Housing system reform: Expert opinions and political reality in the Netherlands

Housing system reform: Expert opinions and political reality in the Netherlands

Boelhouwer, P.
Priemus, H.

OTB Research Institute for the Built Environment

2011-07-05

This paper describes to what extent a more or less collective feeling of urgency to reform the Dutch housing market is addressed in the political arena. By doing that, it sheds some light on the effectiveness and influence of academic research and recommendations on the political decision making process. We conclude that the suggestion of several advisory bodies to start a serious reform of the housing system in the Netherlands is, due to coalition considerations, almost fully neglected by the Rutte-Cabinet. Although there is a common understanding among experts and interest organisations in the Netherlands that the current housing systems needs radical changes, coalition politics in the Netherlands are apparently more important to explain current housing policies. We conclude that the effectiveness and influence of academic research and recommendations on the political decision making process was quite modest in the last couple of years and try to explain the gap between academic research and political decision-making on Dutch housing policy.

housing policy reform
the Netherlands
housing stems

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:8ba923f4-dc16-4a80-9ad8-db3d21dd9c87

ENHR

23rd Conference of the European Network for Housing Research ENHR, Toulouse, July 5-8, 2011

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c)2011 Boelhouwer, P., Priemus, H.