Ideas, Discourse, and Power in the Making of a Social Housing Policy Reform

Abstract

This thesis explores the initiation, development, and outcomes of a major social housing policy reform undertaken between 2010 and 2017 in New Zealand. The reform aimed to remake an existing public housing system by increasing non-government provision and tightening eligibility criteria. A funding model designed to enmesh private capital in the system was also eventually established. The thesis contributes to literature on social housing provision in New Zealand, and to a growing international literature on social housing provision and housing policy development However, of interest to scholars beyond New Zealand is the way in which the thesis engages with theory to make sense of housing policy development processes. I argue that housing policies are determined through discursive interaction between actors (political, bureaucratic, civil society etc) in a policy field. Ideas, containing both cognitive and normative elements, are the content of such interactions. Such interaction occurs in the ‘policy sphere’ amongst a generally smaller set of actors, and in the wider ‘political sphere’ where actors communicate publicly, attempting to legitimate their ideas. Consensus in the policy sphere and public legitimation are key ingredients for policies to embed and be sustained overtime. Likewise, fractious coordinative struggles in the policy sphere and a contested political sphere may see developing or existing policies challenged and delegitimised, often prompting mitigation strategies by policy actors. My argument draws on Vivien Schmidt’s ‘discursive institutionalism’ (DI), a theoretical framework increasingly used to examine policy change (and continuity) by scholars in a range of areas. In the New Zealand case, the thesis illuminates how a powerful group of political and bureaucratic actors developed an agenda for policy change, warded off competing ideas from civil society actors, and pressed ahead with a controversial policy model. The new model, however, did not mitigate housing affordability trends or boost social housing supply, resulting in a legitimacy challenge for the government and a subsequent development of an ‘emergency housing’ policy. The thesis offers insights as to why and how policy reform processes in social housing are triggered and develop, as well as insights into the conditions in which oppositional political strategies may challenge and alter housing policy discourse and direction. These insights are drawn from an analysis of both qualitative interviews with key actors in the policy field, and documentary analysis.