Ontology and causality in comparative housing studies: Explaining the different role of limited profit housing in Vienna and Zurich

Ontology and causality in comparative housing studies: Explaining the different role of limited profit housing in Vienna and Zurich

Lawson, J.M.

OTB Research Institute

2009-12-31

It has been argued in detail elsewhere that debates and indeed misunderstandings in comparative housing research often arise because housing systems and their development can be perceived and therefore analysed from a range of theoretical positions (Lawson, 2006). This paper considers a number of ontological alternatives and also examines the concept of change in housing studies, contrasting different approaches to causality. It is argued that in order to understand and explain different forms of housing consumption, it would be beneficial to focus on the changing definition of interdependent emergent relations in their contingent context which includes path dependent institutions and ideologies mediating the integral processes of housing promotion, finance, construction, management and consumption. This approach is inspired by the critical realist philosophy of Bhaskar (1979) further developed and applied to social science by Sayer (2000) and Danermark et al, (2002), which is concerned with the complex and layered nature of reality, embracing both perception and meaning, actual events and underlying social relations and has been applied to explanations of various housing and urban phenomena (Lawson, 2006, Fitzpatrick, 2005, Banai, 1995, Cloke et al, 1991). This paper briefly reviews progress in comparing and explaining different phases in housing history and proposes a way forward. A tentative application is made by comparing the role and market position of limited profit housing in Switzerland and Austria, two case studies often overlooked in Anglo housing research and never compared. No attempt is made to provide a detailed chronology; rather the emphasis here is on the application and revision of theoretical concepts concerning emergent relations, path dependency and the variety of capitalism thesis. The final section argues that the comparative historical explanation of two rental dominated housing markets is relevant to broader debates in housing policy and touches on a number of theoretical dilemmas. This concluding discussion sharpens the focus of emergent relations and institutional path dependency as causal terms in housing development, emphasizes the dynamic and scalar role of state structures in this process and highlights the variety of capitalist accumulation strategies in housing systems, which include an integral role for nonprofit housing in rental markets.

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:d7bc9424-1524-4c18-9438-be5e99156146

Swinburne University of Technology, Faculty of Life and Human Sciences and Centre for Design, RMIT

Housing and Theory Symposium, Swinburne Institute of Technology and RMIT, Melbourne 5-6 March 2009

Institutional Repository

conference paper

(c) 2009 Lawson, J.M.