Jim Kemeny
Biographic Data
| ID | 291944 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jim Kemeny |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jim |
| FAMILY NAME | Kemeny |
| SIGNATURE | KEMENY J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 42 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 582 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 42 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1972 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2013 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Housing and Social Theory
Studies in housing have often concentrated on an abstract institutionalised approach isolated from the broader base of the social sciences. This book is the first to treat housing as a subject of social theory. It provides a critique of current research and theorises housing in relation to political science, social change and welfare developing a case study to illustrate these applications. By being sometimes controversial, this book will stimula…
Rule Systems Theory: Applications and Explorations
Helena Flam & Marcus Carson (Eds) Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2008, ISBN 978-3-631-57596-3 Rule Systems Theory, or Social Rule System Theory, is one of the routes that have been taken in developing idea
Divergence in European Welfare and Housing Systems
Joris Hoekstra Delft, The Netherlands: Delft University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60750-667-6 In the last 15 years Research Institute for the Built Environment has established itself as the world’s l
The Ideology of Home Ownership: Homeownership Societies and the Role of Housing
Richard Ronald Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008, ISBN‐13: 978‐1‐403‐98941‐1 Thirty years after The Myth of Home Ownership this book by Richard Ronald shows clearly how much housing research ha
Terrorism and the Politics of Fear
Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction
Corporatism and Housing Regimes
According to Torgersen (1978), education, health care, social security and housing are the four pillars of the welfare state. However, he describes housing as the "wobbly pillar under the welfare state" because to a far greater degree than education, health care and social security, housing is a market product. When examining welfare, the equivocal position of housing between state and market leads welfare researchers to focus on one or more of t…
Response to Comments
The Really Big Trade‐Off” between Home Ownership and Welfare: Castles' Evaluation of the 1980 Thesis, and a Reformulation 25 Years on
25 years ago, on the basis of very general statistics I argued that countries with high rates of home ownership tended to be countries with poorly‐developed welfare states. Nearly 20 years later, in 1998 this thesis was tested by Frank Castles who, using more sophisticated statistical techniques and a larger number of countries, found the thesis to have some validity. He dubbed the phenomenon "The really big trade‐off" between home ownership and …
Non-profit Housing Influencing , Leading and Dominating the Unitary Rental Market: Three Case Studies
The distinction between dual rental systems and unitary rental markets is refined and developed. In particular, unitary rental markets are defined as markets in which barriers to non-profit providers competing on the rental market are removed, reserving the term ‘integrated rental markets’ for markets in which non-profit providers are sufficiently developed to be able to compete without the need for invasive regulation. The study also develops th…
In Memory of Lars-Erik Borgegård
Power, Discursive Space and Institutional Practices in the Construction of Housing Problems
A constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housing researchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. The paper addresses this lacuna by f…
Korporatism och bostadsregimer
Housing has been described as “the wobbly pillar under the welfare state”. Unlike the other three pillars - education, health and social security - housing is largely a market commodity modified by subsidies and regulation. This makes it a potentially fruitful welfare sector to examine the interplay between market interests and policymaking. This article considers the relationship between rental housing and the welfare state interms of regime the…
Privileged or exploited council tenants? The discursive change in Conservative housing policy from 1972 to 1980
English The process of social construction in which competing and sometimes contradictory definitions contend with one another plays a decisive part in policy making. Justifications for policy intervention often require a narrative identifying villains or victims to delineate creatively a ‘social problem’ that needs to be addressed by appropriate measures. This article shows how contrasting political and media representations of council tenants i…
Society versus the State
Following Margaret Somers, the paper explores the implicit metanarrative that underlies and informs basic concepts in the social sciences - and hence also basic concepts in housing research - of "society/market" and "state". Somers shows how the Hobbesian thesis that society is impossible without the state was countered by the Lockeian project of making a conceptual distinction between them that redefined society/market as "natural" and as existi…
Re-inventing the Wheel? The Interactional Basis of Constructionism
Comparative housing and welfare: Theorising the relationship
Editor?s Introduction to Volume 18
Obituary: Valerie Karn
Both Rationed and Subsidised: Jersey's Command Economy in Housing
The bailiwick of Jersey's special constitutional position has given it the opportunity to develop its own economic, cultural and policy strategies
Schools of Comparative Housing Research: From Convergence to Divergence
Comparative housing research has become a major field of investigation in the last two decades, and it is now possible to discern distinct approaches. In this paper we present an overview of the literature, distinguishing between three dominant perspectives. At one extreme are particularistic approaches which are conceptually unexplicated and highly empirical and in which each country is seen as unique. At the other extreme are universalistic app…
From public housing to the social market: Rental policy strategies in comparative perspective
Jim Kemeny develops a conceptual framework to present a critical study of comparative rental markets. The framework centres around the concept of the process of maturation of cost rental housing and two policies for handling this which have been adopted by industrial societies. These are, firstly, the Anglo-Saxon dualist system, seen in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and secondly, the Germanic unitary market system, seen in Sweden, The…
Theories of Power in the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Esping-Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism has been very influential in comparative social policy because he develops a power analysis of welfare state formation. However, the analysis of political power that underpins his thesis has been widely misunder stood. In particular, the concept of welfare regime has lots its original conceptual meaning as a system of power stratification that upholds different types of welfare state. Inste…
The significance of Swedish rental policy: Cost renting: Command economy versus the social market in comparative perspective
Recent literature on the Swedish rental system has missed the central significance of the Swedish system for international comparative purposes by neglecting the rent‐setting system and by unwittingly adopting an Anglo‐Saxon perspective. In this paper I attempt to rectify this by developing a comparative conceptual framework for the analysis of rental systems. I outline the post‐war history of the Swedish rent‐setting system, and argue that this …
Swedish Rent-setting Policy: Labour-led Corporatism in a Strategic Policy Area
Housing and Social Theory
Studies in housing have often concentrated on an abstract institutionalised approach isolated from the broader base of the social sciences. This book is the first to treat housing as a subject of social theory. It provides a critique of current research and theorises housing in relation to political science, social change and welfare developing a case study to illustrate these applications. By being sometimes controversial, this book will stimula…
Corporatism and Housing Regimes
According to Torgersen (1978), education, health care, social security and housing are the four pillars of the welfare state. However, he describes housing as the "wobbly pillar under the welfare state" because to a far greater degree than education, health care and social security, housing is a market product. When examining welfare, the equivocal position of housing between state and market leads welfare researchers to focus on one or more of t…
Comparative housing and welfare: Theorising the relationship
The Really Big Trade‐Off” between Home Ownership and Welfare: Castles' Evaluation of the 1980 Thesis, and a Reformulation 25 Years on
25 years ago, on the basis of very general statistics I argued that countries with high rates of home ownership tended to be countries with poorly‐developed welfare states. Nearly 20 years later, in 1998 this thesis was tested by Frank Castles who, using more sophisticated statistical techniques and a larger number of countries, found the thesis to have some validity. He dubbed the phenomenon "The really big trade‐off" between home ownership and …
Schools of Comparative Housing Research: From Convergence to Divergence
Comparative housing research has become a major field of investigation in the last two decades, and it is now possible to discern distinct approaches. In this paper we present an overview of the literature, distinguishing between three dominant perspectives. At one extreme are particularistic approaches which are conceptually unexplicated and highly empirical and in which each country is seen as unique. At the other extreme are universalistic app…
Home ownership and privatization
Power, Discursive Space and Institutional Practices in the Construction of Housing Problems
A constructionist approach to the study of social problems and housing policy provides a theoretically informed means of analysing the ways in which housing policy is formulated and implemented. Yet despite a strong commitment by housing researchers to policy relevance, constructionist studies of how specific social problems are generated and deployed have so far made only a limited impact on housing research. The paper addresses this lacuna by f…
Non-profit Housing Influencing , Leading and Dominating the Unitary Rental Market: Three Case Studies
The distinction between dual rental systems and unitary rental markets is refined and developed. In particular, unitary rental markets are defined as markets in which barriers to non-profit providers competing on the rental market are removed, reserving the term ‘integrated rental markets’ for markets in which non-profit providers are sufficiently developed to be able to compete without the need for invasive regulation. The study also develops th…
Theories of Power in the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Esping-Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism has been very influential in comparative social policy because he develops a power analysis of welfare state formation. However, the analysis of political power that underpins his thesis has been widely misunder stood. In particular, the concept of welfare regime has lots its original conceptual meaning as a system of power stratification that upholds different types of welfare state. Inste…
Toward a theorised housing studies: A counter‐critique of the provision thesis
Hayward's critique of my Australian work (Housing Studies Vol 1 No 4) was based upon a perspective that takes the provision of housing as its starting point. In this paper I reply to that critique, both in terms of the wider conceptual concerns it is based upon and the substantive critique of my analysis of home ownership in Australia. I argue that the 'provision thesis', as I term it, involves a mistaken focus upon what should or should not be t…
Privileged or exploited council tenants? The discursive change in Conservative housing policy from 1972 to 1980
English The process of social construction in which competing and sometimes contradictory definitions contend with one another plays a decisive part in policy making. Justifications for policy intervention often require a narrative identifying villains or victims to delineate creatively a ‘social problem’ that needs to be addressed by appropriate measures. This article shows how contrasting political and media representations of council tenants i…
Middle-Class Housing Careers: The Relationship between Furnished Renting and Home Ownership
Defining housing reality: Ideological hegemony and power in housing research
An understanding of the dynamics of the research process and an awareness of the power structure of research can contribute towards heightened awareness of researchers in developing new ways of thinking and breaking down hegemonic perspectives. The task of this discussion is to begin a process of internal dialogue among housing researchers based on moving towards a more explicated awareness of the implicit paradigms and opaque power structures wh…
Forms of Tenure and Social Structure: A Comparison of Owning and Renting in Australia and Sweden
While there is an extensive literature within urban sociology on housing in general,l the sociology of tenureand in particular of the factors influencing the balance of predominant forms of tenure in different societies has been almost entirely neglected.2 This neglect is all the more surprising considering the importance of different types of tenure for life-styles, notably spending patterns and residential mobility. Home-ownership, for example,…
The significance of Swedish rental policy: Cost renting: Command economy versus the social market in comparative perspective
Recent literature on the Swedish rental system has missed the central significance of the Swedish system for international comparative purposes by neglecting the rent‐setting system and by unwittingly adopting an Anglo‐Saxon perspective. In this paper I attempt to rectify this by developing a comparative conceptual framework for the analysis of rental systems. I outline the post‐war history of the Swedish rent‐setting system, and argue that this …
A Critique and Reformulation of the New Urban Sociology
It is argued that Marxian urban sociology as developed in the last decade requires substantial reformulation if it is to make any further progress. The problem with the approach is that although the new urban sociology was founded on a Marxist critique of traditional urban sociology its analytical perspective has remained economistic. Crucially, this has resulted in the concept of class being neglected as a result of having been displaced by a fo…
Capital Leakage from Owner-Occupied Housing
Capital leakage is defined as the conversion into disposable income of capital invested in housing assets. In debates on the capital demands of owner-occupation, one concern is the extent to which demand for mortgage finance results from the withdrawal of capital from owner-occupied housing and its expenditure elsewhere. The paper centres on an attempt to Quantify the likely dimensions of capital leakage using national statistical sources. Within…
Divergence in European Welfare and Housing Systems
Joris Hoekstra Delft, The Netherlands: Delft University Press, 2010, ISBN 978-1-60750-667-6 In the last 15 years Research Institute for the Built Environment has established itself as the world’s l
Swedish Rent-setting Policy: Labour-led Corporatism in a Strategic Policy Area
Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction
Korporatism och bostadsregimer
Housing has been described as “the wobbly pillar under the welfare state”. Unlike the other three pillars - education, health and social security - housing is largely a market commodity modified by subsidies and regulation. This makes it a potentially fruitful welfare sector to examine the interplay between market interests and policymaking. This article considers the relationship between rental housing and the welfare state interms of regime the…
Professional ideologies and organisational structure: Tanks and the Military
Doctrinal differences within the military profession have long been a central feature of the development of tactics and strategy, and in earlier periods of history there have been controversies over the appropriate employment of certain arms and units, such as the relative merits of infantry in line or column and the use of cavalry for firepower or shock, as, for example, discussed by Oman (1929) and Quimbey (1957). More recently there has been t…
Perspectives on the Micro-Macro Distinction
Terrorism and the Politics of Fear
Response to Comments
“Economic INTERESTS” Versus “Economic PRESSURES”: Two Case Studies of Social Change
Perspectives on the Micro-Macro Distinction
Urban Home-ownership in Sweden
About one quarter of urban households in urban Sweden are owner-occupiers but there is little relationship between owner occupance and social class. This is attributed to the ability of the private rental sector to attract high-income households. Tenure choice reflects housing costs at different stages of the life cycle: these costs are examined in detail. Other elements in tenure choice are locational attributes and the legal position of owners …
Forms of Tenure and Social Structure: A Comparison of Owning and Renting in Australia and Sweden
While there is an extensive literature within urban sociology on housing in general,l the sociology of tenureand in particular of the factors influencing the balance of predominant forms of tenure in different societies has been almost entirely neglected.2 This neglect is all the more surprising considering the importance of different types of tenure for life-styles, notably spending patterns and residential mobility. Home-ownership, for example,…
The South Australian Housing Trust: A Socioeconomic Case Study in Public Housing
The cost structure of Australian public housing authorities and its implications for the social administrative side of public housing operations is examined through a study of the South Australian Housing Trust. The importance of the pooled debt burden for lowering costs to well below private market levels is indicated. The sales policy is examined and it is argued that the sale of public housing into owner occupation is a major exacerbating fact…
Home ownership and privatization
The Cost of Selling Public Rental Housing: Victoria and South Australia Compared
A comparison of the cost of selling public rental housing is made between two state housing authorities which have similar sized rental stocks but which have sold different percentages of total constructions. Using data from annual reports, it is found that Victoria's policy of selling to sitting tenants has resulted in higher per unit costs on the unsold rental stock than in South Australia where very few houses have been sold to sitting tenants…
The Cost of Selling Public Rental Housing: A Reply to Roseth
Middle-Class Housing Careers: The Relationship between Furnished Renting and Home Ownership
A Critique and Reformulation of the New Urban Sociology
It is argued that Marxian urban sociology as developed in the last decade requires substantial reformulation if it is to make any further progress. The problem with the approach is that although the new urban sociology was founded on a Marxist critique of traditional urban sociology its analytical perspective has remained economistic. Crucially, this has resulted in the concept of class being neglected as a result of having been displaced by a fo…
Professional ideologies and organisational structure: Tanks and the Military
Doctrinal differences within the military profession have long been a central feature of the development of tactics and strategy, and in earlier periods of history there have been controversies over the appropriate employment of certain arms and units, such as the relative merits of infantry in line or column and the use of cavalry for firepower or shock, as, for example, discussed by Oman (1929) and Quimbey (1957). More recently there has been t…
The Swedish Housing Model: A commentary
Capital Leakage from Owner-Occupied Housing
Capital leakage is defined as the conversion into disposable income of capital invested in housing assets. In debates on the capital demands of owner-occupation, one concern is the extent to which demand for mortgage finance results from the withdrawal of capital from owner-occupied housing and its expenditure elsewhere. The paper centres on an attempt to Quantify the likely dimensions of capital leakage using national statistical sources. Within…
International conference on housing policy research, Gävle, Sweden, July 1986
Toward a theorised housing studies: A counter‐critique of the provision thesis
Hayward's critique of my Australian work (Housing Studies Vol 1 No 4) was based upon a perspective that takes the provision of housing as its starting point. In this paper I reply to that critique, both in terms of the wider conceptual concerns it is based upon and the substantive critique of my analysis of home ownership in Australia. I argue that the 'provision thesis', as I term it, involves a mistaken focus upon what should or should not be t…
Home Ownership in the Inner City: Salvation or Despair
Defining housing reality: Ideological hegemony and power in housing research
An understanding of the dynamics of the research process and an awareness of the power structure of research can contribute towards heightened awareness of researchers in developing new ways of thinking and breaking down hegemonic perspectives. The task of this discussion is to begin a process of internal dialogue among housing researchers based on moving towards a more explicated awareness of the implicit paradigms and opaque power structures wh…
Swedish Rent-setting Policy: Labour-led Corporatism in a Strategic Policy Area
The significance of Swedish rental policy: Cost renting: Command economy versus the social market in comparative perspective
Recent literature on the Swedish rental system has missed the central significance of the Swedish system for international comparative purposes by neglecting the rent‐setting system and by unwittingly adopting an Anglo‐Saxon perspective. In this paper I attempt to rectify this by developing a comparative conceptual framework for the analysis of rental systems. I outline the post‐war history of the Swedish rent‐setting system, and argue that this …
From public housing to the social market: Rental policy strategies in comparative perspective
Jim Kemeny develops a conceptual framework to present a critical study of comparative rental markets. The framework centres around the concept of the process of maturation of cost rental housing and two policies for handling this which have been adopted by industrial societies. These are, firstly, the Anglo-Saxon dualist system, seen in Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and secondly, the Germanic unitary market system, seen in Sweden, The…
Theories of Power in the Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism
Esping-Andersen's The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism has been very influential in comparative social policy because he develops a power analysis of welfare state formation. However, the analysis of political power that underpins his thesis has been widely misunder stood. In particular, the concept of welfare regime has lots its original conceptual meaning as a system of power stratification that upholds different types of welfare state. Inste…
Both Rationed and Subsidised: Jersey's Command Economy in Housing
The bailiwick of Jersey's special constitutional position has given it the opportunity to develop its own economic, cultural and policy strategies
Schools of Comparative Housing Research: From Convergence to Divergence
Comparative housing research has become a major field of investigation in the last two decades, and it is now possible to discern distinct approaches. In this paper we present an overview of the literature, distinguishing between three dominant perspectives. At one extreme are particularistic approaches which are conceptually unexplicated and highly empirical and in which each country is seen as unique. At the other extreme are universalistic app…
Obituary: Valerie Karn
Comparative housing and welfare: Theorising the relationship
Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (27 works) · Political science (27 works) · Economics (26 works) · Sociology (26 works) · Law (15 works) · Business (14 works) · Law (12 works) · Housing Market and Economics (11 works) · Renting (11 works) · Epistemology (10 works)