HOUSING PROVISION SYSTEMS AND NEOLIBERALISM. AN INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE

Márcio Moraes Valença, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil

This paper draws on research which seeks to establish if – and if so, identify mechanisms through which – external economic and political constraints have interfered with national housing provision systems in different parts of the globe (Brazil, Great Britain, Portugal and South Africa). Or rather, if – and to what extent – national housing provision systems have changed to face new economic and political constraints due to “globalisation”. In the research, but not in this paper, the idea is also to analyse the role of formal and informal political mediators in the public and private spheres – be they individuals, groups and institutions – as important agents of transformation in this process. Although, in the four specified scenarios under scrutiny, response to international stimuli may differ – in what concerns their different policy formats and programmes –, by analysing policy change and resulting models as well as interests at play – that is, determining who wins – we may at least be able to establish whether this has been a trend in the neoliberal world.