Sammanfattning: This dissertation studies how representatives at the municipal and state levels describe the housing provision problem, namely the situation where a significant group lacks the economic resources to establish themselves on the housing market. According to the Instrument of Government 1974 (Regeringsformen) Chapter 1, Section 2, the state and municipal governments are obligated to ensure the right to housing for all. Despite this, there is a significant and likely growing group of people who lack economic resources to establish themselves on the housing market. In recent decades, social services in many municipalities have compensated for this situation by granting housing support to help these households enter the housing market. However, in recent years, several municipalities have become more restrictive in their assessments of support, and social services can therefore no longer be described as a compensating force. Previous research has focused on how and whether the right to housing is expressed at the municipal level, but how the right to housing is expressed at a discursive level, and how discourses at different governmental levels compete, conflict or de-politicize the right to housing has not been extensively studied.A central methodical and theoretical point of departure for this thesis is Carol Bacchi’s approach to critical policy analysis, What’s the problem represented to be? (WPR approach). Bacchi regards policy as discourse, which means that policy and policy problems are not seen as objective and value neutral, but rather as constructed in particular ways based on the interests of different actors. The aim of the dissertation is to study how state and municipal representatives describe the housing provision problem. By studying problem representations, the analysis examines how different parties are attributed responsibility – and attribute responsibility to others solving the housing provision problem. The dissertation analyzes the problem representations in policy documents, how different relevant actors respond to these problem representations, what attributions and shifts of responsibility they entail, how they affect the policy’s target group and what aspects of the housing provision problem they downplay and de-politicize. The analysis is based on Stone’s (1989; 2012) theory of howpolicy problems are formed and used to attribute and shift responsibility. The theory assumes that actors responsible for a problem generally try to deflect responsibility away from themselves. In addition, Hay’s (2007) theory of depoliticization is applied, which, among other things, means that problems are framed in a restrictive way to hide aspects of the issue in order of transform it from the political arena to the arena of public officials.The study is a multiple case study on policy changes and possible policy change. The first case highlights the municipal level through the implementation of Guidance on Housing Support and Emergency Assistance (Vägledning bistånd boende och nödbistånd) (2019) by the municipality of Malmö. The second case is taken from the national level and is based on the Swedish government official inquiry (SOU 2022:14) (Sänk tröskeln till en god bostad) and its associated texts. The study’s empirical data consists of twenty semi-structured interviews with officials from civil society and state and municipal administrations. In addition, empirical data is used in the form of policy documents and comments on legislative proposals (remissyttranden) to analyze how the housing provision problem is described and how relevant actors react and respond to the descriptions.The dissertation shows that the municipality, through Vägledningen bistånd boende och nödbistånd, constructs problem representations based on assumptions that social services’ housing support has been misused by people who have the ability to arrange housing themselves. The solutions proposed are supportive and controlling measures aimed at stimulating (certain homeless) people’s ability to arrange housing themselves, which means that the problem representations place responsibility for the housing provision problem on the individual. In the municipality’s housing provision program, on the other hand, national housing policy and the scope of market forces are emphasized as the cause of the housing provision problem and that the state is the actor that can solve the problem. In the state inquiry (Sänk tröskeln till en god bostad), problem representations emerge that both explain the cause of the housing provision problem through state and municipal shortcomings and proposed measures that are directed at both levels and collaboration between them. However, state government led by prime minister Kristersson (M) has chosen to proceed with only three of the inquiry’s eight proposed measures. All proposals concern the commitment of the municipal level, and the government has not chosen to proceed with any of the proposals regarding the state level. Thus, the dissertation shows how the municipality has shifted responsibility to the individual and how the municipality and thegovernment shift responsibility between themselves in a kind of circular motion,in which aspects of the housing provision problem are hidden. My study contributes to pinpointing this circular movement of responsibility. Clearly demonstrating this dynamic is a prerequisite for stopping it and, ultimately,addressing the housing provision problem.
Vems ansvar? Förhandlingsspelet mellan stat och kommun : en studie om ansvarsförskjutningar för personer som saknar ekonomiska förutsättningar att etablera sig på bostadsmarknaden
