The politics of mortgage credit expansion in the small coordinated market economies

Abstract

Recent contributions to the comparative political economy literature claim that liberal market economies are vulnerable to asset booms and busts because of financial deregulation, shrinking welfare states and a political ideology emphasising financial self-sufficiency. This article examines the rapid expansion of mortgage lending in three coordinated market economies (CMEs): Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands. This expansion is puzzling given that all three countries are CMEs with generous welfare states. Yet the pattern of mortgage lending resembles the Anglo-Saxon or liberal market economies (LMEs) more than other CMEs. The article argues that mortgage bubbles in the small CMEs emerged as the unintended outcome of pairing neoliberal programmes to expand home ownership with collectivist housing institutions. This resulted in supply restrictions and rising property values which saddled households with extraordinarily high mortgage debts. In short, mortgage credit bubbles are not unique to Anglo-liberal welfare states and may have different origins.     

Sentencing Parricides: Text and Context; Rhetoric and Silence

This article considers the sentencing of two eighteenth centuryparricides, one committed by a daughter, the other by a son. In eachcase the sentencing remarks are first subject to generic analysis,derived from the work of Rukiya Hasan and Susan Urmston Philips. Withinthose thematic structures there is a traditional rhetorical analysis. Bycombining both types of analysis one can demonstrate the salientfeatures of each set of judicial remarks. The focus of the article thenshifts from these texts to their contexts, and reveals features in theiroffence narratives which have been omitted in these otherwise powerfulrhetorical utterances. Explanations for these silences are given.