Can national governments reform local housing policy? The case of the Portuguese local housing strategies (Estratégias Locais de Habitação)

Can national governments influence and change the local governance of housing policy? And how? This policy review explores, in multilevel perspective, the promotion of reform of local housing policy through the case of the 2018 Portuguese Nova Geração de Políticas de Habitação (NGPH; New Generation of Housing Policies). We discuss how the government tried, through funding for addressing the most urgent housing needs and the introduction of Estratégias Locais de Habitação (ELHs; Local Housing Strategies), to push towards participatory and strategic approaches in local housing policy design and implementation. We build on a survey with municipal councils and the analysis of ELHs’ original documents, using descriptive statistics and exploratory multivariate analyses. Our findings suggest that the method adopted by the Portuguese government was scarcely effective in steering policymaking, in so doing offering broader insights for national policymakers interested in reforming local housing policy.