Erik Schmidt

The Hegemonic Crisis of the German Housing Regime: Conflicts and Coalitions Surrounding the State, Nature, and Technology in New Spaces of Transformation

Erik Schmidt has been pursuing his Ph.D. at the Faculty of Environmental Sciences at TU Dresden since March 2025.

Advisors
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marc Wolfram, IOER and Dresden University of Technology (TUD)
Jun.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Marcus Hübscher, Dresden University of Technology (TUD)
Prof. Dr. Phil. Sebastian Schipper, Goethe University Frankfurt


Abstract
Germany’s neoliberalized and financialized housing regime is affected by multiple crisis dynamics. The fossil fuel-based energy and heating supply for the housing stock, as well as new housing construction, are among the main drivers of the ecological crisis. The social crisis in housing supply manifests itself in rising rent prices and heating costs, exceeding the limits of affordability. The European Central Bank’s termination of its low-interest-rate policy plunged housing and construction policy into a severe economic crisis. These paradoxically intertwined multiple crises highlight an immediate need for far-reaching reforms and socio-technical transitions toward a socio-ecological future for the German housing regime (GHR). However, the most recent, highly contested regulations and policies implemented in the fields of the heating transition, construction policy, and rent regulation are contradictory and point toward different paths of transformation. Based on the working hypothesis that the current institutional, material, regulatory, and scalar architecture is incapable of channeling the dynamics of the crisis into a coherent trajectory of development, I argue that this incoherence represents the hegemonic crisis of the German housing regime.

This research seeks to investigate the dialectical relationships between 1) the transformational processes and sociotechnical transitions of the GHR, 2) its spatial materialization, 3) shifts in power relations among political parties, tenant and environmental organizations, as well as the housing, energy, and construction industries, 4) regional development, and 5) its multi-scalar political regulation. The research design consists of an integrated approach combining the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) theory and Historical Materialist Policy Analysis (HMPA), enriched by spatial and scale-sensitive concepts. The research operates on three dimensions, which are constantly intertwined throughout the research process. In a first step, the current state of the GHR as a socio-technical system is examined with regard to property relations and the spatial and material structure of the housing stock, construction, and energy infrastructure. Based on this contextual analysis, I investigate conflicts over the implementation of new regulations at the national and EU levels (the Building Energy Act, Bau-Turbo, the Infrastructure Special Fund, the Heat Planning Act, etc.) as struggles between hegemonic projects attempting to shape the transformation of the GHR in accordance with their interests, strategies, associated technologies, and imaginaries. Finally, I analyze the reciprocal relationship between political regulation, the reconfiguration of scalar and spatial structures, and the socio-technical transition of the GHR through two regional case studies.