Demolishing Housing Rights in the Name of Market Fundamentalism: The Dynamics of Displacement in the United States, India, and South Africa

Albisa, Cathy; Scott, B. R.; Tissington, Kate

doi:10.1017/cbo9781139235600.005

Cited by 5 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…They find that there is no evidence that including the right to education in the constitution has been associated with higher test scores. The second paper by Matsuura (2013) shows that introducing a 5 See Albisa, Scott, and Tissington (2013) for cases of government complicity in forced evictions in Chicago and Mumbai, but where similar efforts were thwarted by South Africa's constitutional provision on the right to housing in Johannesburg.…”

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confidence: 99%

The role of constitutions on poverty: A cross-national investigation

Minkler

Prakash

2017

Journal of Comparative Economics

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. www.econstor.eu Terms of use: Documents in D I S C U S S I O N P A P E R S E R I E S ABSTRACTThe Role of Constitutions on Poverty: A Cross-National Investigation *In this paper we use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 201 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of constitutional language of the economic and social rights matter? Constitutional provisions can be framed either more weakly as directive principles or more strongly as enforceable law. We find three important results. First, we do not find an association between constitutional rights generally framed and poverty. Second, we do not find an association between economic and social rights framed as directive principles and poverty. Third, we do find a strong negative association between economic and social rights framed as enforceable law and poverty. When we use legal origins as our IV, we find evidence that this result is causal. Our results survive a variety of robustness checks. The policy implication is that constitutional provisions framed as enforceable law provide effective meta-rules with incentives for policymakers to initiate, fund, monitor and enforce poverty reduction policies.JEL Classification: I24, I32, I38, O1, O38

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confidence: 99%

The role of constitutions on poverty: A cross-national investigation

Minkler

Prakash

2017

Journal of Comparative Economics

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“…The main problem that countries face nowadays is the reduction of public funding available, which has resulted on the commodification of the housing sector and the dominance of private interests over public ones, with some cases in which conflicting interests have brought the displacement of entire groups of population as a result of market development, with no legal instruments existing to protect the right to housing (Albisa et al 2013). The following section will focus on some of the government interventions and initiatives on housing policy, with specific actions in affordable housing.…”

Section: Housing As a Human Rightmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding Affordable Housing in the Context of Sustainable Development

Fernández¹

2020

Encyclopedia of the UN Sustainable Development Goals

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Looking at dictionary definitions of affordable, it is common to find entries such as "that can be afforded," "believed to be within one's financial means" (dictionary.com), "having a cost that is not too high" (merriam-webster.com), "inexpensive; reasonably priced" (oxforddictionaries. com), or "you have enough money to buy it/the financial means for it" (vocabulary.com). However, when talking about affordable housing, the connotation changes, and it usually makes reference to housing for a particular segment of the population: "housing that is not too expensive for people of limited means" (merriam-webster.com). There is no common definition of affordable housing, and the existing ones use a variety of indicators that often combine the person or household income and the house price. Differences appear between countries too, with the UK, for instance, considering a house is affordable if to pay for it, in mortgage or rent, you do not need to dedicate more than 35% of the household net income (Bibby 2015). In Australia, on the other hand, that threshold is set at 30% (New South Wales Government n.d.). Those figures are indicative and many other variables and ways to measure and define affordable housing exist. This piece of work intends to make a contribution to clarify the existing information available to the public on this matter.

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“…The existing examples of government failure to protect are limited and focus heavily on civil and political rights infringement specifically, security rights in reference to violence against women, genocide, and crimes against humanity (Bannon, 2005; Howard‐Hassmann, 2010). Of the even smaller pool of examples of failure to protect economic, social, and cultural rights comes the salient example of migrant farmworkers in the USA, as well as relatable work on the right to housing and religion (Tucker, 2000; Schneider, 2011; Albisa et al, 2013). Tucker’s (2000) work on migrant farmworkers illuminates how a third party contracted by the government to link workers to jobs can perpetuate economic rights violations by funnelling workers into jobs with poor working conditions and little opportunity for formal restitution.…”

Section: Economic Rights and The Obligation To Protectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Failure to Protect: How Tracking Refugees into Temporary Work Violates Economic Rights

Warren

2020

International Migration

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Refugees often imagine resettlement to the USA to be a solution to their problems, but the process of resettlement is full of social, cultural and economic hurdles. Through an ethnographic analysis of a resettlement agency, this research shows that refugee employment specialists consistently track refugees into low-wage and contingent work even when refugees have strong language skills, experience in professional work, and advanced degrees. Bureaucratic reporting structures and quota requirements create pressures on refugee employment specialists to place refugees in jobs quickly which hinders them from working towards meaningful economic self-sufficiency. The denial of refugee autonomy in pursuit of work and economic freedoms is a human rights violation facilitated by a government failure to protect them from third-party exploitation. This article argues that the chronic underemployment of refugees exemplifies a common, but understudied type of economic rights violation.

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Demolishing Housing Rights in the Name of Market Fundamentalism: The Dynamics of Displacement in the United States, India, and South Africa

Cited by 5 publications

References 9 publications

The role of constitutions on poverty: A cross-national investigation

The role of constitutions on poverty: A cross-national investigation

Understanding Affordable Housing in the Context of Sustainable Development

Failure to Protect: How Tracking Refugees into Temporary Work Violates Economic Rights

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