Organizing cross-sectoral housing provision planning : settings, problems and knowledge

• In the governance of housing provision, the public sector is considered unable efficiently to manage such problems through the traditional bureaucratic organizations and associated governing tools. Instead, municipalities are expected to engage in collaborative processes across sectors and with external stakeholders, with the overarching objective to deliver more efficient planning outcomes. As the processes are carried out across sectors, it opens up the opportunity to privilege certain sectors’ perspectives and marginalize others. By drawing from Mouffe's agonistic political theories, this article makes an empirical account of the political in organizing cross-sectoral collaborative planning in Swedish municipalities, with the empirical example of developing municipal programmes for housing provision. The article concludes that social service is severely marginalized in what is generally a depoliticized housing provision planning process. Underpinning the collaboration is the conceptualizing of housing provision as primarily a general deficit in constructing housing. Primarily organizing objectivist knowledge, housing provision is constructed as a technical and procedural matter rather than ideological and political. Through such organizing principles, the overarching housing provision problem remains undealt with, e.g. how do we provide housing to ‘all’ our citizens?

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Tvärvetenskapliga studier inom samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Social Sciences Interdisciplinary (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Statsvetenskap -- Studier av offentlig förvaltning (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Political Science -- Public Administration Studies (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Keyword

collaborative planning

Cross-sector planning

housing provision planning

the political

bureaucracy

efficiency measurement

governance approach

housing project

housing provision

marginalization

political ideology

residential development

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Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)