Ideological Mis-Direction: Iranian Low Income Housing Policy or Surfing Plebian Emotions

Abstract

This paper examines social housing policy in Iran, highlighting the ideological foundations that support and perpetuate these policies, as well as the consequences they produce. Drawing on Žižek’s notion of ideology as a constitutive element of social reality, the paper argues that egalitarian discourses in housing policy, while promising improved living conditions for low-income groups, often obscure other democratic demands and humanistic needs. Housing policy, as a result, becomes a political tool for manipulating mass movements and legitimising state power. In the Iranian context, the study demonstrates three points: first, that egalitarian promises in housing can hinder citizen rights and democratic development; second, that housing policy reproduces dominant ideology; and third, that planners, as technocrats, facilitate the implementation of populist policies. Unlike in democratic societies, where planning complements the market, in Iran’s populist and authoritarian system, planning serves as a distributor of public goods and a mechanism of political control. Over the past three decades, these policies have consolidated capital in the hands of the central government, reduced private investment in housing, and deepened mass dependency on the regime. Ultimately, the paper shows how Iranian housing policy functions less as social welfare and more as a populist strategy of ideological domination.