Description:

Please join us for a practice job talk with PhD Candidate Shai Karp.

Abstract: Housing—and rental housing in particular—is all over today's political agenda. Concerns about housing costs are growing, and they're gaining political traction. I argue that, while these concerns are valid, they miss something: political relations of rule and domination within housing arrangements. I begin with a theory of domination between landlords and tenants, adapting Elizabeth Anderson's theory of private government. Then, I offer a brief discussion of the historical and institutional developments that created the rental housing landscape. Finally, with the bulk of the talk, I illustrate the theory of private government in rental housing through in-depth interviews with renters. I argue that property inequality forms a general structure of rule in rental housing, but that race and class shape particular experiences which can be more negative but can also mobilize renters to collective action.

Shai Karip is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University. Broadly, his research explores how political institutions create and perpetuate inequalities in the United States, and how economic and power translate into material and status inequalities.

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