Schools of Comparative Housing Research: From Convergence to Divergence

ABSTRACT Comparative housing research has become a major field of investigation in the last two decades, and it is now possible to discern distinct approaches. In this paper we present an overview of the literature, distinguishing between three dominant perspectives. At one extreme are particularistic approaches which are conceptually unexplicated and highly empirical and in which each country is seen as unique. At the other extreme are universalistic approaches in which all countries are seen as being subjected to the same overriding imperatives, whether this is 'the logic of industrialism', capitalist market failures, the structural drive to increasingly comprehensive welfare states or its opposite, the privatisation and recommodification of welfare. In between these two extremes are studies which attempt to develop what might be called 'theories of the middle range' and to discern typologies of housing systems.

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