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Housing Vouchers: A Case Study of the Partisan Policy Cycle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2016

Jeremy Johnson
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Abstract

Federal housing policy reveals an unexpected political cycle of Republican innovation and Democratic appropriation. The political trajectory of rental housing vouchers since their inception reveals a partisan policy cycle. Vouchers were originally proposed as a Republican alternative to Democratic public housing construction and slowly emerged as a viable component of housing policy in the United States. In the mid-1990s, a shift occurred in which Democrats embraced vouchers and Republicans retreated from their innovation. This article suggests a partisanship model of policy making that both challenges and supplements conventional models of the policy process.

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Articles
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Social Science History , Volume 40 , Issue 1 , Spring 2016 , pp. 63 - 91
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association, 2016 

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