Lorenzo Vidal-Folch UNIVERSITAT autònoma de barcelona Department of political science and public law IASC Thematic conference on the urban commons, 6-7 november 2015

1. SECURING SOCIAL
CONQUESTS IN AND
BEYOND THE STATE: THE
CASE OF DENMARK’S
“COMMON HOUSING”
LORENZO VIDAL-FOLCH
UNIVERSITAT AUTÒNOMA DE BARCELONA
DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE AND PUBLIC LAW
IASC THEMATIC CONFERENCE ON THE URBAN COMMONS,
6-7 NOVEMBER 2015

2. CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Brief history
3. Weakness becomes strength in the face of a State-led
backlash
4. The common in and beyond the State
5. Conclusions

3. INTRODUCTION: COMMON HOUSING
(ALMENE BOLIGER)
- 20% of country’s housing stock
- 550 non-profit housing associations comprising 7,000
housing estates
- Housing stock collectively owned by tenants
- “Tenant democracy” + co-governance with municipalities
and (central) State
- Open waiting lists for all
- The municipal authorities control a separate waiting list
for which 25% of the dwellings are reserved
- Subsidies from municipality and (central) State

4. Housing Estate A Housing Estate B Housing Estate C Housing Estate D
Estate Assemby
Estate Board
Assembly of Representatives
Board of Housing Association Others
Housing Association A
Non-profit housing
management
companies
Municipal
supervision
National Building
Fund (LBF)
National Housing
Federation (BL)
(central) State
Estate Board Estate Board Estate Board
Estate Assemby Estate Assemby Estate Assemby

5. Housing Estate of the Workers Housing Cooperative Association (AAB)

6. BRIEF HISTORY
- Social Democrats too weak politically to implement (local)
State-owned housing model - “municipal socialism”
project
- “Self-help” housing cooperatives and associations
- Compromise: State subsidisation of independant housing
organisations

7. STATE-LED BACKLASH (1)
Thatcherite-inspired “right-to-buy” scheme for tenants
- Housing associations claimed it amounted to the expropriaton
of privetly-owned properties.
- Ownership disputed– the entangled and overlapping bundle of
rights developed throughout decades of multi-level “tenant
democracy” and elements of co-governance with the State
meant that it was not clear who actually owned the dwellings.
- Supreme Court (5-4): decision for opting to sell belonged to the
tenant assembly at the housing estate level.
Final result: measure restricted and almost no sales - collective
stock practically intact.

8. STATE-LED BACKLASH (2)
Increase “self-financing” of the sector
- Ownership and role of the National Building Fund (LBF)
disputed
- “Theft” of tenants savings
- Institutional design favours State control
Final result: State subsidies reduced, yet high resistance

9. THE COMMON IN AND BEYOND
THE STATE
IN:
The State is the only institution that can bring about a
societal pooling of resources/income
Alternative private sources of income are problematic:
“gated community” / for-profit activites/ charity
BEYOND:
The (democratic) State is an institution for the governing of
capital, not of the commons

10. CONCLUSIONS
- Initial weakness becomes strength
- The State as proxy for the common is a risky strategy
- Beyond the democratisation of the State – institutions that
do not seek to represent society as a whole, but rather the
interests of those whose existence is vested in the
common. These exclude the social class that has not been
dispossessed from its means of subsistence.