Alex Marsh
Biographic Data
| ID | 4387145 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alex Marsh |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alex |
| FAMILY NAME | Marsh |
| SIGNATURE | MARSH A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2807-3765 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 34 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 143 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 34 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1993 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
What’s the alternative? The institutional logics of community-oriented smart city development
State- and corporate-led “top-down” approaches to smart city development are often contrasted with more community- and grassroots-led “bottom-up” perspectives. A key question is whether communities can meaningfully be involved in state- and corporate-led smart city strategies or whether alternative approaches offer more fertile environments for involvement in the smart city. Institutionalist analyses have addressed these issues through close exam…
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…
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 Policy and Politics of Improving Standards in the English Private Rented Sector
The standard of existing homes in the English private rented sector (PRS) presents several challenges. As the sector has expanded, issues of inadequate renovation, maintenance and upgrading have assumed greater salience. Research has also highlighted enforcement challenges which make it more difficult to raise property standards and improve tenants’ housing experiences. This article, informed by regulatory theory and systems thinking, argues that…
Constructing the smart city beyond the state: Exploring the conditions for institutional change in Mexico City
Research indicates that citizen participation in the smart city is typically limited in practice. Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, several institutional factors acted to limit citizen participation in Mexico City’s smart city activities. This paper explores whether the exogenous shock of the pandemic disrupted socio-political institutions unhelpful to citizen participation in smart city development. It notes that the pandemic had limited impact on…
Remembering Ray Forrest
It will come as a shock to many to learn that Ray Forrest has died suddenly at the age of 68. In this short piece, Alex Marsh, Alan Murie and Peter Williams offer up a reflection on his life and wo
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…
Policy movement in housing research: A critical interpretative synthesis
The movement of housing policy across space/time has attracted considerable policy and scholarly interest. But once we accept that policy moves, interesting questions arise. Particularly: what is it that moves? Why do some policies move but others do not? Academic conversations have involved concepts like “policy diffusion”, “policy transfer”, “lesson-drawing”, “fast policy”, “policy mobility” and “policy translation” - but a clear picture of how…
Easier said than done? Involving citizens in the smart city
Much of the smart cities literature urges greater citizen participation in smart city innovation. However, there is often little consideration given to how citizens might be more meaningfully involved in the processes of governance around smart cities, what enables their involvement, or what might need to change in order to facilitate their participation. Taking an institutional perspective, this paper seeks to move this aspect of the smart city …
Policy & Politics: A Perspective on the First Half Century
For 50 years Policy & Politics, under the stewardship of some 19 editors, has engaged with key issues at the interface between public policy, social policy and politics. The journal has published scholarship that has shaped a broad range of debates across disciplines and has built a valued and vibrant community of authors and readers who are integral to what the journal is today. This brief editorial provides a perspective on the journal’s evolut…
Electric Vehicle Mobility-as-a-Service: Exploring the “Tri-Opt” of Novel Private Transport Business Models
Three distinct trends have emerged that have disrupted the dominance of privately owned, combustion-powered car transport in the United Kingdom. First, the electric powertrain has emerged as an affordable means of transport, addressing various existing environmental concerns; second, new models of car ownership are developing, particularly in urban areas; third, the growth of “smart city” thinking emphasizes capitalizing on increased connectivity…
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…
Reconfiguring the local public realm
Reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies
This article offers reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies. It starts by mapping the contours of the terrain covered by Policy & Politics over the last 40 years. It does so under four headings: (1) theorising policy (2) evidence and the policy process (3) transforming structures and processes and (4) implementation and practice. It then uses these headings to draw out themes from the articles comprising this 40th anniversary specia…
The Global Economic Crisis and the Reshaping of Housing Opportunities
This paper begins by establishing the multi-scalar interconnectivity between global financial flows, the economic crisis and housing. Focusing particularly on developments in England, it then considers the transformation of debates and the justification for the “socialization of losses” and the substantial cuts in public expenditure through a neo-liberal “austerity” agenda. The paper argues that rather than addressing the fundamental tensions and…
Is it time to put the dream of elected mayors to bed
Uncertainty, Expectations and Behavioural Aspects of Housing Market Choices
Housing is a complex commodity and housing market choices carry with them substantial economic and social consequences for the households making them. Housing market decisions are complex, uncertain and involve expectations-formation. This paper argues that the standard economic theory of decision-making under uncertainty – expected utility theory – is particularly ill-suited as the basis for understanding such complexity. The paper then explores…
Fundamentals Are, Well, Fundamental
On the Tenacity of Tiebout: A Response to Dowding
The Methodology of The Public Choice Research Programme: The Case Of ‘Voting With Feet’
Getting a policy to ‘stick: Centralising control of social rent setting in England
English The attempts of English central government to control the rents that social housing landlords set for individual properties offer a fruitful example of the role that context and content play in shaping policy implementation. Since the early 1970s there have been three initiatives to assert greater central control over this policy variable. Using a modified version of the conceptual framework proposed by van Meter and van Horn (1975), this…
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
Housing and the Social Exclusion Agenda in England
In the period immediately following its election in 1997 the current Labour government in the UK declared a commitment to ‘combating social exclusion’ to be at the core of the domestic policy agenda. The interpretation of the term ‘social exclusion’ has been the source of extensive debate. This paper focuses on one aspect of the current debate, exploring the relationship between housing and social exclusion, both in theory and in contemporary cen…
From Need to Choice: R(A) v Lambeth LBC; R(Lindsay) v Lambeth LBC
Setting the Rents of Social Housing: The Impact and Implications of Rent Restructuring in England
The question of how the rents of social housing should be set has been a matter of debate in many European countries. This paper draws on research into the probable impacts of the UK government's policy to restructure rents in England to explore some of the issues involved in determining the rents of social housing. The paper discusses why social rent setting is a particular issue in the UK and how the government is seeking to address it through …
Uncertainty, Expectations and Behavioural Aspects of Housing Market Choices
Housing is a complex commodity and housing market choices carry with them substantial economic and social consequences for the households making them. Housing market decisions are complex, uncertain and involve expectations-formation. This paper argues that the standard economic theory of decision-making under uncertainty – expected utility theory – is particularly ill-suited as the basis for understanding such complexity. The paper then explores…
Housing Deprivation and Health: A Longitudinal Analysis
While there is a longitudinal literature that considers the impact of poor socio-economic circumstances upon health, the more specific impact of poor housing upon health is much less frequently studied longitudinally. This paper draws on the National Child Development Study to examine the impact upon health of poor housing through the life course. The analysis takes the novel approach of constructing a composite severity of ill health measure to …
The Global Economic Crisis and the Reshaping of Housing Opportunities
This paper begins by establishing the multi-scalar interconnectivity between global financial flows, the economic crisis and housing. Focusing particularly on developments in England, it then considers the transformation of debates and the justification for the “socialization of losses” and the substantial cuts in public expenditure through a neo-liberal “austerity” agenda. The paper argues that rather than addressing the fundamental tensions and…
The Social Exclusion Perspective and Housing Studies: Origins, Applications and Limitations
The idea of 'social exclusion' has emerged over a relatively short space of time to take centre stage in political and popular debates about social disadvantage in many European states. In Britain it now dominates policy discourse on strategies to combat disadvantage.This paper explores the origins of the concept of social exclusion and the meanings that have been ascribed to it. The paper poses questions which remain outstanding in the debate ov…
Modelling Tenants' Choices in the Public Rented Sector: A Stated Preference Approach
This paper uses a stated preference (SP) approach to examine the potential housing choices of tenants in the UK public housing sector. The paper begins by explaining the policy significance of the choices that such tenants might make if alternative dwellings were offered to them. It then discusses the SP approach in general before explaining the way in which it is used in this study. The results of the SP modelling exercise are presented. These s…
Reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies
This article offers reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies. It starts by mapping the contours of the terrain covered by Policy & Politics over the last 40 years. It does so under four headings: (1) theorising policy (2) evidence and the policy process (3) transforming structures and processes and (4) implementation and practice. It then uses these headings to draw out themes from the articles comprising this 40th anniversary specia…
Local governance: The relevance of transaction cost economics
Only relatively recently have the implications of transaction cost economics (TCE) for local governance been appreciated. TCE appears to offer a weapon against fragmentation. This paper uses contracting for social housing management to illustrate the possibilities. However, TCE has attracted considerable criticism both inside and outside economics. Any analysis seeking inspiration from TCE should be informed by an understanding of the central cri…
Policy movement in housing research: A critical interpretative synthesis
The movement of housing policy across space/time has attracted considerable policy and scholarly interest. But once we accept that policy moves, interesting questions arise. Particularly: what is it that moves? Why do some policies move but others do not? Academic conversations have involved concepts like “policy diffusion”, “policy transfer”, “lesson-drawing”, “fast policy”, “policy mobility” and “policy translation” - but a clear picture of how…
Is it time to put the dream of elected mayors to bed
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
Pricing Public Housing Services: Mirroring the Market
This paper is concerned with the determination of rents in the local authority sector. It concentrates on the determination of relative rents in particular. Local authorities in England have traditionally had autonomy in determining the rents for individual dwellings in their housing stock, but the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act introduced the requirement that the relativities in the public sector should be determined with reference to tho…
Easier said than done? Involving citizens in the smart city
Much of the smart cities literature urges greater citizen participation in smart city innovation. However, there is often little consideration given to how citizens might be more meaningfully involved in the processes of governance around smart cities, what enables their involvement, or what might need to change in order to facilitate their participation. Taking an institutional perspective, this paper seeks to move this aspect of the smart city …
Reconfiguring the local public realm
Getting a policy to ‘stick: Centralising control of social rent setting in England
English The attempts of English central government to control the rents that social housing landlords set for individual properties offer a fruitful example of the role that context and content play in shaping policy implementation. Since the early 1970s there have been three initiatives to assert greater central control over this policy variable. Using a modified version of the conceptual framework proposed by van Meter and van Horn (1975), this…
Setting the Rents of Social Housing: The Impact and Implications of Rent Restructuring in England
The question of how the rents of social housing should be set has been a matter of debate in many European countries. This paper draws on research into the probable impacts of the UK government's policy to restructure rents in England to explore some of the issues involved in determining the rents of social housing. The paper discusses why social rent setting is a particular issue in the UK and how the government is seeking to address it through …
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…
Policy & Politics: A Perspective on the First Half Century
For 50 years Policy & Politics, under the stewardship of some 19 editors, has engaged with key issues at the interface between public policy, social policy and politics. The journal has published scholarship that has shaped a broad range of debates across disciplines and has built a valued and vibrant community of authors and readers who are integral to what the journal is today. This brief editorial provides a perspective on the journal’s evolut…
The Methodology of The Public Choice Research Programme: The Case Of ‘Voting With Feet’
Housing and the Social Exclusion Agenda in England
In the period immediately following its election in 1997 the current Labour government in the UK declared a commitment to ‘combating social exclusion’ to be at the core of the domestic policy agenda. The interpretation of the term ‘social exclusion’ has been the source of extensive debate. This paper focuses on one aspect of the current debate, exploring the relationship between housing and social exclusion, both in theory and in contemporary cen…
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
The Distribution of Housing Tax-expenditures and Subsidies in an Urban Area
This paper examines the distribution of housing tax-expenditures and subsidies among households in the owner-occupied and public-rented sectors in the Birmingham area, UK. Subsidies to tenants are defined as the difference between market rents and the rents actually set. Tax-expenditures to owner-occupiers are defined as the absence of tax on imputed rental income and capital gains. The results presented indicate that tax-expenditures tend to be …
Pricing Public Housing Services: Mirroring the Market
This paper is concerned with the determination of rents in the local authority sector. It concentrates on the determination of relative rents in particular. Local authorities in England have traditionally had autonomy in determining the rents for individual dwellings in their housing stock, but the 1989 Local Government and Housing Act introduced the requirement that the relativities in the public sector should be determined with reference to tho…
The Social Exclusion Perspective and Housing Studies: Origins, Applications and Limitations
The idea of 'social exclusion' has emerged over a relatively short space of time to take centre stage in political and popular debates about social disadvantage in many European states. In Britain it now dominates policy discourse on strategies to combat disadvantage.This paper explores the origins of the concept of social exclusion and the meanings that have been ascribed to it. The paper poses questions which remain outstanding in the debate ov…
Local governance: The relevance of transaction cost economics
Only relatively recently have the implications of transaction cost economics (TCE) for local governance been appreciated. TCE appears to offer a weapon against fragmentation. This paper uses contracting for social housing management to illustrate the possibilities. However, TCE has attracted considerable criticism both inside and outside economics. Any analysis seeking inspiration from TCE should be informed by an understanding of the central cri…
Housing Deprivation and Health: A Longitudinal Analysis
While there is a longitudinal literature that considers the impact of poor socio-economic circumstances upon health, the more specific impact of poor housing upon health is much less frequently studied longitudinally. This paper draws on the National Child Development Study to examine the impact upon health of poor housing through the life course. The analysis takes the novel approach of constructing a composite severity of ill health measure to …
Crossing the housing and care divide: Integrating housing and social care for older people
The fundamental role of housing in community care has long been acknowledged. However, progress in achieving any real integration of housing and social care has been slow. This article reports the findings from the Crossing the Housing and Care Divide programme, which was jointly sponsored by the Housing Corporation and Anchor Trust. The programme aimed to stimulate developments in services for older people that would enable housing to become par…
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
Modelling Tenants' Choices in the Public Rented Sector: A Stated Preference Approach
This paper uses a stated preference (SP) approach to examine the potential housing choices of tenants in the UK public housing sector. The paper begins by explaining the policy significance of the choices that such tenants might make if alternative dwellings were offered to them. It then discusses the SP approach in general before explaining the way in which it is used in this study. The results of the SP modelling exercise are presented. These s…
Setting the Rents of Social Housing: The Impact and Implications of Rent Restructuring in England
The question of how the rents of social housing should be set has been a matter of debate in many European countries. This paper draws on research into the probable impacts of the UK government's policy to restructure rents in England to explore some of the issues involved in determining the rents of social housing. The paper discusses why social rent setting is a particular issue in the UK and how the government is seeking to address it through …
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
Housing and the Social Exclusion Agenda in England
In the period immediately following its election in 1997 the current Labour government in the UK declared a commitment to ‘combating social exclusion’ to be at the core of the domestic policy agenda. The interpretation of the term ‘social exclusion’ has been the source of extensive debate. This paper focuses on one aspect of the current debate, exploring the relationship between housing and social exclusion, both in theory and in contemporary cen…
From Need to Choice: R(A) v Lambeth LBC; R(Lindsay) v Lambeth LBC
Getting a policy to ‘stick: Centralising control of social rent setting in England
English The attempts of English central government to control the rents that social housing landlords set for individual properties offer a fruitful example of the role that context and content play in shaping policy implementation. Since the early 1970s there have been three initiatives to assert greater central control over this policy variable. Using a modified version of the conceptual framework proposed by van Meter and van Horn (1975), this…
The Methodology of The Public Choice Research Programme: The Case Of ‘Voting With Feet’
On the Tenacity of Tiebout: A Response to Dowding
Uncertainty, Expectations and Behavioural Aspects of Housing Market Choices
Housing is a complex commodity and housing market choices carry with them substantial economic and social consequences for the households making them. Housing market decisions are complex, uncertain and involve expectations-formation. This paper argues that the standard economic theory of decision-making under uncertainty – expected utility theory – is particularly ill-suited as the basis for understanding such complexity. The paper then explores…
Fundamentals Are, Well, Fundamental
The Global Economic Crisis and the Reshaping of Housing Opportunities
This paper begins by establishing the multi-scalar interconnectivity between global financial flows, the economic crisis and housing. Focusing particularly on developments in England, it then considers the transformation of debates and the justification for the “socialization of losses” and the substantial cuts in public expenditure through a neo-liberal “austerity” agenda. The paper argues that rather than addressing the fundamental tensions and…
Is it time to put the dream of elected mayors to bed
Reconfiguring the local public realm
Reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies
This article offers reflections on contemporary debates in policy studies. It starts by mapping the contours of the terrain covered by Policy & Politics over the last 40 years. It does so under four headings: (1) theorising policy (2) evidence and the policy process (3) transforming structures and processes and (4) implementation and practice. It then uses these headings to draw out themes from the articles comprising this 40th anniversary specia…
Electric Vehicle Mobility-as-a-Service: Exploring the “Tri-Opt” of Novel Private Transport Business Models
Three distinct trends have emerged that have disrupted the dominance of privately owned, combustion-powered car transport in the United Kingdom. First, the electric powertrain has emerged as an affordable means of transport, addressing various existing environmental concerns; second, new models of car ownership are developing, particularly in urban areas; third, the growth of “smart city” thinking emphasizes capitalizing on increased connectivity…
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…
Easier said than done? Involving citizens in the smart city
Much of the smart cities literature urges greater citizen participation in smart city innovation. However, there is often little consideration given to how citizens might be more meaningfully involved in the processes of governance around smart cities, what enables their involvement, or what might need to change in order to facilitate their participation. Taking an institutional perspective, this paper seeks to move this aspect of the smart city …
Political science (21 works) · Economics (20 works) · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism (18 works) · Law (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Business (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Public Administration (10 works) · Public Administration (10 works)