[Séminaire d'axe] The financialization of housing and its political consequences

Institutional investors in residential real estate have become targets of political backlash against unaffordable housing. We argue that this backlash is not only about economic issues such as rising rents; it reflects a fundamental rejection of “financialized capitalism” that turns housing from a basic need into a speculative asset. Using novel geo-coded real estate transaction data, we document the extent of housing financialization cross-nationally and over time, and demonstrate that neighborhood-level exposure to financialization alone is insufficient to explain the widespread support to expropriate corporate landlords in a historic 2021 Berlin referendum. We then develop nationally representative surveys to show that German citizens conceptualize housing as a social right and hold the state responsible for its under-provision. We demonstrate experimentally that arguments about housing financialization significantly raise support for expropriation beyond rent effects. Our findings suggest that financialized capitalism can unite diverse groups of voters in favor of housing socialism.

Speaker:

Rafaela Dancygier, Princeton University

Rafaela Dancygier holds the IBM Chair of International Studies at Princeton University, where she is Professor of Politics and Public and International Affairs. Dancygier is Director of the Mamdouha S. Bobst Center for Peace and Justice and Director of the Initiatives on Contemporary European Affairs (ICEA). 
Her research examines how social and economic divides structure political conflict in Europe and the United States. Dancygier covers topics such as immigration, radical right populism, political extremism, gender equality, and housing crises and gentrification. Her research examines how social and economic divides structure political conflict in Europe and the United States. Dancygier covers topics such as immigration, radical right populism, political extremism, gender equality, and housing crises and gentrification. 

Her first book Immigration and Conflict in Europe explains when and why immigration destinations witness conflict between immigrants and natives, between immigrants and the state, or no conflict at all. Her second book, Dilemmas of Inclusion: Muslims in European Politics examines how minority groups are incorporated into politics and studies the consequences of this inclusion for the nature of party politics, electoral realignments and gender equality. Her articles have appeared in outlets such as the American Journal of Political Science, American Political Science Review, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Politics, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, World Politics, and elsewhere.

Immigration and Conflict was awarded the Best Book Award by the European Politics and Society Section of the American Political Science Association (APSA), and it was also named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. Dilemmas of Inclusion won the 2018 Stein Rokkan Prize for Comparative Social Science Research and the 2019 Luebbert Prize, awarded by APSA to the best book published in comparative politics in the previous two years. Her articles have been awarded Best Paper Prizes by APSA’s Sections on Comparative Politics; Migration and Citizenship;  European Politics and Society; and Representation and Electoral Systems.

In 2023 Dancygier was elected to be a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.