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The article contributes to two central and interrelated discourses in welfare state theory and housing policy. One concerns the meaning of a 'right to housing', and the other concerns the meaning of the dichotomy 'universal'–'selective' in housing policy. The right to housing is best seen as a political 'marker of concern' pointing out housing as an area for welfare state policy. The more precise meaning of the idea is always defined socially, in a specific national context of relations between state, citizen, and markets in housing provision. Two alternative interpretations of a right to housing are suggested, each related to a certain logic of housing provision. In a selective housing policy, the state provides a 'protected' complement to the general housing market, and the right to housing implies some legalistic minimum rights for households of lesser means. In a universal housing policy, the state provides correctives to the general housing market in order to make housing available to all types of households, and the right to housing is best seen as a social right in Marshall's meaning of an obligation of the state towards society as a whole. The concepts of 'universal' and 'selective' may be applied to either the political discourse or the social outcome of policies. Furthermore, they may refer to different political levels (e.g. welfare state level, sector level, and policy instrument level). If the dichotomy is not specified in those two respects, the distinction between a universal and a selective policy will always be seriously blurred.

Urban riots are typically carried out by individuals who live in residential areas that are relatively marginalized socially, economically and politically. Previous research has discussed several aspects of deprivation that may help explain this relationship. Contributing further to this research, we aim to explain why marginalization produces riots by developing a rationalistic specification of social mechanisms. The utility of our model is demonstrated by a case study of the 2013 Stockholm riots. The model consists of (a) general local incentives that appeal to individual motives, but only lead to participation in riots when (b) the delicate local equilibrium is destabilized by an event that (c) makes riots appear justified, risk-free and thrilling. The advantage of this rationalistic model is that it shows why other people, in other places, would have reason to act in much the same way under similar circumstances.

This theoretical paper introduces a conceptual framework for empirical study and comparison of collaborative civil society housing (CSH). We suggest that CSH communities satisfy four criteria to a lesser or higher extent: (1) autonomy, (2) participatory democracy, (3) internal solidarity and (4) external solidarity. Drawing primarily on empirical examples from the scholarly literature on co-operative housing, we claim that all CSH communities face challenges that may lead to the erosion of these civil society criteria. We argue that such challenges are general social mechanisms that manifest themselves in various types of situations, for instance, when apartments are transferred or refurbished. ; submittedVersion