2012/10/22 by Sarah Blandy, Caroline Hunter · 2 citations
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Social Sciences · #Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism #Legal principles and applications #Urban and Rural Development Challenges
paper · doi:10.1177/0261018312457869
openalex publication_date 2012/10/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
This paper examines the development of the Right to Buy, introduced by the Housing Act 1980, from the standpoint of governmentality, risk and responsibilization. Our focus is on the risks not only to the purchasers but also to local authorities and to those tenants who have not purchased their homes. We trace how these risks have been assessed, allocated and rebranded, by central government, by local authorities as landlords with wider responsibility for housing issues in their local area, and by the judiciary. Our analysis, for the first time, points out the sharp contrasts between these three arms of government. Central government has promoted the Right to Buy as an opportunity through technologies such as ideological policy documents, legislation and regulations, within a governing rationality which has succeeded in normalizing the tenure of owner-occupation. Local authorities recognized from the outset the risks associated with the Right to Buy both to individual purchasers and more widely. The courts have allocated risk on the basis of individual responsibility, implicitly supporting local authorities. Despite neoliberal policies and ideology emphasizing the free market, central government has reduced or re-allocated risks through interventions to protect purchasers and also the broader community.