The literature around social exclusion is consistent in attributing a Gallic origin to this concept. Hilary Silver (1995) credits its coining in 1974 to Rene Lenoir, while Secretary of State for Social Action in the Chirac government. Lenoir made use of this term in relation to disadvantaged and marginal groups in French society, not protected by social insurance. Silver also acknowledges its prior emergence during the 1960s in French political and academic circles in the context of ‘vague and ideological references to the poor as the excluded.’ It seems creditable to argue that the concept of exclusion had an earlier province in French intellectual discourse; most likely a reflection of the influence of republican thought. Tangentially this can be illustrated by reference to Foucault (without in anyway making claims for him as an instigator or elaborator of this concept), for instance in his early book Madness and Civilization (1977) he takes up the motif of the leper and in particular the social and spiritual ‘meaning of his exclusion.’ In Discipline and Punish (1977) he returns once again to the leper, contrasting their ‘rituals of exclusion’ with the disciplinary responses mobilised to combat the plague.
The proliferation of the concept of social exclusion, what O’Brian and Penna (2007) have described as the ‘rise and rise of the discourse of social exclusion,’ can be traced through its currency within the language of French politics and, importantly, its transmission to, and adoption within, the European Union (EU). France is a major player, and one of the big two founder members of the EU. By the mid 1970s the economies of the EU were changing as the period of sustained economic growth that followed the Second World War came to a shuddering halt, giving way to a painful and dislocating restructuring that in turn
destabilised the foundations of western welfare settlements. It was in this context that social exclusion was to emerge and gain salience within the international policy climate of the EU. By way of illustration Room (1995:2) provides a brief history of poverty research in the EU over three programmes (1975-80, 1986-89 and 1990-94). By the launch of the third programme he
concludes that social exclusion had displaced poverty and other terms to become the ‘fashionable terminology.’ The early 1990s also witness the establishment of an EU ‘Observatory’: a network of institutional collaborations monitoring social
policy aimed at combating social exclusion. Silver (1995) also draws attention to a resolution passed by the EU Council in 1989 to ‘foster integration’ and a
‘Europe of solidarity’ to be achieved by fighting ‘social exclusion’. Within academia two influential edited collections (Room, 1995, and Rodgers, 1995) serve to testify to the internationalisation of engagement with the conceptual and methodological issues of social exclusion; and that this field of research was well established by the early 90s.
Such points along the historical lineage of the social exclusion concept serve to locate and contextualise the significance of its adoption by New Labour in the period that followed May of 1997. By the June of 1997 Blair gave his first speech as Prime Minister. It was delivered in the Aylesbury Housing Estate Southwark London, an area of acute social disadvantage. The speech was given the title, The Will to Winxxxvi (WTW: see Appendix 3), and opened with the line, ‘I have chosen this housing estate to deliver my first speech as Prime Minister for a very simple reason. For 18 years, the poorest people in our country have been
forgotten by government.’ This speech was intended as a significant statement, a manifesto, of New Labour social policy priorities and ambitions. The logos, language and themes of WTW are instantly recognizable in TSE and BBT. Its focus on the ‘estate,’ on the need for a new ethic of responsibility, of the need to reintegrate the ‘underclass’ into the economic and mainstream of the
country, along with the need to transform the structures of government,
unmistakably sets out a direction that is replicated in the texts of TSE and BBT.
Fairclough (2000:52) perceptively highlights the significance of the total absence of the social exclusion concept from this speech, drawing attention to the use of the ‘workless class’ (this term appears seven times in WTW). This term was not to be used again by New Labour. Subsequently it was Mandelson’s speech to the Fabians (TSE) that would preview and herald (not without internal controversy) the adoption of the social exclusion concept by New Labour. This chronology implies an active decision at one point in time to adopt and deploy the exclusion concept by those within the party elite with a locus in constructing and
sustaining its project of government. Fairclough’s pinpointing of the debut of social exclusion illustrates the dynamic construction of third way
of motive in relation to the selection and presentation of the constituents of a particular political discourse. Why then did New Labour, in common with other social democratic governments (Gray, 2000), opt for social exclusion as opposed to some combination of other related ideas such as poverty, deprivation,
disadvantage or ‘workless class?’
The social exclusion term and its associated forms have become well established in the language of New Labour in the period following the delivery of the two speeches above, appearing more and more in the official statements, priorities and objectives of public sector organisations. This increasing proliferation in government discourse would suggest that the precise meaning of this term was somehow evident and unproblematic. This assumption can be contrasted with the views of researchers working in the field of poverty and social exclusion. Even a cursory inspection of the literature reveals a lack of agreement over the meaning attached to this term. ‘As yet there appear to be no unique, formal definitions of social exclusion that would command general assent,’ (Room, 1995:235). There is also tendency among some writers on social policy to use the terms ‘social exclusion’ and ‘poverty’ synonymously, whereas many of those involved in research and engaging with the technical issues in this field would argue that the notions are related, but certainly not one and the same concept. Atkinson and Hills (1998) observe that the meaning of the term is ambiguous, but this has not been an impediment to its widespread usage. They speculate that the term has become established precisely due to this ambiguous element that permits its flexible use across divergent positions. Atkinson and Hills go on to propose three elements as essential to any definition of social exclusion: relativity, agency and dynamics.
Social exclusion must have a relative aspect built into its meaning. To be excluded can only make sense in relation to exclusion from a particular society or subgroup within that society, in a particular cultural and historical context. Exclusion can be the experience of an individual, but often it is groups or whole communities who experience exclusion. The notion of agency relates to the idea that the act of exclusion is transacted through an individual, group or institution within the society. Atkinson and Hills (1998) illustrate this conception with the example of individuals excluded from work as a result of the actions of other workers, unions and employers or through government action. An individual can
also be the agent of his or her own exclusion from the labour market through non-participation. Through the idea of dynamics, the dimension of time is
incorporated into the conceptualisation of social exclusion. Exclusion occurs not just because an individual is without employment at one point in time, but also because there is little prospect of gaining employment in the future. This can also include the notion of inter-generational exclusion, where exclusion is passed on between and across generations of families and communities.
The idea of ‘deprivation’ is an attempt to map out the extent of need or
deficiency in terms of material and social resources. Low income, for example, becomes more detrimental when combined with poor housing, health problems and a lack of social services. Deprivation indicators are used as a means to capture and quantify in some way the multi-faceted nature of material and social disadvantage together with inequalities in services and amenities. Leaving aside disputes as to whether poverty should be measured in absolute or relative terms, some relative notions of poverty suggest that there is shared conceptual ground between conceptions of poverty, deprivation and social exclusion. Consider Townsend’s (1979:31) influential definition of poverty for example:
Individuals, families and groups in the population can be said to be in poverty when they lack the resources to obtain the types of diet,
participate in the activities and have the living conditions and amenities which are customary, or at least widely encouraged or approved, in the societies to which they belong. Their resources are so seriously below those commanded by the average individual or family that they are, in effect, excluded from the ordinary living patterns, customs and activities. Duffy (1995:5) defines social exclusion as:
... a broader concept than poverty, encompassing not only low material means but the inability to participate effectively in economic, social, political, and cultural life, and in some characterisations, alienation and distance from the mainstream society.
Room (1995) in discussing the conceptualisation of notions of social exclusion suggests that they have a:
… focus primarily on relational issues: in other words, inadequate social participation, lack of social integration and lack of power. Social exclusion is the process of becoming detached from the organisations and
obligations that they embody. These communities may, on the one hand, involve particularistic loyalties – to fellow workers in a trade union, to a local neighbourhood, to a professional organisation; or they may, on the other hand, involve membership of a national community, as expressed, for example, in the egalitarian social rights of modern welfare systems, (Room, 1995:243).
In considering social exclusion and notions of poverty it is possible to identify two distinct concepts, but concepts in which there exists considerable overlap in the frameworks from which they are constructed. At a simplistic level, notions of poverty could be said to be concerned with a shortage of resources,
particularly disposable income, while social exclusion engages in wider issues of participation in the principal social institutions and structures of a society and the denial of rights of citizenship be they civil, social or political. Room (1995) attributes such differences in approach as reflecting the different intellectual traditions that have produced divergent paradigms of research and thought. Poverty research has its roots in a 19th century Anglo-Saxon liberal vision of society. Social exclusion, on the other hand, is located as developing from the republican and social democratic traditions of continental Europe. Preceding any theoretical imprint in the definition and operationalisation of the concept of social exclusion within a social science research context is a conditioning that originates in the political sphere.
Hilary Silver (1995) in exploring a topology of this concept identifies three distinctive paradigms of social exclusion, what she terms as solidarity, specialisation and monopoly (see Table 11.4). Each of the three paradigms makes a different response to fundamental questions such as the nature of the social order, what is meant by social integration and its mechanisms or what is it that people are excluded from? The ideologically grounded descriptive topology offered by Silver is perhaps best described as broad and parsimonious. Further analysis into each of the three positions, it could be argued, would produce a more complex and untidy set of positions. Within liberalism, for example, there is a fissure between a classical and social reading of exclusion. The corollary to the existence of this array of standpoints on social exclusion is that to embrace any one of them necessitates the adoption of the theoretical and ideological ‘baggage’ that they contain.
Solidarity Specialization Monopoly Conception of Integration Group Solidarity Cultural Boundaries Specialization/Separate Spheres Interdependence Monopoly Social Closure Mechanism of Integration
Moral Integration Exchange Citizenship Rights
Ideology Republicanism Liberalism Social Democracy
Seminal Thinkers Rousseau Durkheim Locke, Madison Utilitarians Marx, Weber, Marshall Model of new political economy Flexible Production Regulation School Skills Work Disincentives Networks, Social Capital Labour Market Segmentation
While acknowledging the conceptual ambiguity and plasticity of the social exclusion concept across and within national boundaries, Silver (1995:65)
attempts, from a reading of the literature, to present a organising account. The first of the three model forms she identifies is what she terms as solidarity, an approach to understanding exclusion from the tradition of French republican thought. This tradition comes directly from France’s revolutionary heritage with its emphasis on a secular and universalistic civic identity. Foreshadowed in Rousseau and present in a more systematic way in Durkheimian social theory, the solidarity paradigm looks to the moral order and civic virtue as the
fundamental locus of social integration. This set of positions looks to the
operation of a common culture, (in recent times more of a post-modern pluralist notion of culture) consensus and shared background. This approach draws
heavily on the social sciences and is conscious of the way in which difference, cultural boundaries and social groups set up binary categories in the social order. Its response to the problem of exclusion is understood in terms of
‘insertion,’ seeking ways to reintegrate those who have become detached from the dominant culture.
The specialisation outlook approaches the nature and operation of social exclusion from the perspective of Anglo-American liberalism. From this perspective the fundamental locus of social integration is to be found in ‘exchange’ relations. This is an individualistic approach that assumes at its foundation that individual differences, capacities and preferences are reflected in the economic and social sphere; leading to specialisation. The social order is therefore shaped by the institutional and economic arrangements of competing and collaborative individuals pursuing their own utility. Its intellectual
suppositions are drawn from classical liberal thought, and can be found across a range of thinkers from Charles Murray to the Chicago School of Economics. This set of assumptions links liberal and neoliberal approaches towards understanding exclusion in terms of ‘discrimination.’ Exclusion appears in the form of
illegitimate boundaries or barriers to exchange, participation and movement between groups and spheres or as a violation of the natural order or the imposition of inappropriate rules preventing individuals from seeking their interests across different domains.
Manifesting itself in the thought of the European left, monopoly is the third paradigmatic sector identified in this framework. This perspective on exclusion is informed by an understanding of the social order as being coercive in
character, reflecting a formation of power relations that are hierarchically
structured. The asymmetrical operation of power across class, ethnic and gender dimensions guarantees conflict and the possibility of one group protecting its advantages by the exclusion of others. Silver elevates the social theory of Max Weber (1864-1920) as the main foundational exemplar of this perspective. Weber’s ideas on social stratification and in particular his notion of ‘status’ groups and ‘social closure’ are important in understanding the boundaries that cause exclusion. For Weber a conflictual social order, structured into classes, is animated by competing individuals and groups struggling for scarce resources. Weber understood social class position to be economically determined
corresponding to its relationship to the market; different skills and services offered by different occupations had differing market values. Moving beyond the economic and class Weber also proposed the power of status, or the existence of distinctive status groups, arising from qualities such as social honour, prestige and religion. What is significant about such groups is that they can work to monopolise material advantages and other desirable goods. Social closure is a mechanism by which such advantages are protected and maintained in the face of subordinate groups attempting to access them. By shutting down access to such goods by a wide rage of strategies and obstacles (be they legal, procedural or grounded in cultural, ethnic, linguistic or religious differences) this social arrangement can operate to establish inequalities and maintain exclusion. The protection of such advantages through forms of social closure leads, from this standpoint, to social exclusion. This tendency can be tempered by the
establishment of strong social democratic citizenship of the form advocated by T. H. Marshallxxxvii.