The concept of social exclusion (SE) has emerged relatively recently in Northern discussions about poverty, inequality and justice. How transferable is this concept to the South, where poverty is a mass phenomenon? This paper, from the Institute of Development Studies, examines the roots of the social exclusion concept and finds that it can be helpful in analysing social policy in the South, particularly in terms of understanding institutions at the ‘meso-level’.
The concept of SE captures the experience of certain groups who are ‘set apart’ or ‘locked out’ of participation in social life. Moreover, it brings attention to processes of exclusion. This means understanding how disadvantage is produced through the active dynamics of social interaction, rather than through anonymous processes of impoverishment and marginalisation. As a framework for analysis, social exclusion allows for joined up thinking on the connections between various categories of people, problems and processes.
Different forms of disadvantage give rise to different kinds of disadvantaged groups.
- Economic conceptualisations of injustice deal with exploitation, marginalisation and deprivation. Cultural conceptualisations stem from social patterns of representation, interpretation and communication. Hybrid forms of injustice exist where economic disadvantage is bound up with cultural disadvantage.
- With economic disadvantage, groups are likely to mobilise around their interests, demanding redistribution. Cultural disadvantage is likely to see group mobilisation around identity, demanding recognition. Hybrid forms will combine both.
- Disadvantage results in SE where institutions allocating and valuing resources operate to systematically deny particular groups resources and recognition to participate fully in society.
- Simplistic dualistic theories of social exclusion are misleading. Women for instance can be both included and excluded positively. There is no simple dichotomy of inclusion/exclusion. There are multiple types, such as privileged inclusion, secondary inclusion, adverse incorporation, self-exclusion and hard core exclusion.
SE analysis is a form of institutional analysis, where institutions are the ‘rules of the game’. Such analysis can be helpful in understanding and formulating social policy.
- SE is a group not an individual phenomenon. Groups can be open or closed, chosen or given, and this is likely to structure the nature of their inclusionary/exclusionary practices.
- Group behaviour which generates patterns of inclusion/exclusion is either conscious/unconscious, intended/unintended or explicit/informal. Different forms of exclusion can be described as ‘mobilisation of institutional bias’, ‘social closure’ and ‘unruly practices’.
- A SE perspective makes it clear that neither individual need nor the collective good can be left solely to private initiative: purposive action is necessary. This is particularly true for excluded groups. Overlooking SE is not only an indictment on society, but likely to generate unruly practices amongst the excluded, from petty crime to civil war.
- Social policy needs to be forward-looking to overcome exclusion, anticipating future problems.
- SE is a more complex concept than poverty, adding concerns with social inequality, respect and recognition. It also illustrates that social policy in itself can be an exclusionary mechanism.
