Open public service reform should not be a cover for serving corporate interests: mutualism and its fellows could instead serve to enhance industrial democracy

Alex Marsh argues that to embrace the call to go further and faster on public service reform would play into the hands of corporate actors and lead to a further concentration of economic power. The development of alternative models of service provision that enhance industrial democracy should be pursued instead

Britain’s Property Problem: Demand increases are rapidly transmitted into rising prices rather than expanded output

The government’s housing policy has been controversial. Some applaud Help to Buy for kickstarting activity in the housing market, while others warn of potential pitfalls, especially regarding the second phase that will be implemented from January. Alex Marsh argues that more credit being poured into the housing market will only be able to deliver a modest supply response. This means increasing housing costs

Going solo or joining someone else’s show: multi-author blogs as a way to maximise your time and exposure

With the practice of academic blogging becoming increasingly mainstream, it is important to emphasise the diversity of blog formats out there, from personal blogs to multi-author blogs run by institutions or around certain themes. Alex Marsh discusses the differences and finds that the commitment of time and energy associated with an individual blog can be enough to deter some people and that a good way to ease into a new blogging routine is by making occasional contributions to a multi-author blog

The proposal for a global parliament of mayors reflects their distinctive, locally-rooted form of legitimacy

American political theorist Benjamin Barber has proposed a greater role for mayors in global governance, reflecting the many ways in which cities are dealing with global issues. Alex Marsh examines the proposal and considers how the form of legitimacy enjoyed by elected mayors differs in important ways from that of national governments. How should a world characterised by increasingly complex interdependence be governed? If most of the major challenges we face have no respect for the artificial borders marking out nation states, how can we identify and deliver effective solutions

The boundaries of academic blogging

Alex Marsh thinks of himself as a blogger who is an academic, rather than an “academic blogger”. He finds that though there is significant overlap, these two identities are not entirely congruent. An academic blogger may feel constrained to topics only related to his or her academic research, whereas a blogger who is also an academic is free to explore wider fields of discussion

A perennial problem? On underoccupation in English council housing

Addressing the issue of underoccupation has been a prominent feature in English social housing policy since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government was formed in 2010. A key move under the Coalition’s welfare reform agenda was the implementation of the underoccupancy penalty—the so-called ‘bedroom tax’—from April 2013. However, while this policy triggered high-profile protests, it does not represent a novel policy preoccupation. Variations on the theme have recurred in housing policy debates almost since the advent of council housing. This paper adopts a long-term perspective and presents a sociological institutionalist analysis which focuses on the mechanisms through which underoccupation has been governed. Drawing on a range of archival material, we argue that the government of underoccupation has undergone revealing transformations over the period since 1929. Not only does the broader policy context—understandings of the purpose of social housing and the role it fulfils in the housing market—differ over time, but, at the more detailed level of policy instruments, the mechanisms proposed to address underoccupation differ in ways that can be explained in terms of prevailing policy logics and institutional structures. Most significantly, the nature of the underoccupation problem has been framed differently: the rationales offered as justification for policy action draw on very different vocabularies, in ways that allow us to trace the influence of more fundamental shifts in policy discourse into the domain of housing policy