper outlines the possible routes of access to public sector housing for offenders released from prison. The authors argue that the Housing Act 1985, Part III, and the Children Act 1989, Part III, provide a legislative framework which may well be wide enough to accommodate applications from homeless ex-offenders. The results of this empirical survey of local authority housing departments showed, however, that many local authorities do not i…
Risking Housing Need
It is commonly suggested that social housing is allocated on the basis of ‘need’. The authors, however, suggest that the concept of risk provides a much better explanation of the complex interplay of interests involved in the allocation process. In particular, risk explains developing allocation methods in low‐demand areas. The thesis is exemplified by drawing upon data derived from the authors' original research on the rehousing of sex offenders
There’s Regulatory Crime, and then there’s Landlord Crime: From ‘Rachmanites’ to ‘Partners’
This article considers local authority strategies towards the regulation and prosecution of private landlords who commit the criminal offences of unlawful eviction and harassment. Generally, local authorities operate compliance‐based strategies, rarely (if ever) resorting to prosecution. In seeking to explain this approach, the article draws upon the literature concerning regulatory crime, but also distinguishes local authority responses to landl…
New Labour, Same Old Tory Housing Policy
Rage at Westsinster: Sociolegal Reflections on the Power of Sale
This article analyses several diverse strands of Westminster City Council's unlawful policy of selling off council homes, one of the most significant political scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. After setting out the story of the events and adjudications in this saga, the article considers three discursive sites: political constructions of ownership, law's constructions, and constructions of law. The latter two sites are located within a discussion…
Policing Unauthorized Camping
We argue that the links between welfare, policing, and exclusion, though rarely made explicit, nevertheless form the undercurrent of the modern neo‐liberal state. In making this argument, we draw particularly upon the voluminous literature which amplifies the seminal work of Foucault, especially as it relates to government. Thereafter, we apply this set of understandings to the way in which the unauthorized encampments of Gypsies and Travellers a…
Community, neighbourhood, responsibility: Contemporary currents in housing studies
Community, neighbourhood and responsibility have emerged as prominent themes in contemporary housing policy and practice in the UK. They imply questions of fundamental importance regarding the fact
From Need to Choice: R(A) v Lambeth LBC; R(Lindsay) v Lambeth LBC
Legal Consciousness: Some Observations
This article argues that US studies of ‘legal consciousness’ have much to offer UK socio‐legal studies. It is, perhaps, surprising that so little attention has been paid to this set of understandings. I seek to rectify that imbalance in the transatlantic relationship by outlining legal consciousness and its critiques. I then draw on homelessness applicant interview data to discuss their ‘legal consciousness’, illustrating the importance of the va…
Adjudicating the Implementation of Homelessness Law: The Promise of Socio-Legal Studies
This paper offers a re-consideration of the contexts within which discretionary homelessness decision making takes place. Drawing on socio-legal studies, it is argued that one such context (which has regularly been ignored within the housing studies literature) is compliance with the law. Drawing on quantitative and qualitative data of internal reviews of homelessness decision making, the paper considers how far (and under what conditions) initia…
Judgecraft: An Introduction
Judgecraft emerged recently as a common theme in our work, although it would also be fair to say that we had not, at that early stage, thought through its parameters. As UK academics working in the comparatively recent socio-legal terrain of empirical research into judges and judging, \nwe were both simultaneously searching for the appropriate tools to frame our work. Yet, that framework did not seem to exist, or, at least, did not seem to transl…
Pretty Boring Stuff: District Judges and Housing Possession Proceedings
In this article, we demonstrate how judgecraft, though mundane in the context of housing possession proceedings in England, involves the client-processing mentality suggested in Lipsky's work on street-level bureaucracy. Although they may be regarded as mundane, the consequences of these proceedings may well be dire, producing homelessness and other forms of extreme housing need. Lipsky helps us, because his work enables us to think about the fac…
Policing the housing crisis
In this paper, we argue that the ‘crime control housing crisis’ which has engulfed social housing is qualitatively different from most previous and current understandings of housing crisis (which have been of a quantita tive nature, or been resolved to that). By contrast, the crime control housing crisis is a crisis precisely because it appears insoluble. All hous ing problems and policies now have to be legitimated by reference to this crime con…
Actor‐network Theory, Implementation, and the Private Landlord
Cultural competence: Definition, delivery and evaluation
It is again suggested that people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities comprise a disproportionately high percentage of mental health inpatients. Furthermore, the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) concluded the Department of Health (DH) did not have 'due regard' to the Race Equality Duty, retaining major concerns regarding the ability of the DH to ensure future compliance (CRE, 2007). In light of these ongoing problems the DH publi…
Nominations: An Actor-Network Approach
This paper offers an empirical assessment of the potential benefits to housing studies of actor-network theory (ANT). Gabriel & Jacobs' paper in this journal has suggested that certain ‘classic’ sites of housing studies are being re-imagined by studies within the post-social turn. This paper is an empirical study of the nominations process, through which registered social landlords are enrolled into allocating social housing to households priorit…
Structuring governance: A case study of the new organizational provision of public service delivery
Drawing on research findings concerning the new management structures and paradigms in the range of services formerly provided within the public sector, this paper reports on research conducted into the governing structures of a newly registered social landlord, formed to take over a local authority’s housing stock. Using a variety of ethnographic methods, the research looked at the ways in which the members of the governing body translated under…
Nicholas Blomley Rights of Passage: Sidewalks and the Regulation of Public Flow. Abingdon, UK: Routledge–Glasshouse, 2011, 134 p
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Jurisdiction and Scale: Rent Arrears, Social Housing, and Human Rights
This article draws on the recent work of Mariana Valverde on jurisdiction and scale to frame a study of the interaction between mandatory possession proceedings brought by one particular type of social housing provider – housing associations – and national as well as human rights law. It was the explicit political choice to focus social housing provision on housing associations, as opposed to local authorities, which opened up the mandatory posse…
Yeah but, no but’ – P innock and P owell in the S upreme C ourt
This note considers the S upreme C ourt decisions in M anchester CC v P innock and H ounslow LBC v P owell . It is argued that there are a number of remaining outstanding questions around proportionality, including: deference; section 89, H ousing A ct 1980; procedural issues; ‘publicness’; and the future landscape
Uses of Macro Social Theory: A Social Housing Case Study
This article reflects on the use of macro social theoretical perspectives to explain micro social issues, using social housing allocations as a case study. In contrast to a number of social theoretical examinations of social housing allocation schemes in recent years, spanning socio‐legal studies, we argue that ‘cookie‐cutter’ theories may overlook other positions and counter‐factual scenarios. We draw on a sample of local authority allocation sc…
What's the Use of a Hashtag? A Case Study
Although there are now sophisticated techniques for the analysis of social media, socio-legal studies has yet to draw on them fully. In this article, we demonstrate how Twitter can produce insights about protest, law, and legality, through a case study of protests against the 'bedroom tax'. The first involved challenging a policy in the courts using a test case or cases. We discuss the litigation strategies and the mess they created and counterpo…
Producing the Product: A Case Study of Law and Its Absence
In this article, we seek to develop socio‐legal studies through a rupturing of the ideas behind the social and the legal, ideas that are most often presumed to exist and are used to explain that which is already there. The ubiquity of law and the omniscience of society have become givens. We use a product called shared ownership as a case study, arguing that the product was given life by a legal document (the lease) which itself represented the t…
Sociology (32 works) · Political science (30 works) · Law (26 works) · Law (20 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (19 works) · Business (12 works) · Computer Science (11 works) · Law and economics (11 works) · Economics (10 works) · Law in Society and Culture (9 works)