Squatters, Brokers, and Mayors: The Distributive Politics of Housing Policy

• In Event: Political Origins of Social Policy Processes

Abstract

Housing informality has become one of the most pressing policy issues facing low- and middle-income countries, and Latin American cities are among the most unequal worldwide. The successes and failures of housing programs have received a lot of attention, but the political as opposed to the policy underpinnings of housing policies and their possible interaction remain vastly overlooked. How do the distributive strategies that politicians choose affect the policy instruments that they devise? I argue that certain types of housing policies are more likely to emerge given certain political incentives and capacity. The theory emphasizes two as yet undertheorized factors that shape the incentives and resources that politicians face as they decide between policy options: 1) differences in the amenability of different policy instruments for partisan targeting and political manipulation, and 2) differences across incumbent parties’ organizational structure and political coalition. These factors shape the costs and benefits associated with the portfolio of goods (private versus public) available to politicians, both in the political and in the policy arenas. To test the argument, the paper combines case study analysis of a small number of municipal precincts, statistical and spatial analysis of infrastructure and social housing provision, and an original survey of neighborhood leaders in Mexico.

Author

• Aimée Bourassa, Brown University