Housing and the far-right
The Week in Housing 26/05/23
‘They’re taking our houses’ is one of the most commonly heard anti-immigration tropes, not just in Ireland, but internationally. But what exactly is the relationship between housing, anti-immigration sentiment and far right mobilization?
Over the recent period these issues have becoming extremely salient in Ireland. With this in mind, in the Critical Political Economy class I teach as part of UCD’s Equality Studies M.Sc., we decided to examine the international political economy evidence and see if it could shed lessons that might be helpful here in Ireland. The following analysis was developed via a collective discussion, based on a review of academic literature, in late April 2023. From what we found, there doesn’t seem to be a huge amount of research out there on this specific issue, but the below presents some of the highlights. (Note: my own thinking on the Irish context has been shaped by Bryan Fanning’s recent Diverse Republic).
One of the classic readings on these issues is Rafaela Dancygier’s Immigration and Conflict in Europe. What Dancygier calls ‘native-immigrant conflict’ is driven by three interrelated sets of processes: the immigration regime; the economic context; and the political opportunities open to migrant communities. In terms of economic context, housing comes in for particular attention. Her work spans the post-war period in Britain, and it is evident that perceived competition in relation to housing played an important role in anti-immigrant sentiment more or less throughout the period.
This is no coincidence; housing has specific features that may, under certain conditions, make it a flash point. Housing is an in-kind benefit, and as noted in the wider literature, in-kind benefits can be subject to greater competition and ‘congestion’ (i.e., a supply/demand imbalance) as opposed to direct cash transfers. This is because, while cash transfers can in principle respond immediately to any increase in demand (like unemployment), in-kind benefits may require longer time periods to increase supply, for example in health care and education more infrastructure will be required and more professionals needed.
In the case of housing, as we know only to well in Ireland, the complexity of the development process and long turnover times, as well as capacity constraints (e.g. availability of labour), mean it can take years to increase supply. Of course, the responsiveness of social housing supply is also political, as Dancygier notes. In cases of systematic disinvestment in social housing competition for housing can be more intense. Finally, the fact that social housing is allocated by the state means that perceived resource competition can be easily politicized.
There is a growing contemporary literature examining these dynamics in various European countries. Research by Cavaillé and Ferwerda (2023) examines the impact of an EU directive that compelled Austrian municipalities to open up social housing to previously excluded immigrants. They find that:
[M]unicipalities in Austria and electoral wards in Vienna most affected by the legal change were also more likely to deviate from secular election trends and to increase their support for anti-immigrant parties in the 2006 legislative elections. This effect is substantive: we find that anti-immigrant vote share increased by 59% in Austrian municipalities with more than 20% of residents in public housing, relative to lower prevalence municipalities.
The authors thus argue that, in municipalities where public housing is an important tenure, perceived housing competition drives anti-immigrant sentiment and voting.
In the Netherlands, research has also found support for the ‘resource competition’ approach to understanding the relationship between housing and anti-immigration sentiment. The research finds that ‘lower-middle-income voters become less supportive of immigrants’ social rights when more social housing in their municipality is allocated to refugees’. In contrast, however, ‘competition does not reduce support [for immigrants’ social rights] among the rich or the very poor’. This is because the very rich are not eligible for, or dependent on, social housing, while the very poor ‘are more shielded from competition due to the allocation rules for social housing in the Netherlands’. As such, lower-middle income households are most likely to perceive resource competition, and the research finds that this in turn is corelated with increased support for the populist right among these households.
Resource competition was also evident in a study on homeless families in Australia. This qualitative study used discourse analysis to examine the ‘they’re taking our houses’ framing. Anti-immigrant sentiment often revolved around feelings of recent migrants being prioritized, for example by housing allocation policies, and ‘unfairness’. For example, interviewees claimed that because they were ‘tax payers’ they deserved prioritized access to housing. While these claims were empirically false, perceptions of ‘fairness’, in the context of widespread mobilization of anti-immigrant/border control politics by national politicians, could be mobilized to claim privileged access to housing supports for non-migrants.
All of this literature, implicitly or explicitly, touches on questions of ‘social citizenship’, i.e. who should be included and who excluded from the welfare state. Recent research examining the policy perspectives of populist right parties across Europe finds that, rather than specific policy proposals, populist right parties focus on mobilizing access to social welfare supports (including housing) for their ethno-national community. What matters for these movements is not what sort of housing policy is in place (in fact they have no housing policies), but the framing of an ‘us versus them’ competition, and the mobilization of an ethno-nationally exclusive vision of social citizenship.
While the research cited thus far supports the argument that competition for scarce housing can drive anti-immigrant sentiment, the picture is far from clear.
First of all, there is evidence that does not support this conclusion. Research from Sweden, for example, examines the causes of arson attacks on refugee accommodation. Note that this research focuses on extreme right political violence, rather than anti-immigrant sentiment or voting patterns. Nevertheless, the research examines various potential causal factors: 1) objective grievances (such as perceived economic competition); (2) mediated grievances combined with lack of political opportunities; (3) independent alternative media effects; and (4) broader far-right mobilization. The findings suggest that the primary causal factor is far right mobilization. This suggests that anti-immigrant violence is driven by political and ideological action on the part of the extreme right, rather than any objective economic issues, such as competition for housing.
We should also note here that much of the international literature, including this well-known study of populism, tends to find that so called ‘cultural factors’ are better able to explain the rise of populist, anti-immigrant parties than economic factors, such as housing. These ‘cultural factors’ include fear of ‘the other’, racist attitudes and feelings of declining cultural and social hegemony.
While this perspective is disputed, the ‘cultural’ approach is important to consider when interpreting the literature on housing and anti-immigrant politics. In particular, while most of the research discussed above finds that increased immigrant access to social housing is associated with a rise in anti-immigrant sentiment and far/populist right voting, it is not clear what the precise causal mechanism is – i.e. is the causal mechanism the resource competition itself or pre-existing ethno-nationalist/racist sentiment or ideology, which then latches on to issues such as scarce housing? Indeed, the very fact of perceiving resource competition in ‘immigrant versus natives’ terms is necessarily predicated on prior assumptions about who is part of the nation and who is not.
More generally, it seems likely that distinguishing too sharply between ‘cultural’ and ‘economic’ factors is unhelpful, as cultural phenomena, such as a desire for strong group identity, may be closely related to economic experiences of being ‘left behind’ etc. (as argued by Yascha Mounk among others).
It is also important to distinguish between a number of aspects of this issue that may appear closely related but are very different. For example, concern with perceived refugee access to housing is distinct from voting for a far-right party, which is in turn distinct from being actively involved in political mobilisation or even violence. Thus, while extreme right political activism may be driven by the political/ideological motives of the organisers, wider anti-immigrant sentiment may well be related to perceived resource competition, especially relevant for housing.
All of this is particularly relevant for Ireland, which experienced an enormous collapse in public investment during the ‘bailout years’, such that all major social infrastructure is in now inadequate. This is true of education, childcare, hospitals, public transport, energy etc. But it is especially true for housing.
In sum, this a complex issue which is not yet fully understood, but a number of things seem clear enough:
Perceived competition for housing is a particularly likely focal point for anti-immigrant sentiment, primarily because the dynamics of housing supply make it prone to bottlenecks and because at least some housing is allocated by the state, and therefor likely to be politicized. In the Irish case we have created the mother of all housing bottlenecks, so there is real cause for concern over the coming years.
Economic or material issues like housing cannot be separated from cultural issues such as xenophobia. This is for two reasons. First, cultural forces, such as attraction to national identity, are shaped within, and by, an economic context. A context of scarcity breeds a desire for a strong group identity and resentment for 'the other’. Second, the way resource competition is perceived depends on prior cultural/representational framings. In other words, the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’ must already be present and salient in order for us to experience resource competition in anti-immigrant terms.
While the material and cultural context is important, conscious political action by the far right is an important factor. In other words, while context is important, ideologically driven collective political action plays a role in fostering anti-immigrant sentiment in ways that cannot be reduced to the economic context. As Marx famously said, ‘men make history, but not in circumstances of their own choosing’. Unfortunately, sometimes those men are gobshites.
I’m taking a two week break to finish up my grading. Normal service will resume in mid-June.
Events & News
On June 14th I am organising a seminar with Prof. Christine Synopwich of Queen’s University (Canada) on the political philosophy of Jerry Cohen. It will take place at 1pm in A201 in Hanna Sheehy Skeffington Building in UCD. Simon are organising a seminar on Monday morning looking at youth homelessness. Peter McVerry Trust are seeking a new Communications Manager.
What I’m reading
A very useful analysis here of the new Renters’ Reform Bill in England/Wales. Padraic Kenna and co. have a new book on Europe’s contribution to the right to housing. Threshold and Alone have a new report on older renters in the PRS. UCD Student’s Union has published a new report on student’s housing experiences.