Securing Social Conquests in and Beyond the State: The Case of Denmark's 'Common Housing'

Abstract

"Denmark has practically no public housing that is owned and provided directly by the State, yet 20% of the housing stock is run by independent and democratically managed non-profit housing associations supported and regulated by the State: the “common housing” sector. This sector is the outcome of a pragmatic compromise between the social democratic movement and the bourgeois parties in the 1920s and 30s. The social democrats at the time were too weak politically to implement their programme of 'municipal socialism', which included direct housing provision by the (local) State. This weakness, however, has in fact proven to be a strength in the face of recent State-led privatisation and mercantilisation schemes. The Danish experience guides a discussion on how State involvement both underpins and undermines the societal pooling of resources for the provision of public housing, as well as other welfare services. Instituting the common beyond the direct reach of the State appears to be a lesson to be learnt from the rise and demise of socialdemocratic welfare statism."