Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T22:33:41.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Territorializing Regulation: A Case Study of “Social Housing” in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Morag McDermont
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article shows that the legislative creation of new regulatory regimes can be approached as a process that carves out new territories of governance. Specifically, using the theoretical framework of social space, it explores the formation of a regulatory community arising out of the United Kingdom's Housing Act 1974, a community made up of the regulatees—not-for-profit housing associations—and the state regulator. The article demonstrates that the process of carving out a new territory of governance and the “spatial practices” of the occupiers of this new territory both enable the community to establish a large element of control of the regulatory regime. This analysis challenges an understanding of law as top-down, substituting a more nuanced, three-dimensional understanding of the production of norms and “common sense.” Regulatees are not just subject to regulation but shape the space through their expertise and social relations.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2007 , pp. 373 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2007 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barker, Kate. 2004. Delivering Stability: Securing Our Future Housing Needs. http://www.barkerreview.org.uk (accessed January 12, 2007).Google Scholar
Black, Julia. 2002. Regulatory Conversations. Journal of Law and Society 29 (1): 163–96.Google Scholar
Blomley, Nicholas, and Sommers, Jeff. 1999. Mapping Urban Space: Governmentality and Cartographic Struggles in Inner City Vancouver. In Governable Places: Readings on Governmentality and Crime Control, ed. Smandych, Russell. Aldershot, UK: Dartmouth.Google Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. Social Space and Symbolic Power. Sociological Theory 7 (1): 14–25.Google Scholar
Cohen Committee. 1971. Housing Associations: A Working Paper of the Central Housing Advisory Committee. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Cooper, Davina. 1998. Governing Out of Order: Space, Law and the Politics of Belonging. London: Rivers Oram Press.Google Scholar
Cowan, David. 1999. Housing Law and Policy. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Cowen, David, and McDermont, Morag. 2006. Regulating Social Housing: Governing Decline. London: Glasshouse.Google Scholar
Cowen, David, Pantazis, Christine, and Gilroy, Rose. 2001. Social Housing as Crime Control: An Examination of the Role of Housing Management in Policing Sex Offenders. Social & Legal Studies 10 (4): 435–57.Google Scholar
Crook, A. D. H., and Moroney, M. 1995. Housing Associations, Private Finance and Risk Avoidance: The Impact on Urban Renewal and Inner Cities. Environment and Planning A 27 (1 1): 1695–1712.Google Scholar
Davidson, Arnold I. 2003. Introduction. In Society Must Be Defended, ed. Foucault, Michael, trans. Macey, David. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Dean, Mitchell. 1999. Governmentality: Power and Rule in Modern Society. London: SAGE Publications.Google Scholar
Delaney, David. 2003. Law and Nature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Delaney, David, and Leitner, H. 1997. The Political Construction of Scale. Political Geography 16:93–97.Google Scholar
Delaney, David, Ford, Richard T., and Blomley, Nicholas, eds. 2001. Preface: Where is Law? In The Legal Geographies Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Dezalay, Yves. 1991. Territorial Battles and Tribal Disputes. Modern Law Review 54 (6): 792–809.Google Scholar
Evans, Rebecca. 2006. Giants to combine roles. Inside Housing, April 7, 1.Google Scholar
Ford, Richard T. 2001. Law's Territory (A History of Jurisdiction). In The Legal Geographies Reader, ed. Delaney, David, Ford, Richard T., and Blomley, Nicholas. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1977. Discipline and Punish. Trans. Sheridan, A. M. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1983. The Subject and Power. In Michael Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneuics, ed. Dreyfus, Herbert L. and Rabinow, Paul. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1991. Governmentality. In The Foucault Effect, ed. Burchell, Graham, Gordon, Colin, and Miller, Peter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2002. Essential Works of Foucault 1954–1984: Volume 3, Power. Ed. Faubion, James D. Trans. Robert Hurley and others. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 2003. Society Must Be Defended. Trans. Macey, David. London: Allen Lane.Google Scholar
Garland, David. 2001. The Culture of Control. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Garside, Patricia. 1995. Central Government, Local Authorities and the Voluntary Housing Sector. In Government and Institutions in the Post-1832 United Kingdom, ed. O'Day, Alan. Lampeter, UK: Mellon Press.Google Scholar
Geertz, Clifford. 2000. Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology, 3rd ed. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gibson, Michael S., and Langstaff, Michael J., 1982. An Introduction to Urban Renewal. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Hancher, Leigh, and Moran, Michael. 1989. Organising regulatory space. In Capitalism, Culture and Economic Regulation, ed. Hancher, Leigh and Moran, Michael. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Hawkins, Keith. 2002. Law as Last Resort: Prosecution Decision-Making in a Regulatory Agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, David, and Lowe, Stuart. 1995. Social Housing Law and Policy. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Hunt, Alan, and Wickham, Gary. 1994. Foucault and Law: Towards a Sociology of Law as Governance. London: Pluto.Google Scholar
Langstaff, Michael J. 1992. Housing Associations: A Move to Centre Stage. In Housing Policy in the 1990s, ed. Birchall, Johnston. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1986a. Visualisation and Cognition: Thinking with Eyes and Hands. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture, Past and Present 6:1–40.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 1986b. The Powers of Association. In Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32, ed. Law, John. London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul.Google Scholar
Law, John, ed. 1986. On the Methods of Long-Distance Control: Vessels, Navigation and the Portuguese Route to India. In Power, Action and Belief: A New Sociology of Knowledge? Sociological Review Monograph 32. London: Routledge, Kegan and Paul.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of Space. Trans. Nicholson-Smith, Donald. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Levitas, Ruth. 2005. The Inclusive Society? Social Exclusion and New Labour, 2nd ed. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave.Google Scholar
Lewis, Norman, and Harden, Ian. 1982. The Housing Corporation and “voluntary housing.” In Quangos in Britain: Government and the Networks of Public Policy-Making, ed. Barker, Anthony. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Makkai, Toni and Braithwaite, John. 1992. In and Out of the Revolving Door: Making Sense of Regulatory Capture. Journal of Public Policy 12 (1): 61–78.Google Scholar
Malpass, Peter. 2000. Housing Associations and Housing Policy: A Historical Perspective. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Malpass, Peter. 2005. Housing and the Welfare State: the Development of Housing Policy in Britain. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
McDermont, Morag. 2004. Housing Associations: The Creation of Communities and Power Relations. Housing Studies 19 (6): 855–74.Google Scholar
Malpass, Peter. 2005. Managing the tensions in “voluntary” housing: a study of the role of the National Housing Federation in the governance of social housing in England since 1935. PhD diss., Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK.Google Scholar
Miller, Peter, and Rose, Nicolas. 1990. Governing Economic Life. Economy and Society 19 (1): 1–31.Google Scholar
Moody, Susan R. 2000. Self Giving in “Charity”: The Role of Law. In Foundations of Charity, ed. Mitchell, Charles and Moody, Susan R. Oxford: Hart Publishing.Google Scholar
Mullins, David. 1997. From regulatory capture to regulated competition: an interest group analysis of the regulation of housing associations in England. Housing Studies 12 (3): 301–19.Google Scholar
NFHS (National Federation of Housing Societies). 1970. 34th Report of the Council of the National Federation of Housing Societies. London: NFHS.Google Scholar
NHF (National Housing Federation). No date. The Regulation of Registered Social Landlords. London: NHF.Google Scholar
Noble, David. 1981. From Rules to Discretion: The Housing Corporation. In Discretion and Welfare, ed. Adler, Mike and Asquith, S. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
O'Malley, Pat. 2004. Risk , Uncertainty and Government. London: Glasshouse.Google Scholar
Pavlich, George. 2004. Restorative Justice's Community: Promise and Peril. In Critical Issues in Restorative Justice, ed. Toews, Barb and Zehr, Howard. Cullompton, UK: Criminal Justice Press.Google Scholar
Pottage, Alain. 1994. The Measure of Land. Modern Law Review 57 (3): 361–84.Google Scholar
Rabinow, Paul, ed. 1986. The Foucault Reader. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 1993. Government, Authority and Expertise in Advanced Liberalism. Economy and Society 22 (3): 283–99.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 1996. The Death of the Social? Re-figuring the Territory of Government. Economy and Society 25 (3): 327–56.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 1999. Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas, and Peter, Miller. 1992. Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government. British Journal of Sociology 43:173–205.Google Scholar
Santos, Boaventura de Sousa. 2002. Toward a New Legal Common Sense, 2nd ed. London: Butterworths.Google Scholar
Scott, Colin. 2001. Analysing Regulatory Space: Fragmented Resources and Institutional Design. Public Law 329–53.Google Scholar
Seyd, Patrick. 1975. Shelter: the National Campaign for the Homeless. Political Quarterly 46:418–31.Google Scholar
Valverde, Mariana. 1996. “Despotism” and Ethical Liberal Governance. Economy and Society 25 (3): 357–72.Google Scholar
Waddilove, Lewis. 1970. Housing to Let by Non-Profit Organisations [copy held by author and at The National Archive PRO HLG 118/1390].Google Scholar