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Territorializing Regulation: A Case Study of “Social Housing” in England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Morag McDermont
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Abstract

This article shows that the legislative creation of new regulatory regimes can be approached as a process that carves out new territories of governance. Specifically, using the theoretical framework of social space, it explores the formation of a regulatory community arising out of the United Kingdom's Housing Act 1974, a community made up of the regulatees—not-for-profit housing associations—and the state regulator. The article demonstrates that the process of carving out a new territory of governance and the “spatial practices” of the occupiers of this new territory both enable the community to establish a large element of control of the regulatory regime. This analysis challenges an understanding of law as top-down, substituting a more nuanced, three-dimensional understanding of the production of norms and “common sense.” Regulatees are not just subject to regulation but shape the space through their expertise and social relations.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 32 , Issue 2 , Spring 2007 , pp. 373 - 398
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2007 

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