The Social Tenant, the Law and the UK's Politics of Austerity

<p>This paper considers current cuts to social housing provision in the UK made in the name of austerity. It focuses particularly on the &lsquo;bedroom tax&rsquo; &mdash;the cut to housing benefit for working-age social housing tenants whose property is deemed to provide more bedrooms than they need. It begins by explaining the long-standing political project of social housing in the UK. This background is important to explain the emergence of a discursively ghettoized population within social housing. We then turn to the &lsquo;bedroom tax&rsquo; itself. We consider the two quite separate rationales underpinning its introduction. One rationale &mdash;fairness&mdash; is the focus of the politicians; the other &mdash;under-occupation&mdash; provides the focus for policy analysts. Both offer different versions of truth about the social in social housing and both are unconvincing. For us, this is significant because the politics of austerity require the support of public opinion. We then consider some strategies of resistance to the &lsquo;bedroom tax&rsquo; which harness the disruptive potential of fairness before concluding that the bedroom tax requires relatively little unpacking to reveal it as an ideological device which operates to increase inequality whilst deploying a rhetoric of fairness.</p> <hr /><p>Este art&iacute;culo analiza los recortes en las prestaciones de viviendas sociales que se realizan actualmente en el Reino Unido en nombre de la austeridad. Se centra particularmente en el 'impuesto dormitorio' -el recorte en el subsidio de vivienda para inquilinos en edad de trabajar, cuya vivienda se considera que tiene m&aacute;s dormitorios de los que necesitan. Comienza explicando el proyecto pol&iacute;tico de viviendas sociales, de larga tradici&oacute;n en el Reino Unido. Estos antecedentes son importantes para explicar el surgimiento de guetos en las viviendas sociales. A continuaci&oacute;n se centra en el "impuesto dormitorio&rdquo; en s&iacute; mismo. Se analizan los dos diferentes motivos que sustentan su promulgaci&oacute;n. Una es la raz&oacute;n esgrimida por los pol&iacute;ticos -legitimidad-, la otra &ndash;baja ocupaci&oacute;n-, la esgrimen los analistas pol&iacute;ticos. Ambos ofrecen diferentes versiones de la verdad acerca de lo social en materia de vivienda social y ambos son poco convincentes. En nuestra opini&oacute;n, esto es relevante porque las pol&iacute;ticas de austeridad requieren del apoyo de la opini&oacute;n p&uacute;blica. Despu&eacute;s consideramos algunas estrategias de resistencia al "impuesto dormitorio" que aprovechan el potencial disruptivo de equidad, antes de concluir que es relativamente sencillo revelarlo como un instrumento ideol&oacute;gico que opera para aumentar la desigualdad, a la vez que utiliza una ret&oacute;rica de equidad.</p> <p><strong>DOWNLOAD THIS PAPER FROM SSRN</strong>: <a href="http://ssrn.com/abstract=2565733" target="_blank">http://ssrn.com/abstract=2565733 </a></p

‘Hearing the Right Gaps’:Enabling and Responding to Disclosures of Sexual Violence within the UK Asylum Process

The barriers that prevent or delay female victims of sexual assault from disclosing to criminal justice authorities, and the obstacles that often disincline professional and lay decision-makers from finding such narratives credible, have been well documented. This article explores the extent to which such difficulties may be replicated, and compounded, in the case of female asylum-seekers; it will examine the complex ways in which the structure and processes, as well as the heavily politicised context, of asylum decision-making may contribute towards a silencing of sexual assault narratives. The article will explore the ways in which the intersection of race, ethnicity, gender, culture, religion, language and nationality present distinct challenges to women asylum applicants for whom an alleged rape is a part of their claim, and reflect on some of the difficulties this presents in terms of assessing the credibility of sexual assault allegations, and of the overall asylum claim

Marginalisation, Grenfell Tower and the voice of the social-housing resident: a critical juncture in housing law and policy?

This paper draws on historical institutionalism to consider the impact of housing-policy responses following the Grenfell fire on the marginalisation of the social-housing resident. We consider three specific policy responses: reform focused on conditions of rented properties; the social-housing White Paper; and building regulation and building-safety reforms. We suggest that, in historical institutionalist terms, each is part of a matrix of reform in which understandings of the social-housing resident play a critical role. We argue that rather than the fire provoking a paradigm shift in the recognition that government accords to the ignored and stigmatised citizens who live in social housing, the policy initiatives to date indicate a much more limited adjustment of policy within a normal frame. We suggest that this is because housing policy is dominated by a consumerist ideology that is self-reinforcing and ignores the social, economic and political complexity of tenure

Ensuring Compliance: The Case of the Private Rented Sector

regulation, law and economics, governance, compliance, renting

The effect of disease adaptation information on general population values : a case study using rheumatoid arthritis states.

Objective: The Washington Panel on Cost-effectiveness in Health and Medicine recommends that economic evaluation of healthcare technologies uses values for health states elicited from the general population rather than patients. However, general population respondents do not necessarily recognize the possibility of adapting to the impaired state. This thesis examines how informing the general population about disease adaptation influences their values. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) states are used as an illustration. Methods: This work employed a sequential mixed-methods design using three components. First, Rasch and cluster analyses were used to construct RA states. Simultaneously, a novel adaptation exercise consisting of audio-recordings of patients discussing disease adaptation was developed. Second, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 12 general population respondents to identify the effect of adaptation information on their perceptions of RA. Finally, the influence of this information on health state values from a random sample of the general population (n = 200) was assessed quantitatively and the factors contributing to this change were identified. Results: The first component of this study defined three RA states. In the second, the qualitative interviews revealed that the adaptation exercise encouraged the general population to empathize with the messages in the audio-recordings. Finally, the third component showed that the adaptation exercise was effective at changing health state values; for example, for the severe RA state, a mean (standard deviation) change of 0.17 (0.34) (p < 0.01) was observed. Individuals who were younger, were healthier, recognized the importance of coping strategies, and comprehended the valuation task were more likely to increase their values. Conclusions: The results from this thesis demonstrate a novel method of informing the general population about disease adaptation. After undertaking the adaptation exercise, most respondents increased their values for the given health states. Thus, important contributions are made to an emerging field of developing better informed general population values

What’s the use of a hashtag? A case study

Although there are now sophisticated techniques for the analysis of social media, socio-legal studies has yet to draw on them fully. In this article, we demonstrate how Twitter can produce insights about protest, law, and legality, through a case study of protests against the ‘bedroom tax’. The first involved challenging a policy in the courts using a test case or cases. We discuss the litigation strategies and the mess they created and counterpose those strategies with those of four prolific ‘tweeps’ who participated in our study. We argue that, despite the small number of participants, these people have, in their own way, been enormously influential and made things happen. Our position is not evaluative of the different strategies – but, rather, one that recognizes that legality is mobilized in different ways