Interpretation and Representation in Housing Policy Discourse as Exemplified by Council Tenants’ Participation in the Jazdów Estate (Warsaw) Cover Image

Interpretation and Representation in Housing Policy Discourse as Exemplified by Council Tenants’ Participation in the Jazdów Estate (Warsaw)
Interpretation and Representation in Housing Policy Discourse as Exemplified by Council Tenants’ Participation in the Jazdów Estate (Warsaw)

Author(s): Aleksandra Zubrzycka-Czarnecka
Subject(s): Politics, Policy, planning, forecast and speculation, Rural and urban sociology
Published by: AV ČR - Akademie věd České republiky - Sociologický ústav
Keywords: housing policymaking; Poland; tenant participation; What’s the Problem Represented to Be (WPR)

Summary/Abstract: The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of the What’s the Problem Represented to Be approach (WPR), a tool of policy analysis developed by the Australian political scientist Carol Bacchi to examine the discursive representations of council tenants’ participation in connection with the inclusion of council housing tenants from the Jazdów Estate in the decision-making process relating to local housing policy in Warsaw. The article identifies two discursive representations of council tenants’ participation: (1) council tenants as an expected passive audience in top-down policymaking and (2) the limited acceptance of the agency of council tenants in policymaking. It was found that in Warsaw - or at least in the case of Jazdów - the political and discursive interpretation of tenants’ participation is primarily associated with the act of informing and less often with public consultation or the co-production of housing policy.

  • Issue Year: 8/2021
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 1-10
  • Page Count: 10
  • Language: English