Social Exclusion Rhetoric Reality Responses

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOUR STUDIES
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
SOCIAL
EXCLUSION:
RHETORIC
REALITY
RESPONSES
EDITED BY
GERRY RODGERS
CHARLES GORE
JOSE
B.
F,GUE,REDO
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOUR STUDIES
UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME
SOCIAL EXCLUSION:
RHETORIC
REALITY
RESPONSES
EDITED BY
GERRY RODGERS
CHARLES GORE
JOSE B. FIGUEIREDO
A CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
Copyright International Labour Organization (International Institute for Labour Studies) 1995
Short excerpts from this publication may be reproduced without authorization, on condition that
the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation, application should be made to
the Editor, International Institute for Labour Studies, P.O. Box 6, CH-1211 Geneva 22.
ISBN 92-9014-537-4
First published 1995
The responsibility for opinions expressed in signed articles, studies and other contributions rests
solely with their authors, and publication does not constitute an endorsement by the International
Institute for Labour Studies of the opinions expressed in them.
Copies can be ordered directly from: ILO Publications, International Labour Office, CH-1211
Geneva 22 (Switzerland).
Preface
The ILO is dedicated to the quest for social justice in the context of
economic and social change. For nearly three-quarters of a century, the
Organization has sought to promote policies which reconcile equity with
growth in such fields as labour relations, conditions of work, social
protection, human resource development, and employment.
The problem of deprivation - both absolute and relative - is central
to these concerns. Over the years it has been addressed both through ILO
programmes and in collaboration with other international organizations.
In 1993, the International Institute for Labour Studies of the ILO
convened a Symposium on poverty in order to assess these efforts; to
examine new lines of enquiry; and to stimulate innovative policy prescriptions. The concept of social exclusion suggested itself as a subject for
future exploration.
Developments in economic and social organization over the last
decade suggest that transformations are taking place in the nature of
poverty and deprivation. The deepening of social inequalities, labour
market segmentation, and changes in the quantity and quality of jobs, are
now occurring in all countries - in the developed economies, as well as
in countries undertaking economic reform or undergoing economic transition. These changes are marked by varying degrees of participation or
marginalization of different groups and individuals in civil and political
society.
The concept of social exclusion suggests an analytical framework to
encompass a variety of dimensions which are becoming increasingly
relevant for an understanding of the notions of deprivation and poverty.
These considerations include the need to:
(a) link poverty with employment and social integration;
(b) link the economic with the political and social dimensions of poverty;
(e)
examine the role of social processes and institutional structures in

creating deprivation or generating inclusion. This would complement
the current emphasis on macro-economic growth, incentives and
individual skill development;
vi
SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES
(d) explore the implications of globalization for anti-poverty strategies,
social cohesion and social justice;

(e)
explore the link between rights (civil, political and social) and access
to livelihoods and markets.
Supported by the United Nations Development Programme, the Institute launched a research project on social exclusion to contribute to the
discussion at the World Summit for Social Development and to explore
ways in which the analysis of exclusion could make anti-poverty strategies
more effective. This volume summarizes the initial project findings in three
areas: conceptual issues; empirical studies, including analyses of social
exclusion, policy experiences and implications for policy design; and
policy issues. At a subsequent stage, the project will culminate in a Social
Policy Forum which will bring academics together with practitioners to
assess the final results.
The concept of social exclusion is familiar in Western Europe, as it
has recently become central in discussions on the emergence of "new
poverty" associated with economic restructuring and long-term unemployment. The original concept owes much to institutionalist thinking and to
certain traditions of European political philosophy. The Institute/UNDP
research project has sought to "deconstruct" the original term with a view
to examining its utility in a variety of country settings. This has entailed
conceptual work; the review of existing literatures on poverty, marginality,
discrimination and deprivation; and empirical studies to explore the
dimensions of exclusion in development paths in different parts of the
world, with varied economic and social characteristics.
The intention is to seek a framework which would capture the interrelationships between the material and non-material aspects of deprivation;
to provide a better understanding of the way they interact with the
processes of economic growth; and to relate them to the concepts of
participation and social identity, which are becoming salient at a time of
great change. The ultimate goal is to contribute to the design of acceptable
and effective policy interventions.
It should be stressed that this project is a pilot venture in several
respects. The case studies undertaken thus far have only begun to explore
the full analytical potential of the concept of social exclusion. The common
guidelines for the country studies were designed to give maximum
discretion and scope to local multi-disciplinary teams, and to allow and
facilitate the process of evolution of the analytical framework. Questions
of macro-economic policy and its intersection with institutional change; the
PREFACE
vii
social aspects of globalization; the implications of new technology - all

these remain to be further mapped.
The results to date, however, do point to several important areas for
future action. They suggest that more attention should be given to the way
social institutions, political rights and economic processes interact to
generate better livelihoods, social justice and social cohesion. Macro
policies, and more particularly their interface with micro programmes, is
of critical significance for anti-poverty strategy and greater social
inclusion. Above all, the terms "inclusion" or "cohesion", immediately
raise the question of the structures or processes with which cohesion is
sought, and the manner in which it is to be achieved. These are thorny and
delicate issues, but they have to be grasped at the outset of policy
formulation and implementation.
This publication is intended to serve as a point of reference for policymakers, practitioners and academics and to stimulate thinking on the
challenges posed by economic transformation for social equity, political
stability and democratic citizenship.
Padmanabha Gopinath
Director, International Institute
for Labour Studies
Geneva, January 1995
Acknowledgements
This volume is based on the ILO's International Institute for Labour

Studies project "Patterns and causes of social exclusion and the design of
policies to promote integration". Funding for this project has been
provided by the IlLS and by the UNDP. The project was initiated and
directed by Gerry Rodgers, in collaboration with Jose B. de Figueiredo.
Charles Gore, a consultant to the project, wrote the introduction, with
contributions from the other editors, and had the major responsibility for
the substantive editing of the rest of the text. The editors are grateful to
their colleagues in the IlLS and in particular to Ajit S. Bhalla and Frederic
Lapeyre for their valuable suggestions; to Hazel Cecconi for skilful and
speedy copy-editing and proof-reading of the papers; to Francoise
Charpentier for production advice; and to Carmen Ruppert for secretarial
support during the two workshops which brought project participants
together.
Just as the volume went to press, we were sad to learn of the death of
Marshall Wolfe, one of the contributors. Marshall brought to the project
a long experience of social development issues and a subtle understanding
of processes of social change, and his quiet commitment will be much
missed.
Most of the papers in the volume are summaries of more fully
documented reports which are presently being finalized. In some cases,
significant editorial revisions have been made to authors' original texts in
order to harmonize the different contributions to the volume. Opinions
expressed in this text are not necessarily endorsed by UNDP, by IlLS or
by ILO.
Gerry Rodgers, Charles Gore and Jose B. Figueiredo

International Institute for Labour Studies
Geneva, January 1995
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii
Contributors
1.
xi
Introduction: Markets, citizenship and social exclusion

Charles Gore, with contributions of Jose B. Figueiredo
and Gerry Rodgers
PART I - CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

2.
3.
4.
What is special about a social exclusion approach?

Gerry Rodgers
"
43
Reconceptualizing social disadvantage: Three paradigms

of social exclusion
Hilary Silver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . "
57
Globalization and social exclusion: Some paradoxes

Marshall Wolfe
81
5.
Social exclusion and social change:

Insights in the African literature
Charles Gore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
6.
Social exclusion and Latin American analyses

of poverty and deprivation
Vilmar E. Faria
117
PART II - COUNTRY STUDIES

A. Synoptic country studies of patterns and processes
of social exclusion
7.
Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Russia

Natalia Tchernina . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
8.
Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Thailand

Pasuk Phongpaichit, Sungsidh Piriyarangsanan
and Nualnoi Treerat
147
Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Tunisia

Mongi Bedoui and Ridha Gouia
161
10. Patterns and processes of social exclusion in the Republic

of Yemen
Mouna Hashem
175
11. Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Tanzania

Anna Tibaijuka and Frederick Kaijage
187
9.
B. Issue-oriented country studies

12. Social exclusion and social inequality in Peru
Adolfo Figueroa, Teofilo Altamirano and Denis Sulmont ..... 201
13. Economic restructuring and social exclusion in Mexico
Sara Gordon Rapoport, Rosario Cobo, Lorena Paz Paredes,
Carlos Salas and Enrique Dusell
215
14. Ethnic solidarity and social exclusion in Cameroon

Samuel Inack Inack, Joseph Edou Mbida and Paulette Bea ... 229
15. Social exclusion in respect of basic needs in India
Paul Appasamy, S. Guhan, R. Hema, ManabiMajumdar
and A. Vaidyanathan
237
PART III - POLICY ISSUES

16. The design of policy against exclusion
Gerry Rodgers
253
17. Policies to combat social exclusion: A French-British

comparison
Hilary Silver and Frank Wilkinson
283
Contributors
Teofilo Altamirano, Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas, Economicas,
Politicas y Antropologicas (CISEPA), Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica
del Peru, Lima.
Paul Appasamy, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
Paulette Bea, Universite de Yaounde 1.
Mongi Bedoui, Consultant, Tunis.
Rosario Cobo, Instituto Maya de Investigaciones Agrarias, Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Enrique Dusell, Facultad de Economia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma
de Mexico.
Joseph Edou Mbida, Universite de Yaounde II.
Vilmar E. Faria, Centro Brasileiro de Analise e Planejamento, Sao Paulo.
Adolfo Figueroa, Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas, Economicas,
Politicas y Antropologicas (CISEPA), Pontificia Universidad Catolica
del Peru, Lima.
Jose B. Figueiredo, International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva.
Sara Gordon Rapoport, Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales, Universidad
Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Charles Gore, Consultant, Brighton.
Ridha Gouia, Consultant, Tunis.
S. Guhan, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
Mouna Hashem, Consultant, New York.

R. Hema, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
Samuel Inack Inack, Universite de Yaounde II.
Frederick Kaijage, Department of History, University of Dar-es-Salaam.
xii
Manabi Majumdar, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.

Lorena Paz Paredes, Instituto Maya de Investigaciones Agrarias,
Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.
Pasuk Phongpaichit, Political Economy Centre, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok.
Sungsidh Piriyarangsan, Political Economy Centre, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok.
Gerry Rodgers, International Institute for Labour Studies, Geneva.
Carlos Salas, Facultad de Economia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de
Mexico.
Hilary Silver, Department of Sociology and Urban Studies, Brown
University, Providence.
Denis Sulmont, Centro de Investigaciones Sociologicas, Economicas,
Politicas y Antropologicas (CISEPA), Pontificia Universidad Cat6lica
del Peru, Lima.
Natalia Tchernina, Institute of Economics and Industrial Engineering,
Novosibirsk.
Anna Tibaijuka, Economic Research Bureau, University of Dar-es-Salaam.
Nualnoi Treerat, Political Economy Centre, Chulalongkorn University,
Bangkok.
A. Vaidyanathan, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.
Frank Wilkinson, Department of Applied Economics, University of
Cambridge.
Marshall WOlfet, Consultant, East Arlington.
Introduction: Markets, citizenship

and social exclusion
Charles Gore
with contributions from
Jose B. Figueiredo and Gerry Rodgers
I.
Conceptual issues
1.
The meaning of social exclusion

in West European policy discourse'
In Western Europe, the term "social exclusion" has recently become

a key concept amongst analysts and policy-makers seeking to understand
and alleviate some of the negative social effects of economic restructuring.
It is an appraisive term, which both describes and expresses an evaluation
of a situation and a process and, as such, it has an evident appeal for
politicians and policy analysts. But, as a persuasive call for public action,
"social exclusion" has acquired various meanings. In Western Europe,
those meanings are embedded in the emergence of the term in French
political rhetoric and the specific institutional history of the European
Union.
The term was originally coined in France in 1974 to refer to various
categories of people who were unprotected by social insurance at the time
but labelled as "social problems" - "mentally and physically handicapped,
suicidal people, aged invalids, abused children, substance abusers,
delinquents, single parents, multi-problem households, marginal, asocial
persons and other social 'misfits" (Silver, Ch. 3, p. 63). However, in the
1980s, this stigmatizing and narrowly social view of social exclusion was
superseded as the term became central to French debates about the nature
of the "new poverty" associated with technological change and economic
restructuring. Social exclusion in this context was not equated with
I This section is based on Silver (Ch. 3). For a longer version, which includes the deep
historical context of recent debates in France, see Silver [1994].
poverty. It rather referred to a process of social disintegration, in the sense

of a progressive rupture of the relationship between the individual and
society, which was occurring because of increasing long-term unemployment, particularly focused on unskilled workers and immigrants, the
inability of young people to enter the labour market for the first time,
greater family instability and isolated single-member households, increasing
numbers of homeless people, and rising tensions and periodic violence in
the low-cost housing settlements on the periphery of cities (banlieues). This
tearing of the social fabric of society seemed to be occurring as the result
of long-term transformations in the structure and organization of economic
life. It was regarded particularly seriously in France because social
solidarity, in the sense of a "social bond" (lien social) between the individual and society which is expressed in the active participation of the
citizen in public life, has always been central to French Republican thought.
The concept of citizenship and social integration which underlies the
notion of "social exclusion" in this French tradition is difficult to grasp for
people working within a liberal individualist tradition. The latter, which
permeates Anglo-Saxon thinking, sees citizenship as a social contract based
on the possession of equal rights by all individuals, and views social
integration in terms of freely-chosen relationships between individuals,
rather than a relationship between the individual and society [Silver, 1994,
p. 18]. But this sharp conceptual divide has not prevented the wider
adoption of the term in Western Europe. The European Commission has
taken up the concept as central to the formation of social policy. In so
doing, it has linked the notion of social exclusion more closely with the
idea that it is the inadequate realization of social rights. This is particularly
apparent in the work of the Observatory on National Policies to Combat
Social Exclusion, which defined social exclusion "in relation to the social
rights of citizens ... to a certain basic standard of living and to participation
in the major social and occupational opportunities of the society" [Room,
1992, p. 14]. With this shift, social exclusion became more closely equated
with poverty, but this was seen in much more multi-dimensional terms than
income or expenditure. A central question of the Observatory was to link
standards of living with the possession of social rights to employment,
housing, health care, etc., and "to study the evidence that where citizens
are unable to secure their social rights, they will tend to suffer processes
of generalized and persisting disadvantage and their social and occupational
participation will be undermined" [ibid., 1992].
The combination of high intuitive appeal together with flexible
definition means that the notion of "social exclusion" must be treated with
caution. As Silver (Ch. 3, p. 77) points out, "Fighting 'exclusion' means
INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
different things to different people". But the notion has more than
rhetorical force and the novelty value of a fashionable emerging policy
bandwagon.
Interest in social exclusion has grown in Western Europe in relation
to rising rates of unemployment, increasing international migration, and the
dismantling, or cutting back, of welfare states. The emergence of the term
reflects an attempt to reconceptualize social disadvantage in the face of
major economic and social transformations.
Such rethinking is required for various reasons. The structural, rather
than cyclical, nature of the new poverty, and increasing informalization of
labour markets, mean that social benefits attached to employment are
available to fewer and fewer people, and the provision of social insurance
against risks of temporary difficulties is less relevant. Fiscal crises,
coupled with neo-liberal ideologies about how to achieve competitiveness
in the face of globalization, have reshaped traditional welfare states away
from universal provision to targeting, a process which in itself is stigmatizing and exclusionary. Increasing international migration has posed the
problem of the links between citizenship, nationality and rights in
increasingly multi-cultural societies.
Given the multiple meanings of the term, the "social exclusion"
approach may lead to misunderstanding. But, as a reconceptualization of
social disadvantage, it has not been an abstract intellectual exercise. It is
providing an important framework for thinking out alternatives to the
welfare state. By linking poverty, productive employment and social
integration, policy analysts in Western Europe have posited responses to
the new situation which emphasize integration and insertion in the labour
market rather than welfare insurance, active and personalized participation
rather than means-tested benefits, and more multi-cultural concepts of
national citizenship. These ideas are now being implemented (see Silver
and Wilkinson, Ch. 17).
2.
Relevance and value in a global context
Whilst the notion of social exclusion definitely has something more

than rhetorical force in Western Europe, its relevance and value in a
broader global context, and in particular in developing countries, has not
yet been established. In The United States of America, the concept of the
"underclass" is used by some, notably William Julius Wilson, to refer to
a similar reality to that described by the term social exclusion in Europe.
But the term "social exclusion", as currently understood in Europe, has not
been widely used in an analytical or operational way in developing
countries, even though there is a vast literature on poverty, inequality, entitlements, deprivation, and marginalization. The questions which arise are
the' following. Does social exclusion offer a framework for analysis and
policy which adds anything which cannot be provided by existing approaches? Does the analysis of social exclusion offer a new way to approach
the problems of poverty, inequality, employment and social integration in
developing countries? Is there any advantage to be gained by applying
concepts of social exclusion, and policies to combat it, formulated in rich
industrial and post-industrial societies to poorer countries? Is it simply a
way of re-Iabelling old and long-standing problems? (Rodgers, Ch. 2).
A.
The findings of literature reviews
Preliminary literature reviews;' which focus in particular on existing

literature on. poverty, deprivation and marginalization in Africa, Asia,
Latin America and the Middle East, reinforce natural scepticism about the
value of "exporting" concepts from the North to the South, from situations
where the great majority are well-off to situations where the great majority
are very poor. But the reviews also suggest some reasons why a social
exclusion approach might add value to existing debates, and propose some
ways that it might be possible to formulate a concept of social exclusion
which is not Eurocentric, but rather capable of yielding analytical and
policy insights globally.
Scepticism about the value of applying a concept formulated in
Western Europe to developing countries is reinforced in two different
ways. First, it has been suggested that the emerging social problems of
Europe reflect a process of "Latin Americanization", in the sense that
European economies and societies are moving closer in their forms of
organization to those of Latin America [Yepez, 1994; Touraine, 1992]. As
that occurs, the language to describe and analyse the situation in Europe
is catching up to one already widely deployed in Latin America, where
debates about marginalization were already vigorous in the 1960s and
various concepts of the informalization of the labour market have been
deployed for a long time. Projecting the European discourse of "social
exclusion" on to developing countries, and in particular Latin America,
would, in this light, be a grotesque relabelling of long-standing approaches
2 Regional literature reviews were specially commissioned for the IILS/UNDP research
project. See Gore [1994], Faria [1994], Yepez [1994], de Haan & Nayak [forthcoming],
Bedoui [forthcoming].
to problems, whose only rationale would be the supposed intellectual

superiority of European concepts.
Second, it has been suggested, perhaps precisely as a consequence of
the longer and deeper engagement with marginality as a problem, that
poverty and deprivation are not associated with "lack of integration" as the
European literature implies. In Latin America, poverty is generally seen
as being structurally related to the ways economies and societies function.
But the structural processes generating it are grounded in the peripheral
integration of Latin American economies into the world capitalist system
and the mode of integration of classes, social groups, families, individuals,
and regions into the prevailing social division of labour. The key insight
of the Latin American literature on marginality thus runs diametrically
opposed to a view of social exclusion as lack of integration (Faria, Ch. 6).
Similarly, in Africa, historical research effectively challenged dualist
models of economy and society which posited an excluded sector (traditional, subsistence) and the conventional wisdom which had emerged by
the first half of the 1970s was that individuals and communities had been
incorporated into the broader economy and society and that what was problematical was their terms of incorporation. Since the late 1970s, with spiralling crises, key concepts have been "disengagement" and "withdrawal".
People are not suffering from poverty owing to exclusion. Rather, they are
excluding themselves from the wider economy and society, and from the
burdensome and unequal obligations of citizenship, in order to survive
(Gore, Ch. 5).
Whilst the literature reviews raise questions about the value of
exporting European concepts to the rest of the world, and in particular to
developing countries, they also suggest ways in which the concept of social
exclusion might contribute to better analysis of poverty, and ways in which
the concept might be rendered of more general applicability.
With regard to the usefulness of the concept of social exclusion, Faria
argues that it stems from its potential as "a way of integrating loosely connected notions such as poverty, deprivation, lack of access to goods, services and assets, precariousness of social rights, and of providing a general
framework" (Ch. 6, p. 127). De Haan finds that the potential of the
approach for understanding poverty lies in the fact that present poverty
studies tend to emphasize economic aspects and to pay less attention to
political and cultural dimensions of poverty [de Haan & Nayak, forthcoming]. The analysis of the inter-related processes of inclusion and
exclusion could help one to understand the interplay between these
dimensions. Gore argues that a more explicit social exclusion approach can
also usefully inform analyses of socio-economic change in Africa, in
particular processes of impoverishment. It does so, first, through directing

more attention to the relationships between poverty and agency; and
second, by providing a framework to draw together separate literatures on
access to land, employment, organization and representation and social
services, and to inter-relate them in way which illuminates trajectories of
social change. Whilst Yepez argues that the critical general insights of the
European literature on social exclusion are "(i) the stress placed on
employment. .. as a central element of social exclusion; and (ii) the
importance placed on the spatial dimension, as the locus of both social
differentiation and the articulation between different social actors", and she
suggests that social exclusion can best be regarded as a "pivotal concept"
which "aims less to identify the contours of empirically observed reality
than to highlight the relationships between processes, between micro and
macro mechanisms, between individual and collective dimensions" [Yepez,
1994, p. 15].
B.
The value of the social exclusion approach
Taking these insights together, one may suggest that the value and
relevance of the social exclusion approach for policy analysis is descriptive, analytical and normative.
As a description of a state of affairs, social exclusion closely
corresponds to a state of poverty defined as relative deprivation.' As such,
the concepts of poverty and social exclusion can easily be used interchangeably. The apparent value-added which is derived from using the
concept might seem less. But the social exclusion approach reinforces some
of the advantages of defining poverty as relative deprivation. Notably it
sees individuals as social beings and not simply repositories of utility. It
offers a way of defining poverty which is relevant at a global scale given
differences in what is considered essential in different societies. And it sees
poverty as multi-dimensional rather than in terms of income and expenditure. A particular contribution of the social exclusion approach in this
regard is that "the concept of social exclusion goes beyond economic and
social aspects of poverty and embraces the political aspects such as political
rights and citizenship which outline a relationship between individuals and
3 "People are relatively deprived if they cannot obtain, at all or sufficiently, the
conditions of life - that is, the diets, amenities, standards and services - which allow
them to play the roles, participate in the relationships and follow the customary behaviour
which is expected of them by virtue of their membership of society. If they lack or are
denied resources to obtain access to these conditions of life and so fulfil membership of
society they may be said to be in poverty." (Townsend [1993, p. 36]).
INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIPAND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
the State as well as between the society and the individual" [Bhalla &
Lapeyre, 1994, pp. 10-11].
Analytically, the social exclusion approach seeks to understand the
inter-relationships between poverty, productive employment, and social
integration. The approach can be applied in various ways, which in turn
lead to different policy conclusions.
Silver (Ch. 3) argues that the different approaches to social exclusion
are grounded in different paradigms of citizenship and social integration.
She labels the three most important paradigms "solidarity", "specialization", and "monopoly", and she argues that processes of exclusion are
conceptualized in fundamentally different ways in each. In the solidarity
paradigm, which is rooted in Republican political thought (particularly as
it has evolved in France), the emphasis is placed upon the existence of a
core of shared values, a "moral community" around which social order is
constructed, and processes of assimilation of individuals into this community, and their ability to express their membership through active participation are important. Social exclusion has a particular salience in this paradigm as it represents a rupture of the social tie. In the specialization paradigm, which is rooted in liberal thought, societies are seen as composed of
individuals who are bearers of rights and obligations, and who have diverse
interests and capabilities. The structure of society is built around a division
of labour and exchange in both economic and social spheres. Social
exclusion reflects voluntary choices, patterns of interests and contractual
relationships between individuals, and various "distortions" to the system
- discrimination, market failures, and unenforced rights. In the monopoly
paradigm, societies are seen as inherently conflictual, with different groups
controlling resources and insiders protecting their domains against
outsiders, constructing barriers and restricting access - to occupations, to
cultural resources, to goods and services. Within this paradigm it is shown
that access to groups affects access to resources and other social goods.
Exclusion occurs through "social closure", "the process by which social
collectivities seek to maximize rewards by restricting access to a limited
number of eligibles" [Parkin, 1979, p. 44], and "usurpation", the process
through which "outsiders" resist and seek to overcome their exclusion.
Silver's analysis is extremely helpful in that it contextualizes the use
of the term "social exclusion" in French political debates and in the
construction of European Union. Moreover it identifies a third possible
stream of social exclusion analysis, beyond the solidarist and social rights
approaches which are present in European policy discourse - that is, the
monopoly paradigm. This is likely to offer significant insights in the study
of poverty and employment issues as it emphasizes agency and also does
not posit a simple dualism between insiders and outsiders (as in the
solidarity model in particular), but a complex hierarchy of inter-related
inclusions and exclusions.
One implication of Silver's decoding of social exclusion discourse is
that the precise analytical advantages which stem from a social exclusion
approach depend on the particular frame of analysis. But what all the
paradigms have in common is an emphasis on processes and a concern to
examine how people's lives are being affected by the inter-relationships
between economic restructuring and social institutions. Moreover, the
social exclusion approach does not address these issues in an abstract way.
It seeks to address emerging problems associated with globalization. These
include: trends since the 1980s which suggest that "within the global
system more people are becoming permanently superfluous, irrelevant, or
hindrances to its functioning" (Wolfe, Ch. 4); problems associated with
increasing, and increasingly blocked, international migration; intensifying
competitive pressures which are bringing in their train various actions by
social collectivities to curb competition [Crompton & Brown, 1994]; and
technological change which is promoting skill polarization and the
dualization of labour markets.
Globalization is making national citizenship increasingly salient as a
social status. Citizenship has always been important in development policy
analysis, but usually as a silent term, implicitly structuring debates and
suggesting analytical and policy priorities, though its nature has not been
spelled out. A concern with social exclusion makes the significance of
citizenship within development debates explicit and it directs attention
towards what the condition of citizenship actually is by focusing on
situations of incomplete citizenship. The social exclusion approach makes
the social institutions associated with citizenship a central issue of
development policy analysis and examines how relationships between
markets and citizenship affect people's lives.
Normatively, the social exclusion approach has value because it raises
questions about the nature of social justice. In his important work on
inequality, Amartya Sen has deliberated deeply on the question "equality
of what?", and his project of shifting from a utilitarian perspective to a
capability approach has had significant operational implications." The
notion of social exclusion can serve to direct attention to an equally
fundamental question, namely "equality amongst whom?". As Waltzer
[1983] argues, concepts of distributive justice assume (usually silently) the
See Sen [1992], for a synthesis of many years' work on this issue.
existence of a community within which rights are held, goods shared, and
mutual recognition expressed. Logically the right to membership is thus the
most basic right, which depends on the admission policies (exclusionary
and inclusionary practices) of the group concerned.
But the relationship between social exclusion and social justice may
be even more powerful than this insight, which is founded within an
individualistic perspective. With an observation pregnant with possibilities,
Room [1994, p. 9] suggests that, whereas the Anglo-Saxon notion of
poverty is distributional, social exclusion focuses on relational issues inadequate social participation, lack of social integration and lack of
power. From Silver's decoding of the notion of social exclusion, it is
apparent that the term can be used to think of both relational and distributional notions of justice. But seen as a relational concept, it offers a way
of completing the shift away from a welfarist view of social disadvantage
which Amartya Sen has begun, but which, in the guise of the concept of
capabilities, still remains wedded to an excessively individualist, and
insufficiently social, view.
The relationship between social exclusion and social justice needs
much more conceptual work of the type which Silver has done on the
relationship between social exclusion and different views of society. But,
to put all the foregoing together, it may be stated that the specific value of
the social exclusion approach is that it offers a way of reconceptualizing
and understanding social disadvantage as the globalization of economic
relations occurs.
C.
Global relevance
If this value is to be realized, the concept of social exclusion needs to

be fashioned in a way which is not Eurocentric, but relevant globally, in
a range of country contexts. Silver's work, by putting the concept as it is
used in European policy discourse within a broader framework, offers a
vital map for making this intellectual transformation. But the literature
reviews also indicate ways in which the social exclusion approach may be
modified to take account of regional differences and also global dimensions
of processes of social exclusion. At least four are particularly important.
First, the literature on the peripheral integration of Latin American
economies and societies into the world capitalist system suggests that
processes of social exclusion need to incorporate various international
relations - of trade, aid, technology transfers, migration, etc. - and the
nature and design of international regimes which underpin them. Some
notion of exclusion at an international level is implicit in the opposition
10
between the "centre" and the "periphery" of the world economic system
in that literature.
Second, whereas a focal point for the study of social exclusion in
western Europe (and research funding of the European Union) is the
relationship between labour markets and social exclusion, in the context of
developing countries and countries in transition the focus needs to include
other factor markets, as well as the processes through which these markets
are developing. Access to agricultural land, access to inputs to work that
land productively, and access to credit (for peasant production, urban selfemployment and the development of micro-enterprises) are all vital bases
of livelihood, as well as access to employment through labour markets.
Third, in examining the relationship between rights, livelihood, and
well-being, it is important that work in developing countries does not
simply focus on social rights as the western European literature has done,
but on civil and political rights. This can build on a long tradition of
research. which examines popular participation in development and has
considered the ways in which individuals and groups who were the object
of development programmes were excluded from factors affecting their
livelihood, as well as newer research which examines the importance of
democracy (variously defined) for economic performance. It also gets
beyond the institutional specificity of debates about social exclusion in
Europe, which are linked to the future of, and alternatives to, the welfare
state. It thus addresses Yepez's pointed question about the value of
speaking about social exclusion in countries where people have never been
integrated through a welfare state system [Yepez, 1994].
Finally, it is important to focus on various social institutions in which
rules governing exclusionary and inclusionary practices are negotiated,
including households and national States which are focal in European
debates, but going beyond them. The African literature, for example,
raises questions about the "nationality" of social exclusion, that is to say,
the significance of the nation State in the institutionalization of exclusionary
practices (Gore, Ch. 5). With globalization, African societies are developing into post-national societies, but this is occurring in societies in which
rights and obligations defining access to resources and other social goods
have not been fully "nationalized", in the sense that the enforcement of
legal rights is not fully effective, and a national culture of expectations and
norms has not been in existence for a long time.
By recognizing the international dimension of processes of exclusion,
and using insights from literature in developing countries to contribute to
the formulation of a concept of social exclusion which is not Eurocentric,
the social exclusion approach can be relevant in a range of country
11
settings, including developing countries and countries in transition. But its

value must ultimately be assessed, as Faria (Ch. 6) points out, on the basis
of fresh knowledge inspired by the concept.
II.
Social exclusion as a process:

Evidence from country studies
To explore the value and relevance of the social exclusion approach

in developing countries and countries in transition, a series of empirical
studies has been undertaken. These studies were particularly designed to
explore the analytical and policy advantages of viewing poverty, inequality
and a lack of productive employment with a social exclusion approach.
Studies were undertaken in ten countries: in Latin America (Mexico,
Peru); Sub-Saharan Africa (Cameroon, Tanzania); the Arab world (Tunisia,
Yemen); South and South-east Asia (India, Thailand); and the former
USSR (Russia, Kazakhstan). This sample of countries was selected to
provide examples from different regions of the world, as well as a wide
range of economic situations. Thus, the countries selected encompass:
(i) socialist economies in transition; (ii) newly-industrializing countries; and
(iii) least developed countries. They include countries undergoing rapid
economic growth and countries facing stagnation or intensive structural
adjustment. Taken along with existing material on Western Europe and the
United States, this offers the first insights into processes of social exclusion
in a global context.
The studies were undertaken within a limited time-frame (approximately one year) in order to ensure that findings were available for the
World Summit for Social Development in March 1995. But nevertheless,
in most of the studies, primary data were collected to complement available
statistics, which were either almost totally absent (Yemen, Kazakhstan) or
- more commonly - did not adequately capture the dimensions of
exclusion. Multi-disciplinary research teams, including sociologists, anthropologists and economists, were put together by leading national research
institutions, in order to explore the variety of processes involved and assess
the value of the exclusion approach through different disciplinary perspectives. Within a common agreed frame of reference, the teams collected
data on processes of social exclusion, the social status of selected excluded
groups, and their perception of exclusion.
The groups which were defined as "excluded" and analysed in each
study varied from country to country, reflecting the different priorities of
the research teams. But ethnic, racial or caste and gender elements were
12
common in many of the studies. In Yemen, the study was organized

around several distinct excluded groups: the akhdam, an ethnically
identifiable low-status group; migrants, especially return migrants from the
Gulf, who have virtually the status of refugees; casual labourers; and
inhabitants of remote villages. In Thailand, some attention is given to
ethnic identity and migrants, but there is a particular concern to explore the
cultural underpinnings of gender discrimination. In Tanzania, the groups
chosen included beggars, certain casual or low-income occupations, the
landless and near landless. Gender, age and tribal dimensions of all these
groups are also investigated. In addition, a special study was undertaken
of orphans. The Cameroon study is dominated by ethnic considerations. In
Tunisia, a high priority is given to the illiterate unemployed, whilst some
attention is given to the gender dimension. In Siberia - the location of
detailed sociological investigation of social exclusion in the Russian study
- the focus is on rural low-income groups, the long-term unemployed, and
downwardly mobile professional workers. In India, the study covers caste,
gender and locational elements of the non-realization of rights. In Peru,
class groups are identified, with a strong stress also on indigenous groups
and migrants. In Mexico, gender issues are considered.
The chapters in Part II of this volume report, in summary form," the
major results of these studies in all the research locations except
Kazakhstan, where the work began later.
One thing which is immediately apparent in reviewing the summarized
findings of the research projects is the fact that the social exclusion approach readily lends itself to being a different language for describing and
labelling persistent problems of poverty. This is not bad in itself. We believe that the studies offer an important and eloquent description of the
conditions in which people are living in different parts of the world in relation to the three main themes of the World Social Summit, namely poverty, lack of productive employment, and the breakdown of social cohesion.
But, beyond this, some of the studies contain valuable' insights for the
analysis of the links between poverty, productive employment, and social
integration and for understanding processes of social exclusion. Moreover,
some assess policy experience and discuss the implications of the approach
for policy design. It is these analytical and policy insights which are the
focus here. The rest of this section of the introduction look at analytical
insights, in particular the role of social institutions in processes of social
exclusion, whilst the next section considers policy insights.
Full versions of country studies will be published in future.
1.
13
Markets and social exclusion
The analytical insights on the relationship between markets and social

exclusion in the case studies can usefully be introduced in relation to Sen's
entitlement approach to the analysis of famines and endemic hunger. There
is a significant relationship between the entitlement approach and the
analysis of social exclusion [de Haan & Nayak, forthcoming]. But the case
studies provide clues as to how the latter goes beyond the former,
potentially deepening it.
Entitlement analysis focuses on commodity markets. A person's
entitlement, in this frame of reference, refers to the bundle of commodities
over which a person can establish command using the rules of acquirement
which govern his or her circumstances. The rules of acquirement
encompass legal rights (such as property rights and social rights to health
and education services) and social norms. Sen argues that famines arise
because of entitlement failures, in which certain sections of the population
cannot command sufficient food. In a private ownership market economy,
the main ingredients of such entitlement failure are: "endowment loss"
(loss of assets), and/or "movements in the exchange entitlement mapping"
(the exchange relationships which specify what a person can acquire
through production or trade, for any given endowment - for example, the
ratio of daily wages for casual work to grain prices). Endemic hunger
arises because of food entitlement failures but also from the inability of
some people to "convert" their entitlement bundle into adequate nutritional
functioning. Such an inability is due to certain personal characteristics, but
also to a lack of entitlement to other kinds of commodities which are
essential to adequate nutritional functioning - health and medical attention,
elementary education, clean water, living space, and basic sanitation.
The entitlement approach directly examines the interplay between
livelihood and citizenship rights, and shows how individuals are excluded
from commodity markets. Exclusion from basic goods and basic consumption can usefully be analysed within this framework. But whether there is
an analytical pay-off simply from substituting the phrase "exclusion from
goods and services" for "entitlement failure" is debatable.
There may be an added advantage in recasting entitlement failures as
exclusion from basic goods in that an exclusion approach pays greater
attention to agency and the role of social institutions, a critical deficiency
of entitlement analysis [Gore, 1993]. But the case studies do not illustrate
this potential. What they do demonstrate, however, is that the social exclusion approach can go beyond entitlement analysis by looking more deeply
at processes behind entitlement failure. It does so precisely by focusing on
14
exclusion from factor markets. With this focus it is possible to identify

processes of economic disenfranchisement.
Analysis of exclusion from markets has been taken furthest in the
study of Peru, in which it is argued that two different types of market can
be distinguished to clarify how exclusion from markets occurs. In the first
type, individuals can buy or sell as much as they wish of a good or service
at the prevailing price (so-called "Walrasian markets"); in the second type,
prices still influence demand but there is also rationing which arises
because the expected quality of the commodity or service demanded or
supplied is a function of its price ("non-Walrasian markets"). In the former
type of market, people are excluded if they do not have sufficient real
income or productive capacity; in the latter type of market, they can be
excluded even when they are willing and able to participate.
In Peru, markets such as the potato market are of the first type, while
labour, credit and insurance markets are of the second. This is significant
in that the latter three markets can be regarded as basic markets, in the
sense that they are fundamental for livelihood and security. In these
markets, people are excluded because they are considered high credit or
insurance risks, or because they belong to stigmatized social groups,
regarded by employers or creditors as less reliable, less trustworthy, or
less productive. In all these markets, "social assets" play a role in
providing signals for the rationing process. Such "social assets" include a
person's rights (to property, for example) and social identity (characteristics such as their language, race, sex, kinship, education, occupation,
religion and geographical origin).
The exclusionary process is particularly strong in the credit market,
which in Peru is extremely selective and highly concentrated. Available
figures suggest that 70 per cent of formal credit from the banking system
serves the modern trade and manufacturing sectors; that more than 80 per
cent is allocated to the capital city, Lima; that less than 5 per cent of firms
borrow from the formal credit system, and that the top decile of debtors
holds 74 per cent of total bank credit. These patterns reflect the fact that
formal financial institutions regard the costs of transactions and information
as too high for small producers, and that peasant households and urban
micro-enterprises are regarded as bad risks. As a result of this exclusion,
a segmented credit market has developed, with adverse consequences for
those outside the formal market, where interest rates are higher and
informal financial institutions are often precarious.
The importance of market exclusion is even more obvious in the
labour markets. Most of the case studies showed similar (and familiar)
broad patterns, in which formal wage employment was expanding
15
insufficiently to absorb new entrants to the labour force or to reduce the

numbers of people working in precarious or vulnerable labour situations.
They also showed that exclusion from the labour market not only has direct
effects on livelihood but also exacerbates other processes of exclusion such
as those related to basic rights, social security and identity. This situation
has been aggravated by a fall in overall average real income and a deterioration of working conditions in the wage sector in many countries (including
Tanzania, Mexico, Russia and Peru among the case studies), involving
lower levels of organization, an increase in the proportion of jobs on shortterm contracts and decline in the coverage of labour protection schemes.
Three distinct types of labour market exclusion were identified in the
studies: those involving open unemployment; those involving precarious
types of labour market insertion; and those involving various forms of nonwage employment.
Open unemployment is widespread, even in the lowest income
situations. In Peru the current national unemployment rate is around 10 per
cent. Long-term unemployment is growing rapidly in Tunisia. Young
people seeking enter to labour markets for the first time have often
experienced difficulty but, with economic restructuring, and particularly
the opening of national markets to international competition through adjustment programmes, the unemployed includes older people who have lost
their jobs. In Mexico and Russia, recorded rates of unemployment are low,
but for different reasons. In Mexico, published unemployment statistics
reflect mainly frictional unemployment, that is, the relatively small number
of unemployed who know for sure - or firmly believe - that they will get
a job in the long run. In Russia, unemployment is low partly because
employers are not making surplus labour redundant as, during privatization, they have pursued a policy of maintaining "worker collectives"
against external shareholders.
Precarious forms of wage labour are also widespread, especially
casual daily labour. Exclusion from decent working conditions and employment security is reported in most case studies. In such situations, the
process is not one of exclusion from employment - indeed there is usually
intensification of work, much of it involving unregulated wage work in
agriculture or the informal sector. The problem is one of exclusion from
the decent jobs, as higher and more remunerative reaches of the labour
market depend on access to secondary education at a minimum as well as
on networks of contacts, and strong patterns of labour market segmentation
emerge, between both public and private sectors, and within the private
sector. There is a strong tendency for particular population groups to be
subject to exclusion of this sort, for instance ethnic groups such as the
16
akhdam in Yemen, indigenous migrants in Peru and women in many

countries.
Not all non-wage employment reflects exclusion, but much selfemployment is in practice the result of exclusion from wage labour and is
strongly associated with poverty. Where it is competitive with formalsector production it is likely to face administrative obstacles; alternatively,
the "self-employed" may be used as low-cost producers of intermediate
goods by larger enterprises and so are in reality disguised and unprotected
wage workers. Exclusion here may involve exclusion from markets for
inputs, markets which are controlled by large firms or particular population
groups. Exclusion from credit markets also limits access to more
remunerative and more productive sections of self-employment.
An important theory of labour market exclusion, which focuses on
processes of "economic disenfranchisement", has recently been put
forward by Partha Dasgupta [1993]. This theory can usefully be contrasted
with that proposed by Figueroa et al. (Ch. 12) in their discussion of nonWalrasian markets in Peru. Whilst the theory of social exclusion of
Figueroa and his associates is elaborated for an "overpopulated economy",
and thus requires that rationing takes place, Dasgupta develops his theory
for an economy which is neither rich in assets, nor "vastly poor" in assets
(which is defined as an economy in which "it is technologically infeasible
for all citizens to enjoy adequate diet and health care" [emphasis added],
or an economy whose "population size exceeds the land's carrying capacity" [ibid., p. 476]). In Dasgupta's analysis, therefore, people are not shut
out of the labour market because of rationing and job queues in the labour
market (though this situation can be added to the model). Nor are they
excluded because of monopsony, which arises through collusion amongst
a small number of employers (though this, too, can be added to the
model). Labour markets are competitive and cultural identity is not a basis
for discrimination. But job seekers include two categories of person: first,
landless persons; and second, persons with a small amount of land, whose
nutritional needs are partially, though not completely, met through
cultivation of that land.
In this situation, Dasgupta argues that there is a tendency for landless
persons to become economically disenfranchised "not because they don't
wish to work, but because they are unable to offer the labour power the
market demands" [ibid., p. 484]. Possessing no physical assets, their one
asset appears to be their labour power. But, Dasgupta asserts, what an
assetless person owns is potential labour power and to convert to actual
labour power requires adequate nutrition and health care. Persons with a
small amount of land can meet some of their nutritional requirements from
17
their own land but the totally landless must meet their total energy
requirements from their earnings from employment. They cannot do so
unless they receive a relatively high piece-rate in relation to the small
farmer-cum-labourers and, if they get weak, they are driven to eke out a
bare subsistence, continuing to live in destitution through the exploitation
of common property resources (which require less energy expenditure if
they are available) or begging.
The case studies provide little evidence to support (or reject) Dasgupta's theory, although the Tanzanian case suggests that health status is an
important determinant of an individual becoming a beggar. However, various case studies found that educational status, and particularly illiteracy,
was an important cause of labour market exclusion. Like health and nutritional status, educational status is associated with the nature of the labour
power being offered for sale by persons without any other physical assets.
The importance of education is identified in the studies of Tanzania,
Thailand and Tunisia, and the process of social exclusion and problems of
devising policies for labour market reinsertion are particularly considered
in the study of Tunisia. These studies suggest that, in a situation of rising
educational standards, those with a level of formal schooling which does
not go beyond primary level, and particularly those who are illiterate, find
it very difficult to find decent employment. Moreover, amongst the
unemployed, it is this group which is the most difficult to reinsert into the
labour market.
More work is obviously required on both the links between illiteracy
and labour market exclusions, and the links between nutritional/health
status and labour market exclusions. These links seem to be at the heart of
the relationship between exclusion from livelihood and exclusion from
social rights. This work needs to include theoretical approaches (such as
those of Figueroa and associates and Dasgupta) and also to be sensitive to
local situations. An example is the work of Breman [1994] who demonstrates the importance of physical strength and stamina in determining
labour market exclusion in situations where there is surplus labour.
Studying localities in South Gujarat, India, where unskilled day-labourers
gather to seek work each morning and when there are insufficient jobs,
those who are not capable of maximum effort and cannot meet the heavy
demands on physical strength and stamina will be hired less frequently. In
South Gujarat, this applied to men and women over 40, who had literally
been used up in the labour process and also younger persons suffering
from ailments or malnutrition. A vicious circle operates, in which
exclusion from labour markets leads to exclusion from satisfaction of basic
nutritional and health needs, which in turn reinforces exclusion from labour
18
markets owing to diminishing capacity to work. This is a common route

to destitution for people without land or informal social support or access
to common property resources.
With regard to exclusion from landmarkets, the studies suggested that
these markets were weakly developed, partly because of the contested
nature of property rights, and that exclusion from land resources was
strongly influenced by State actions which did not reflect the interests of
peasant farmers. This is particularly well-illustrated in the contrasting cases
of Thailand (which is considered in more detail in the next section) and
Tanzania. In the latter case, various forms of "land-grabbing" by wealthier
or more well-connected individuals has occurred during both the period
when State ownership was central to the development strategy and under
the new neo-liberal policies. During the villagization programme in the
1970s, some landless gained access to land, but village-levelland allocation
procedures were sometimes unjust, with persistent exclusion of women,
and practices which favoured friends, relatives and cronies. With the
changes associated with liberalization, settled agriculture or land-intensive
tourist development have become more lucrative and this has accentuated
a tendency for pastoralists and hunter-gatherers to lose land. This reflects
the economic priority given to agriculture over pastoralism, and is
rationalized by describing pastoralists' land as "unutilized".
2.
States, citizenship rights and social exclusion
One of the crucial advantages of a social exclusion approach is that it

inserts the condition of citizenship directly into development policy
analysis. Although Silver's work makes it very clear that there is no single
conception of citizenship, the case studies tend to work with a particular
notion of citizenship. This is not a participatory notion of citizenship
(which informs Wolfe's discussion of the paradoxes of social exclusion,
Ch. 4). Rather, most of the case studies (implicitly) are based on a
conception of citizenship which sees individuals as bearers of rights.
The analytical insights of the case studies in relation to exclusion from
citizenship rights can be usefully introduced in relation to Marshall's
classic discussion of citizenship. Marshall argued that
Citizenship is a status bestowed on those who are full members of a
community. All who possess the status are equal with respect to the rights and
duties with which the status is endowed. There is no universal principle that
determines whatthose rights and duties shallbe, but societies in which citizenship
is a developing institution create an image of an ideal citizenship against which
19
achievement can be measured and towards which aspiration can be directed

[Marshall and Bottomore, 1992, p. 18].
He divided citizenship rights into civil rights (liberty of the person,
freedom speech, the right to own property and to conclude valid contracts,
the right to justice), for which a key institution was courts of justice;
political rights (to participate in the exercise of State power), for which the
key institutions are central and local government; and social rights, "to a
modicum of economic welfare and security ... and to live the life of a
civilized being according to the standards prevailing in the society" [ibid.,
p. 8]. Moreover, drawing extensively on the British experience, he saw the
development of rights as a movement towards the possession of citizenship
rights by increasing numbers of people in the community, greater equality
in the possession of rights and the possession of an increasing range of
rights. In the British situation, the historical development involved an
expansion from civil rights, to political rights and, in the twentieth century,
to social rights.
Within this Marshallian framework, social exclusion can be seen as
incomplete citizenship, which is due to deficiencies in the possession of
citizenship rights (in relation to the ideal of citizenship, of that society or
elsewhere) and inequalities in the status of citizenship. Critical analytical
questions are the ways in which the range of citizenship rights are
increased and reduced; the inter-relationships between different types of
rights; and the inter-relationships between the norm of equality in the status
of citizenship and the social inequalities associated with the functioning
markets. Some clues to answer these questions are found in Marshall's own
work. But it is particularly based on the British experience and it can
potentially (and unhelpfully) be interpreted in a a teleological way. Much
work, which is likely to go beyond Marshall's analysis, needs to be done.
One route is to make international comparisons of citizenship rights
and identify conditions of incomplete citizenship in relation to global
norms. This is an emerging area of analysis, but the case studies follow
another path. They contain four main types of information. First, some of
the studies describe the range of rights and pattern of inequality in their
possession within a national frame of reference. Second, some analyse the
macro-dynamics through which citizenship rights are extended or
contracted in relation to the development strategies of countries. Third,
some also focus upon the micro-dynamics through which rights are
negotiated, realized and denied. Finally some of the studies provide
material for thinking about the effects of the globalization of markets on
the condition of citizenship. Some insights are made into the interrelationships between different types of citizenship rights, but the work is
20
of a very preliminary nature and does not reflect the complexity of the
issue.
A.
Range and inequality of citizenship rights
Information within the studies showed the limited range of citizenship

rights which nationals of low-income countries possess and also identified
patterns of inequality. The studies confirm that analysis of social exclusion
in a developing country must include civil and political rights, as well as
social rights, which are the focus of the West European literature. In Peru,
available statistics show that 37 per cent of the peasantry had no legal title
to their land in 1984, and 43 per cent of people living in shanty towns had
no legal title on their urban plots in 1991.
Amongst the studies, the case of India provides the most complete
delineation of social rights. A particular finding of that study, which is
replicated in other studies, is that many aspects of social protection are
linked with regular wage employment, which is obtained by only a
minority of the workforce. Despite obligations written into the Indian
Constitution to provide (within the limits of economic capacity and
development) for the right to work, to education and to public assistance
in the case of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, entitlements have been concentrated on "organized workers" who number less
than 10 per cent of the workforce, and implementation of social assistance
schemes for other population groups has been patchy. In Peru, only 42 per
cent of the economically active population is affiliated to the social security
system. One consequence is that two-thirds of the population aged 65 and
above have no retirement pension. Labour rights, in terms of organization,
protection and acceptable conditions of employment and of work are
effectively enforced only in a part of the economic system, which, in the
case of economies such as Yemen and Tanzania, is only a very small part.
More generally, labour rights are often contested in practice even when
they are admitted in theory. In many countries, attempts have been made
by both State and private employers to undermine labour organizations
promoting such rights.
With regard to the inequality of citizenship rights, rural populations
are seen to be particularly disadvantaged in a number of the studies,
including Yemen and India. Similar patterns of exclusion are important in
Mexico and Peru and are compounded there by discrimination against
ethnic minorities dominant in marginal regions. In Siberia, the breakdown
of institutions which provided such goods and services outside the market
is of vital importance. In rural areas, access to housing, child care
21
facilities, health care and many other social services was linked to
participation in collective or State farms. The breakdown of the old
universalist systems has led to a growth of patronage and a race for
personal enrichment, based on formerly collective resources. This leads to
situations of extreme deprivation and insecurity, with rights to housing a
critical issue.
B.
Macro-dynamics of exclusion from rights
There are major variations between countries, and in the same

countries over time, in terms of: the set of citizenship rights which is
legally recognized; the capacity of governments to enforce and make rights
effective, and of individuals, groups and organizations to defend their
rights; and the measure of equality in the realization of rights. An
important stream within current development literature is concerned with
the relationships between economic performance, development strategy and
the provision and realization of civil, political and social rights.
Aggregate statistics show that there are no straightforward correlations
between economic growth and social, civil and political rights at the
national level. This has led to the important insight that it is possible to
extend entitlements to health, education and social assistance without
waiting for a general rise in affluence. Increasing command over
commodities and services can be achieved through development strategies
which aim for "growth-mediated security" or "support-led security" rather
than development strategies of "unaimed opulence" [Dreze & Sen, 1989].
The case studies do not confirm or deny these ideas. But they show
how different forms of social exclusion from citizenship rights are related
to the economic logic of a growth strategy. This is a very promising area
of research and policy design, whose potential is perhaps best illustrated
in the already published literature by an analysis of the dilemmas of
securing and maintaining citizenship entitlements in Eastern Europe
[Fitzgerald, 1991]. This analysis identifies the central problem of transition
in the semi-industrialized economies in the region as precisely how to
achieve the imperative of modernizing industry to compete in international
markets in a situation in which the population is used to a high standard of
social provision and wishes to defend that standard.
The relationship between citizenship rights and macro-economic
strategy is most clearly shown in the case of Mexico. Current social
exclusion processes are interpreted as being related to "the breakdown of
the inclusive development model, based on a corporatist social covenant,
which prevailed in the country from the 1940s to the early 1980s, and its
22
replacement with a neo-liberal project which is being implemented through

structural adjustment programmes" (Gordon Rapoport et al., Ch. 13,
p. 215). In the inclusive development model, various sectoral groupings
were linked to the official party (PRJ) and to the government and the State
mediated the demands of their members. There was a strong link between
economic and social policies and social expenditure was conceived as a
part of the development project as, with import substitution
industrialization, consumption was promoted to expand the domestic
market. Agriculture also had a definite role in the process of economic
growth. The social policy sought to give welfare benefits to as many
people as possible, without attempting to implement a comprehensive
welfare state.
This development model was imperfectly inclusive, very unequal, and
by the 1960s was beginning to prove unsustainable. But it increasingly
included population groups. With the implementation of an export-oriented
industrialization strategy, the expansion of domestic consumption is no
longer integral to the growth model, the guarantee of cheap labour is a
crucial element of the strategy, and the agricultural sector has been simply
exposed to international competition. There has been increasing informalization of labour following the dissolution of collective contracts between
workers and employers, the introduction of several new Pactos
Economicos, and the break-up of regional and national trade unions and
their replacement with firm-level unions. The adoption of the neo-liberal
reforms is reinforcing old patterns of inequality and discrimination and
leading to new exclusions which reflect the particular trajectory of
economic restructuring.
The relationship between the role of agriculture in the growth model
and social exclusion in rural areas is also noted as significant in another
newly-industrializing economy, namely Thailand. This identifies the
structural underpinnings of dispossession of peasants of land in the fact that
the utility of the rural sector to the current development model is primarily
as a source of labour.
Other studies point to the complex set of forces, economic and
political, which both enable and entrain the expansion and effective
delivery of rights. The Peruvian study, with a phrase which bears deeper
consideration, argues that "the culture of inequality" is one aspect of the
demand for rights whilst, on the supply side, the delivery of rights depends
on the production capacity of the economy, the preference of the ruling
classes to allocate resources for the provision of rights in the form of
public goods, and international agreements. The factors underlying basic
needs satisfaction are considered in some detail in the Indian study. In that
23
case, underlying the expansion of the provision of public goods in the

health and education sector, and also improvements in water supply and
sanitation, is a general commitment to promote economic growth. This has
been complemented with: specific State interventions to augment the asset
base of poorer sections of the population and to provide employment;
efforts to move towards more universal provision and higher standards of
the services for which the government has accepted prime responsibility;
and mandatory reverse discrimination and affirmative action in favour of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes facing historically accumulated
disadvantages. The study argues that the progress which has been made in
reducing exclusion from such basic needs reflects two major countervailing
tendencies. On the one hand, mass electoral politics based on adult
franchise has been important in increasing the political clout of the poor.
On the other hand, the effectiveness of programmes targeted at the poor
has been reduced by mis-targeting, leakages, corruption, and lack of
accountability. Moreover, as special programmes have been implemented,
additional groups have also begun to demand special treatment. The
politics of caste have become more conflictual in recent years.
A common, though not surprising, finding of some of the studies is
that programmes of structural adjustment have undermined the capacity of
States to provide health, education and social services. In Peru, for
example, per capita real public expenditure on education, health, housing
and employment in 1992 was just 30 per cent of the 1980 level. In
Tanzania, per capita real public expenditure on health in 1990-91 was 41
per cent of 1977-78, whilst for education it was 34 per cent. Between 1981
and 1987 in the same country, the gross primary school enrolment rate fell
from 98 to 78 per cent, and the cumulative drop-out rate in primary
schools rose from 16 per cent in 1977 to 25 per cent in 1989 and was even
higher for girls.
What is perhaps more important than this finding itself is the
observation that these adjustment programmes seek to intensify the
integration of national economies into the world economy, and that they
have been implemented, particularly in the poor countries of Africa, with
multiple and binding conditionalities. A question which arises following
Fitzgerald's line of thought is whether these programmes necessarily
require regression in the realization of rights.
C.
Micro-dynamics of exclusion from rights
Some of the studies examine the micro-dynamics of social exclusion

from citizenship rights. They emphasize the gap between the provision and
24
the realization of rights, noting the importance of poverty in engendering

that gap. They also show that negotiation between individuals and groups
is an important element in the realization of rights. This is particularly
clear in the studies of both Russia and Thailand, which focus on the microdynamics associated with property rights.
In countries in transition there is likely to be particular confusion over
property rights, but mechanisms for defending ones' rights may at the
same time be more difficult. In the case of rural Siberia, it is observed that
the transition to new forms of ownership and management, which occurred
as members of a former State farm (kolkhoz) became a Peasant Farm
Association with land shared out between members, was nominal rather
than real. Each member theoretically had a right to set up in private
ownership and was free to work elsewhere, but disputes over claims to
housing, in a situation where former managers of the State farm continued
to exercise managerial authority and were doing so in their own interests,
effectively prevented the realization of these new-found freedoms. The
earlier party committees, through which the poor could express their
grievances, were disbanded and the only way people could defend their
rights was through the courts. However, very few people brought their
cases to court because of general legal illiteracy, transportation and time
expenditures required (the court was seated in the city), and the general
tradition of long suffering.
In Thailand, rapid growth and industrialization has made areas of land
designated by the government as "forest reserves" a major source of
conflict between business interests and peasants. The former seek to
establish eucalyptus plantations to supply the growing pulp industry, whilst
the latter, some of whom were earlier encouraged to settle in the forest and
many of whom were living in the forest areas before they were officially
designated as such, seek to retain access to the natural resources on which
their livelihoods are based.
This conflict was dramatized with the short-lived implementation of
the Kho Jo Ko programme in 1991-92. In this programme, the government
sought to rent out "degraded" forest land for reforestation under eucalyptus
on 15-30 year concessions at cheap rates. The programme envisaged the
relocation of more than five million peasants. It was implemented initially
in the north-east of the country where people are very poor and are sometimes regarded as inferior minorities. It was shoddily planned and
implemented with violence. In some villages, peasants, with the help of
NGOs and students, successfully resisted exclusion and, with a change of
government in 1992, the programme was abandoned. However, similar,
if less crude policies excluding peasants from land resources continue as
25
the old momentum of peasant expansion comes into conflict with new
forces of expansive urban capitalism, and State policy is founded on a topdown approach.
With regard to social rights, the studies focused more on macrodynamics, as indicated in the previous section. However, the Tanzanian
study includes a particular survey of how the plight of the increasing
numbers of AIDS orphans in north-west Tanzania is worsening. Customary
systems of care, which used to provide some kind of safety-net for the
most disadvantaged, are under stress as economic opportunities and
incomes decline in the region, and there is an increasingly narrow
definition of the immediate family. The interplay between local
community-based systems of rights and obligations and national citizenship
rights should prove an interesting area for future analysis of the microdynamics of social exclusion from rights. Another avenue to explore is to
build upon Schaffer's work on the way in which the negotiation of the
rules of access to public goods, particularly education and health services,
affect the realization of social rights. 6
D.
Globalization and incomplete citizenship
Possession of the status of national citizen is becoming more important

as a basis for social exclusion as increasing numbers of people move across
international boundaries. In general, persons defined as "aliens" of various
kinds (who might be international migrant workers or refugees) are denied
rights available to members of the national community and they may be
subject to the insecurity associated with the possibility of sudden expulsion
[Cohen, 1987]. A good illustration is found in the study of Yemen. It
shows the situation in which international migrant workers can find
themselves if they are suddenly forced to leave the country to which they
have migrated. After the outbreak of the Gulf War, over one million
persons returned to Yemen, increasing the population by about one-eighth.
Almost half of the returnee emigrants are illiterate and three-quarters do
not own housing or land in Yemen. Almost two-thirds have been out of the
country for more than ten years and, with their arrival, the unemployment
rate increased from 7 per cent to 25 per cent. Four years after the War
about 75,000 families still remain permanently in camps with little social
infrastructure and restricted access to local labour markets.
6 See the theme issue of Development and Change, 1975, Vol. 6, on "The problem of
access to public services"; and Schaffer & Lamb [1981].
26
There is often ambiguity over what constitutes the "national

community", and the full exercise of citizenship may also be linked to
acceptance of a dominant cultural or political mode of behaviour, including
language, customs and way of life. In Thailand, for example, while
minority groups such as Malay Moslems in the South do obtain the identity
cards which give them full legal and economic rights, the right to cultural
and religious differences suffers in the process. The rights of indigenous
peoples to identity and the maintenance of their own way of life is widely
threatened by unrecognized property rights, coupled with development and
population pressure.
One feature of the situation facing developing countries, as the globalization of markets occurs, is that at the same time as the status of national
citizenship becomes more salient, the capacity of governments to control
the productive basis of the economy, on which the delivery of citizenship
rights depends, is becoming increasingly eroded. Also, developing countries are increasingly subject to international regimes which directly seek
to influence patterns of rights provision within their national territories.
Both aid conditionality and, more recently, threats of trade sanctions, are
influencing patterns of exclusion from rights in developing countries.
This is happening in perverse ways. Countries are finding themselves
subject to both human rights conditionality, which encourages countries to
extend certain civil, political and social rights (which are regarded
externally as universally valid) to national citizens, and macro-economic
conditionality which can, in the short term at least, undermine their ability
to extend the realization of social and political rights. This difficult
situation reflects, amongst other things, a failure to understand exclusions
from citizenship rights in relation to development paths.
3.
Social exclusion and civil society
The case studies show that institutions of civil. society are also
important in regulating exclusionary practices and in enabling resistance to
social exclusion.
The relationship between civil society and social exclusion is particularly apparent in the studies of Cameroon and Thailand, with the former
considering the relationship between ethnic identity and individual economic advancement, and the latter gender discrimination. The Cameroon
study examines various voluntary associations, which include ethnic associations, professional and religious associations. These associations act as
an informal social security system and a parallel financial system to official
banks. They support poorer individuals excluded from economic resources
27
and legal rights. But paradoxically "in regrouping the excluded, the associations also exclude" (Inack Inack et al., Ch. 14, p. 235). Savings are a
particularly important function of these associations and informal credit
associations (tontines), often rooted in ethnic solidarity, are an important
source of finance enabling their members to acquire goods and services
which they could not normally acquire. However, one ethnic group, the
Bamileke, has a more developed associationallife and has used the tontines
more effectively in advancing their business interests. As a consequence,
they dominate lucrative trading activity.
The Thailand study examines the cultural and religious beliefs which
lead to the formation of unequal gender relations and the exclusion of
women, particularly those who are young and poor, from their right to
equal recognition as human beings. It shows the importance of certain
Buddhist practices and the legacy of the male-dominated sakdina culture
which prevailed in nineteenth-century Thailand. The analysis raises difficult
questions about the types of policies which can reduce exclusionary
practices which are deeply rooted in civil society.
The institutions of civil society intertwine with markets and States to
reinforce social exclusion. But these institutions also can offer a resource
for individuals and groups to resist exclusion, although the studies do not
identify many grounds for confidence in this regard. They show that people
respond to social exclusion in various ways, which range from passivity
and a sense of shame and despair on the one hand, to group action to reverse particular processes of exclusion or to alter the political balance of
forces within a country, on the other. These responses are rooted in everyday experience, different perceptions by people of their situations, different
expectations of the effectiveness of political action, and the existence of
different organizational capabilities. But often passivity prevails.
In studies in settings as different as Siberia and Yemen, particular
groups experience a sense of worthlessness or impotence which compounds
and reinforces their social exclusion. In Yemen this was apparent in the
case of the returnee emigrant workers. They initially selected representatives to follow up with the government on promises to provide housing,
employment and other social services to help them to reintegrate into the
country. Over time, however, they ceased to do this, and responded to the
limited ability of the government to help them by giving up hope that they
could get support and by withdrawing from political activity. In Siberia,
it was found that, amongst the long-term unemployed who had formerly
worked as professionals, the sense of shame associated with their transition
in status from persons "who earn by their own labour" to being "social
dependants" was engendering psychological depression, and feelings of
28
uselessness and inferiority. One person in this situation responded to a

question about their participation in public activities by asking the
interviewer "What is the essence of public activity for a 'useless' person?",
capturing in that rhetorical question the wider sense of isolation and
separation from society associated with long-term unemployment.
Some of the studies, particularly in the least developed countries,
showed that people living in situations of extreme material poverty did not
necessarily view themselves as "excluded" or "marginalized". This was
found in particular in Tanzania, where it was suggested that people are so
used to a hard life and material deprivation that they do not always see it.
None of the studies focused on social groups which were actively resisting
inclusion and integration into national society because they wished to
preserve their way of life.
Resistance to exclusion through group action was observed most
clearly in situations where people were dispossessed from assets which they
regarded as rightfully theirs and on which their basic livelihood depended.
In the case of the peasant farmers in Thailand, resistance initially took the
form of public irony to shame the military regime with the establishment
of "Thai refugee camps" for Thai peasants who had been evicted from
their villages without proper resettlement. Government attempts to suppress
this form of protest included violent intimidation and the arrest of leaders,
but this only reinforced the protest movement, which was also supported
by NGOs and students. Protest demonstrations escalated and eventually,
after the fall of the military government, the programme was abandoned.
In this case, group resistance was linked to specific processes of exclusion
and was, on the side of the protesters, non-violent.
In general, social exclusion seems to be more often associated with
resignation and a sense of worthlessness paralyzing action rather than
resistance. The most common response to exclusion is the active improvisation of household survival strategies. In various studies, a trade-off was
observed between effective democratic politics and everyday survival, with
excluded groups unable to develop longer-term political strategies to alter
the setting which has excluded them because of the unrelenting compulsion
to find work and acquire food.
One important finding, articulated in the Yemen study, was that
people perceive the problem of their exclusion as a problem of the family
or the community as a whole and not as a problem limited to the individual. This is one reason why in the Yemen study it is argued that women
there do not perceive themselves as individually excluded, even if they
participate less in the economic domain than do men. A similar perspective
29
was apparent in the study of Cameroon, where ethnic identity is an

important idiom of belonging.
4.
Some conclusions]
Markets institutions, citizenship rights and the associations of civil

society interact in complex ways in processes of social exclusion. Underlying, and intertwined with, market exclusions there are exclusions from
citizenship rights. For example, one consequence of the poor being
excluded from property rights is that they cannot use property as collateral
for credit. Informal contracts and informal markets, with higher transaction
costs, inevitably arise. The possibility of people realizing their rights may
itself be diminished through poverty. Moreover, the precise implications
of rights associated with the legally constituted status of citizen depend
crucially on the norms and expectations of civil society.
The case studies suggest that, starting from a situation characterized
by wide inequalities in endowments and extreme poverty, the exclusionary
and inclusionary practices and processes, regulated through the institutions
of markets, States and civil society, can best be understood as the expression of the interplay between four basic underlying determinants.
The first is the increasing transnationalization of social and economic
life, with intensifying flows of capital, labour and ideas. Associated with
this trend, there has been a loss of decision-making capacity by nation
States. This process is occurring to different degrees in different regions
according to their position on the international scene but, in general, the
economic policies and situations of more industrialized countries are having
increasingly intense economic effects on less industrialized countries.
The second is the changing availability and distribution of assets in
situations of increasing scarcity associated with population growth, radical
economic transformation and, in recent years, widespread recession and
even, in some regions, a disturbing trend of economic decline. The assets
with which people participate in social and economic life are of three
types: economic assets, which refer to productive resources such as land
and other physical capital, and financial and human capital; political assets,
which refer to the access of people to universal rights established by
society; and cultural assets, which are defined by the social values attached
7 Much of this section is based on a discussion by representatives of all the research

teams which took place at a workshop held in Cambridge, England, in July 1994.
30
to individuals' personal characteristics such as sex, race, religion, and

education. 8
The third is the diverse social and political structures, which
encompass the institutions through which power is exercised and specific
cultural values which reflect and reproduce the balance of power between
social groups and also determine their status. These structures and
institutions in turn depend on the dominant paradigm of social integration
which exists in given national societies. The paradigms discussed by Silver
are thus not simply alternative ways in which researchers can define and
understand social exclusion. They represent ways in which societies
themselves understand exclusion. Whether solidaristic or liberal, they give
rise to patterns of behaviour and influence for different social actors which
are central to understanding who excludes whom, and how.
The fourth is the nature of the development regime adopted by the
national government, including the relative role of State and markets as
allocation and accumulation mechanisms; the policies for growth, poverty
reduction and structural transformation; and the short- and medium-run
programmes aimed at economic adjustment and stabilization.
Many dimensions of exclusion were considered by the case studies,
including livelihood, basic needs, productive assets, labour markets, social
and political participation, civil rights, dignity and security. The exclusion
mechanisms to which the studies pointed as being important in relation to
these dimensions are: (a) the organization of markets, and particularly
processes of economic disenfranchisement associated with factor markets;
(b) the functioning of governmental and inter-governmental institutions, in
particular where they are characterized by limited accountability, the
presence of corruption, non-universal enforcement of the law, mismanagement, the centralization of policy- and decision-making, and the
monopolization of information and of the power to allocate resources; and
(c) the presence of discrimination, particularly vis-a-vis the following
social identities - gender, caste, ethnicity and race. Such discrimination
is paradoxically found in both the accentuation of particularlistic
distinctions and also attempts to achieve cultural homogenization through
national integration plans.
The studies show that in each country there is a hierarchy in the
importance of the different dimensions of exclusion. This hierarchy exists
in three senses. First, some exclusions are more important than others in
terms of their effects on poverty and inequality. Second, some exclusions
This model derives from the study of Peru (Figueroa et al., Ch. 12).
31
are perceived to be more important than others by members of society,

perceptions which may vary between social groups. Thirdly, there are
inter-relationships between the different dimensions of exclusion. The
failure to command particular resources, to obtain particular rights or to
enter particular markets results in exclusion in other dimensions. For
example, it was observed in one country that for particular rural groups,
the process of economic exclusion from the natural resources on which
they depend for a livelihood results also in cultural exclusion from their
traditional practices and communities and also sometimes in political
exclusion as they become labelled dissidents.
The case studies invariably found that inter-relationships existed between exclusion in different dimensions. Also, some social groups - with
particular identities, social assets and property endowments - experienced
multiple and self-reinforcing exclusions and faced persistent, rather than
temporary, disadvantages, which were transferred from generation to generation, often through the nexus of poverty, child labour and under-education. Early labour market entry prevents acquisition of the qualifications
which are essential for access to regular, protected work, so early labour
market entry is a source of lifetime exclusion from adequate livelihood.
Bearing in mind that the choice of groups studied reflects the researchers' perceptions, the studies suggest that ethnic, racial or caste elements
are involved in exclusion in most circumstances (the issue was not treated
in Russia or Tunisia) and is sometimes pervasive (Cameroon). Genderbased exclusion is also very widespread. It also seems likely that certain
characteristics which were not examined in all studies, notably physical
disability, are also widespread and important. Children and young people
constitute a particularly important group, subject to some very specific
exclusions. Migrants constitute another group subject to many forms of exclusion. International migrant workers are increasing in numbers and they
are particularly vulnerable to political and policy changes.
Excluded groups are identified in the studies on the basis of their
exclusion (e.g. the unemployed or the landless) or on the basis of an
identity which is assumed to lead to exclusion (e.g. gender, ethnicity). One
important methodological finding of the research project is that the first
method of identifying groups restricts the analytical insights which can be
derived from a social exclusion approach. It is almost tautological, since
we identify the excluded, from the outset, by the nature of their exclusion.
In this approach, the research task can easily get reduced to describing the
living conditions, particularly the deprivations of the "excluded".
However, particular dimensions of exclusion may also become characteristics which identify groups subject to other forms of exclusion; for
32
instance, a fixed residence or a job may be needed to obtain social rights

or public goods. The unemployed or the landless may be stigmatized and
gradually marginalized.
The second basis for defining excluded groups is more promising analytically because identities associated with such attributes as age, sex, and
ethnicity are socially constructed, and the ways in which identities are
constructed are integral to processes of exclusion. Some attributes are fixed
and others are modifiable, a distinction which is important as individuals
may escape exclusion through migration or investing in skills. But often,
the groups most vulnerable to exclusion are simply those which are most
readily identified as different, which are most readily exploited, or which
have a particular initial disadvantage which is multiplied through a social
process.
From a methodological point of view, deeper understanding of social
exclusion is likely to come from a focus on the processes and practices of
exclusion, and the social institutions which regulate exclusion, rather than
the groups which are affected. But examining which groups are excluded
under different circumstances can also help to understand the processes
through which they are excluded. Particular situations - youth; lack of
work experience; physical handicap; dependency within the household; lack
of command of the dominant language; low position in an established
social hierarchy - may be directly responsible for vulnerability and so
may facilitate exclusion even if they do not directly cause it.
It is difficult to detect regional variations in processes of social
exclusion in different parts of the world on the basis of the studies.
Nevertheless, two generalizations on regional variation seem valid. First,
the studies confirmed that the degree of development of labour markets,
and their nature, are pivotal in understanding the relative importance of,
and the inter-relationships between, different dimensions of exclusion. In
agrarian and predominantly peasant societies, access to land and labour,
and to other inputs required to render them productive, are vital. Complex
interactions arise between access to labour markets (both rural and urban)
and access to land, with exclusion from labour markets, and particularly
their more remunerative segments, becoming increasingly significant as
urbanization and industrialization occur. In industrialized countries,
whether market or transition economies, exclusion is very much associated
with long-term unemployment, the loss of rights associated with work and
the process of breakdown of social ties and disaffiliation which often comes
with this situation.
Second, the studies suggested that the ways in which the institutions
of civil society are interlinked with the State and markets in processes of
33
social exclusion varies between countries. Institutions of civil society are

particularly important where citizenship rights are not "nationalized", in
the sense that the enforcement of legal rights is not fully effective and a
national culture of expectations and norms has not been in existence for a
long time, and where livelihoods are less dependent on impersonal market
relations.
Social exclusion appears to occur within all economies and societies,
but manifests itself in different forms, with different intensities and with
different degrees of salience to members of society or their representatives.
What is critical in one country may not be so perceived in another.
III. Policy issues

It is possible to take two broad routes to elaborate the policy
implications of a social exclusion approach in developing countries and
countries in transition. The first is to describe and evaluate the policy
initiatives to combat exclusion which are being implemented in Europe and
to consider their applicability and relevance elsewhere. The second is to
conduct analyses of social exclusion outside Europe, and to infer policy
conclusions in the light of the approach and existing policy experiences to
counter poverty, deprivation and discrimination. Both routes are followed
here.
1.
The nature and broader applicability

of European policy experience
In Europe, the social exclusion approach is leading to new policy

initiatives to prevent and remedy social disadvantage in the face of
economic restructuring. The measures specifically targeted on those who
are considered to be socially excluded are various and include: (i) income
support tied to social and professional insertion; (ii) training programmes
for unemployed adults and youth; (ii) territorially-based cross-sectoral
initiatives to improve physical infrastructure, services, community
organization, and enterprise development at the local level (which are
generally focused areas suffering multiple disadvantages in cities); and
(iv) the establishment of micro-enterprises and community associations to
reorientate for work those deemed unemployable (such as ex-convicts,
substance abusers, homeless persons) (Silver and Wilkinson, Ch. 17). A
particularly important initiative in France is the revenu minimum
d'insertion (minimum income of integration - RMI), which combines an
income allowance with an "insertion contract" which pledges the recipient
34
to take actions (e.g. moving towards a job, undertaking training) which

will facilitate the economic integration of the individual. This measure
"links the right to the satisfaction of basic needs with the aspiration for
social and professional insertion" (Rodgers, Ch. 16, p. 258).
Existing evaluations of this policy experience are not wholly
favourable (see Silver and Wilkinson, Ch. 17). Also, in assessing its
relevance to "low-income settings" Rodgers argues that some items of the
European policy agenda can be relevant in some situations - for example,
"policies such as the RMI might be relevant in some higher-income
countries in Latin America and East Asia, where meaningful 'integration'
contracts might be designed" - but as "low-income settings" are diverse,
there are other situations where European experiences will be inappropriate
(Rodgers, Ch. 16, p. 266). Devising policy against exclusion, he argues,
must be seen in a framework which encompasses actions at the
international, national and regional/local levels, and in relation to groups
vulnerable to exclusion.
In'considering what lessons, if any, might be learnt from the European
experience, it is important to examine both the policies themselves and the
principles and perspectives which underlie policy. In this light, the
European experience suggests six main insights.
First, if policies to combat social disadvantage are marginalized as
purely social policies, they will tend to have a welfarist orientation,
providing assistance to socially marginal persons. Policies based on a social
exclusion approach combat social disadvantage through socio-economic
policies which manage the relationship between social dependency and
isolation on the one hand, and economic integration (particularly insertion
in the labour market), on the other hand.
Second, a participatory bias (either individualist or communitarian in
orientation) is inherent to policies based on a social exclusion approach.
This is because participation is, in itself, a form of integration. With its
participatory bias, the social exclusion approach leads to policies which are
not welfarist and which seek to transform the disadvantaged from passive
recipients of social assistance into active agents in society and the
economy. The approach leads to policy measures which create new
partnerships between the public and private sectors.
Third, there is a wide variety of policies which can be derived from
a social exclusion approach. The difference between these policies basically
reflects different views of social integration. The three basic paradigms of
society underlying policy are "solidarity", "specialization" and "monopoly" (see Silver, Ch. 3). These do not in themselves constitute specific
institutional types, but they are foundational understandings of the
35
relationship between the individual and society, on the basis of which

various "integration regimes" develop. "Integration regimes" can be
considered analogous to the concept of "welfare regimes", which has
usefully illuminated discussion of welfare state systems [Esping-Anderson,
1990]. In Europe, France and the United Kingdom offer contrasting
examples of "integration regimes".
Fourth, one consequence of the multi-dimensional nature of exclusion
is that different professions, agencies and levels of government have to
cooperate in administering insertion policies. This can lead to a confusing
multiplication of agencies concerned with combating social disadvantage.
Fifth, a territorial approach, with a local focus, offers a possible way
of reducing these implementation problems. This focus is also important
because local community resources, services and relationships can act to
short-circuit processes of social exclusion.
Sixth, initiatives to promote economic and social integration may be
counteracted by macro-economic strategies, including fiscal, monetary, trade and labour market policies. Special initiatives based on a social exclusion approach will have limited effectiveness in the absence of significant
market-driven employment growth (Silver and Wilkinson, Ch. 17).
In general, the European experience shows that policies to reduce
social exclusion can be used for a variety of political purposes and they are
not necessarily a panacea. They can distract attention away from a
widespread rise in inequality, insecurity and unemployment towards small
groups ("the excluded") who are "ghettoized" in risk categories under a
new label (Silver, Ch. 3, p. 78).
2.
Policy conclusions of case studies
The case studies conducted as part of the IILS-UNDP project include

a number of preliminary policy conclusions which are derived directly
from the application of a social exclusion approach to developing countries
and countries in transition. The studies suggest that a social exclusion approach provides new justifications for some long-standing policy proposals
which go beyond the dominant orthodoxy about what kinds of development
policy can effectively reduce poverty. Moreover, they point towards the
need to devise mutually reinforcing policies in different dimensions.
The way that the social exclusion approach leads to different policy
conclusions to the current orthodoxy can be illustrated in relation to what
Lipton and Maxwell [1992] describe as the "new poverty agenda" - the
new conventional wisdom amongst international development agencies
about how to reduce poverty in developing countries. In the new agenda,
36
poverty reduction is seen as helping people to achieve a secure and

sustainable livelihood. The three essential elements of a poverty reduction
strategy at the national level are: (i) promote labour-intensive growth, in
order to make use of the poor's most abundant asset (labour); (ii) increase
the access of the poor to social services, particularly basic health and full
primary education; and (iii) put in place effective welfare safety nets which
are targeted at the poorest and most vulnerable to shocks. At the
international level, poverty reduction is enhanced through "an appropriate
trading environment", more debt-relief for low-income countries, and
better targeted aid programmes.
The case studies would agree with (ii), but they question how much
this can be achieved through budget prioritization when public expenditure
on social services is being cut back. They also go further to suggest some
alternative policy proposals to the "new poverty agenda" at the national
level.
First, they direct attention to the importance of the redistribution of
basic productive assets (a matter on which the new poverty agenda is
damagingly shy, according to Lipton and Maxwell), as well as expanding
employment opportunities. Land reform and access to credit can be
essential to prevent economic disenfranchisement, as well as education and
training. Second, they direct attention to the importance of measures to
influence the development of social institutions. This encompasses changes
in market structures (creating markets), changes in administrative structures
and bureaucratic practices, new institutional forms embedded in civil
society (such as solidarity banks), and education programmes oriented to
change attitudes and cultural values. Markets, States and civil society are
all equally seen as part of the problem of social exclusion, as well as part
of the solution to it. Third, they draw attention to complex relationships
between livelihood and citizenship rights and they suggest that civil and
political rights are important in securing and sustaining livelihoods. Fourth,
they replace welfarist targeting to catch the casualties of economic
restructuring with a participatory and active approach to integrating people
in economic life. An important policy for achieving this is the adoption of
measures to improve the associational and organizational skills of
individuals and groups.
The alternative policy ideas emerging from the social exclusion
approach in the case studies are best illustrated in the Peru case which
argues that "Policies must be addressed to change the market structure and
the initial distribution of assets, which are the factors at the base of the
exclusion mechanisms" (Figueroa et aI., Ch. 12). Basic markets (labour,
credit, and insurance) need to be created or expanded in the entire
37
economy, particularly rural areas (rather than liberalized on the assumption

that markets already exist). New economic assets must be redistributed,
universal rights and duties secured and cultural values must, through
education, be changed. Economic and cultural assets can be redistributed
through the promotion of rights. But this is not costless and rights (for
example, to education and health) which can increase other assets should
have priority.
The policy recommendations contained in the case studies by no
means exhaust the possible policy recommendations which can be derived
from a social exclusion approach. The studies do not consider global
relationships, apart from stressing that adjustment programmes have often
had the effect of tearing the social fabric. They do not consider technology
policy. There are many complex issues to be explored, such as the
relationships between changes in legal rights on paper and the realization
of rights, and the economic costs of redistributing assets through
affirmative action. Both the Malaysian case [Lim Teck Ghee, forthcoming]
and measures to assist Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India
indicate possibilities and limitations. A major area of analysis will be to
explore the potential of a social exclusion approach at a macro-level,
understanding the relationships between capital accumulation, the pursuit
of productivity improvements through allocative and technical efficiency,
and social integration.
IV. Outline of the book

The book is divided into three parts. The first part deals with
conceptual issues. Rodgers presents a clear statement of the value of a
social exclusion approach. Silver decodes the meaning and deployment of
the concept of social exclusion in advanced capitalist democracies in terms
of three paradigms of social integration and citizenship, thus providing a
map of how to interpret both analyses of social exclusion and policies of
social integration. Wolfe, focusing on the situation of developing countries,
situates the analysis of social exclusion in relation to processes of
globalization. He considers the paradox of a style of development in which
increasing numbers of people are being incorporated into wider economic
relations under conditions of exploitation and powerlessness, whilst at the
same time increasing numbers are also becoming superfluous to the
functioning of the global economy. Gore examines how the literature on
socio-economic change in Africa south of the Sahara can contribute to the
formulation of a concept of social exclusion which is not Eurocentric, and
38
also considers how a social exclusion approach can usefully inform debates
about processes of impoverishment on the continent. Faria assesses the
Latin American literature on poverty, deprivation and marginalization, and
considers what a social exclusion perspective might add.
The second part reports the results of case studies undertaken to
explore the potential of the social exclusion approach in developing
countries and countries in transition. Five of the studies are synoptic,
focusing on patterns and processes of social exclusion in each country; four
of the studies examine specific issues in relation to social exclusion in
particular countries.
The synoptic country studies include one country in transition
(Russia), two newly-industrializing countries (Thailand, Tunisia), and two
least developed countries (Tanzania, Yemen). In each of the studies of
Russia, Thailand, Tanzania and Yemen, special attention is paid to the
macro context of exclusionary processes and the micro-dynamics of
exclusion in relation to specific excluded groups and/or specific dimensions
of exclusion (land, employment, etc.). The Tunisian study pays more
attention to the subjective aspects of exclusion, considering how exclusion
is seen by persons who might be identified by researchers and planners as
"excluded", and discussing in some detail policies to combat exclusion.
The Tunisian study is important as it is an example of how European-type
thinking on exclusion and insertion can be translated into policy initiatives
in a newly-industrializing economy.
The four issue-oriented country studies consider the relationship
between social exclusion and social inequality (Peru), social exclusion and
economic restructuring (Mexico), social exclusion and ethnic solidarity
(Cameroon), and social exclusion and basic needs deprivation (India). The
Peruvian study bears particular attention because it contains theoretical
propositions about exclusion from markets, as well as important policy
proposals.
Many of the case studies include sections on the policy implications
of their analyses. But the third part of the book specifically considers
policy issues. Rodgers opens the question of the design of policy to combat
exclusion in a variety of country settings, providing a framework for future
work. Silver and Wilkinson present a comparative study of integration
policies in France and United Kingdom.
Finally, the present introduction, as the reader is aware by now,
provides a synthesis of the ideas in the book, situates these ideas in relation
to existing literature on analysis of social disadvantage and policy design
to reduce it, and indicates what we have learnt from the IILS/UNDP
research project, thus far, about the value of a social exclusion approach.
39
Bibliographical references
Bedoui, M. Forthcoming. Bibliographie de l'exclusion dans les pays arabes du Maghreb

et du Machreq (Afrique du Nord et Moyen-Orient). Discussion Paper Series No. 80.
Geneva, IlLS.
Bhalla, A. S.; Lapeyre, F. 1994. "A note on exclusion". Geneva, IlLS, mimeo.
Breman, 1. 1994. "Labour nomads in south Gujarat", paper presented at the second
workshop of the IILSIUNDP project on "Patterns and causes of social exclusion and
the design of policies to promote integration", Cambridge, United Kingdom, 14-18
July.
Cohen, R. 1987. The new helots: Migrants in the international division oflabour. Avebury.
Crompton, R.; Brown, P. 1994. "Introduction", in Brown, P.; Crompton, R. (eds.):
Economic restructuring and social exclusion. London, UCL Press.
Dasgupta, P. 1993. An inquiry into well-being and destitution. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Dreze, 1.; Sen, A. K. 1989. Hunger and public action. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Esping-Anderson, G. 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge,

Polity Press.
Faria, V. 1994. Social exclusion in Latin America: An annotated bibliography. Discussion
Paper Series No. 70. Geneva, IlLS.
Fitzgerald, E. V. K. 1991. Economic reform and citizen entitlements in Eastern Europe:
Some social implications of structural adjustment in semi-industrial economies.
UNRISD Discussion Paper No. 27, June.
Gore, C. 1993. "Entitlement relations and 'unruly' social practices: A comment on the
work of Amartya Sen", in Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 29, No.3, April,
pp. 429-460.
-. 1994. Social exclusion and Africa south ofthe Sahara. Discussion Paper Series No. 62.
Geneva, IlLS.
Haan, A. de; Nayak, P. Forthcoming. Social exclusion and South Asia Discussion Paper
Series No. 77. Geneva, IlLS.
Lim Teck Ghee. Forthcoming. Effectiveness of policies aimed at the social and economic
integration of different ethnic groups in South-east Asia, with special reference to
Malaysia: Review of the literature and empirical material. Discussion Paper Series
No. 82. Geneva, IILS.
Lipton, M.; Maxwell, S. 1992. The new poverty agenda: An overview. Institute of
Development Studies (University of Sussex), Discussion Paper No. 306.
Marshall, T. H.; Bottomore, T. 1992. Citizenship and social class. London, Pluto Press.
Parkin, F. 1979. The Marxist analysis of class: A bourgeois critique. London, Tavistock.
40
Room, G. 1992. Observatory on National Policies to Combat Social Exclusion. Second

Annual Report. Brussels, Directorate General V, Employment, Social Affairs, and
Industrial Relations, Commission for European Communities.
Room, G. 1994. "Understanding social exclusion: Lessons from transnational research
studies", paper presented at the conference on "Poverty studies in the European
Union: Retrospect and prospect", Policy Studies Institute, London, 24 November,
mimeo.
Schaffer, B. B.; Lamb, G. 1981. Can equity be organised? Farnborough, Gower.
Sen, A. K. 1992. Inequality re-examined. Oxford, Clarendon Press.
Silver, H. 1994. Social solidarity and social exclusion: Three paradigms. Discussion Paper
Touraine, A. 1992. "Inegalites de la societe industrielle, exclusion du marche", in
Affichard, J.; de Foucauld, J.-B.: Justice sociale et inegalites . Paris, Editions Esprit.
Townsend, P. 1993. The international analysis of poverty. New York, Harvester
Wheatsheaf.
Waltzer, M. 1983. Spheres ofjustice. Oxford, Blackwell.
Yepez, I. 1994. Review of the French and Belgian literature on social exclusion: A Latin
American perspective. Discussion Paper Series No.71. Geneva, IlLS.
Part I:
Conceptual issues
What is special about

a "soclsl exclusion" approach?
Gerry Rodgers 1
The term "exclusion" has become part of the political vocabulary in

Europe. Like "poverty" or "unemployment" it is one of those words which
seems to have an everyday meaning, an underlying sense. Social scientists
may demand a precise definition but, increasingly, the term is used as if
its meaning were self-evident. Social exclusion is seen in the growth of
homelessness or urban slums, the declining hopes of the long-term
unemployed, the lack of access to jobs and incomes of migrants and some
ethnic minorities, the increasingly precarious nature of jobs on offer to new
labour market entrants. The European Commission (EC), a major figure
in debates on social exclusion and how to overcome it, insists on the
diversity of situations, including groups varying from former prisoners to
street children, from ethnic minorities to single-parent families, and on the
diversity of the social factors concerned: employment, health, housing,
education. Many words may be found to express these different problems
but the European Commission argues that the notion of social exclusion is
particularly appropriate because it describes not just a situation, but also
focuses attention on a process which excludes. Excludes who from what?
Implicitly, the EC is concerned with the exclusion of groups and
individuals from rights, livelihoods and sources of well-being to which all
should have access (exclusion of "part of the population from economic
and social life and from their share ofthe general prosperity" [CEC, 1993,
p. 7]; "social exclusion refers, in particular, to inability to enjoy social
rights without help, suffering from low self-esteem, inadequacy in their
capacity to meet their obligations, the risk of long-term relegation to the
I This chapter regroups parts of a paper published in the IlLS Discussion Paper Series
prepared by Gerry Rodgers [1994], including contributions by Jose B. de Figueiredo,
Charles Gore, Frederic Lapeyre and Hilary Silver. But many other project participants,
who are undertaking empirical studies in countries around the world, have contributed
directly or indirectly to this work.
44
ranks of those on social benefits, and stigmatization ... " [ibid., p. 10]. But
the perspective which it proposes, which in turn is grounded in the analysis
of major French sociologists such as Alain Touraine [1991], relates such
exclusions to the way in which society functions. An individual may be
excluded from the labour market, or indeed from a country club, but this
is not the point: it is rather that societies and economies systematically
marginalize some and integrate others, and distribute rewards in ways
which both include and exclude.
Social exclusion, then, is seen as a way of analysing how and why
individuals and groups fail to have access to or benefit from the possibilities offered by societies and economies. It is at heart a normative, heavily
value-laden notion, evoking negative responses, in contrast to the positive
image of inclusion or integration. As such it provides an important justification for social policy, and was used as such by the European
Commission under Jacques Delors, even appearing explicitly in the social
chapter of the Maastricht Treaty.
In other parts of the world, the concept of social exclusion has not
been widely used. But a great deal of attention has been paid, particularly
in developing countries, to related issues such as poverty, inequality,
entitlements, marginalization or deprivation. Does the concept of social
exclusion add anything which cannot be provided by analysis within more
conventional frameworks? Might the analysis of social exclusion offer a
new way to approach the structural problems of poverty and extreme
inequality in developing countries? Or is this simply a relabelling of an old
problem?
For the concept to be useful in more than a political sense, first it is
necessary to dissect the idea of exclusion and in particular to consider more
carefully the question, exclusion from what?
I.
The pattern of exclusion
Three types of exclusion in particular appear to be responsible for

heightened public awareness in Europe: exclusion from the labour market,
reflected in rising numbers of long-term unemployed and increasing
difficulty of initial labour market entry; exclusion from regular work,
through the growth of precarious and part-time employment relationships;
and exclusion from decent housing and community services, reflected in
the banlieue phenomenon (which also has ethnic or migrant connotations).
In low-income settings, these three types of exclusion are also widely
found, but the forms which they take vary. Moreover, there is a need to
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A "SOCIAL EXCLUSION" APPROACH?
45
cast the net more widely, and encompass levels of living, means of
livelihood, social rights and broader linkages with the pattern of
development. Levels of living are reflected in exclusions from goods and
services. Exclusions from livelihood take diverse forms. For some this
involves exclusion from land, from other productive assets or from markets
for goods. For others, it is labour market exclusions which dominate:
unemployment, exclusion from secure jobs or exclusion from social
protection in work, exclusion from opportunities to develop skills. These
patterns of exclusion are linked to the process of development - if the
latter is organized around a small modern or formal production system,
development itself will create exclusions at the same time as it creates
inclusions.
1.
Exclusion from goods and services
Poverty is usually seen in terms of low consumption levels, and

measured in relation to a basket of goods and services, including some
which may be provided through public channels such as education and
health care. In this framework, exclusion from consumption is mainly a
result of inadequacy of purchasing power (or of entitlements, in Sen's
framework), and one needs to look further back, in the reasons for low
purchasing power, to find the principal mechanisms of exclusion.
However, some aspects of consumption can be legitimately interpreted
directly in terms of exclusion. The visible growth of mass consumption
among affluent minorities clearly intensifies the sense of exclusion among
other groups even if absolute poverty does not increase. As Wolfe [Ch. 4]
expresses it, there is exclusion from the consumer society, from a highconsumption way of life. Housing may also playa direct part in exclusion,
as the clustering of the poor in areas without sanitation, good water,
recreational facilities, reliable electricity and other services may directly
promote exclusion - residence in a particular locality may stigmatize, may
lead to poor health, may make community integration difficult. Spatial
segregation has become a major concern in the French literature on
exclusion, and one can see parallels in the literature on slums in lowincome settings.
In general, the expectation is that public goods will be distributed less
unequally than other forms of consumption, but many factors also generate
exclusion. Exclusion from public goods is often a question of location.
Services may also be most readily available to those with the knowledge
or the connections to have access to them. In the case of many public
goods, ability to pay is also a constraint, especially where opportunity costs
46
of time are concerned - this is particularly true of education; even when

universally available in theory, the income sacrifices demanded of the poor
are such that their children are more likely to be excluded from schooling.
2.
Labour market exclusions
The understanding of many processes of social exclusion comes

through the understanding of the mechanisms at play in the labour market.
For most households, and especially for the poor, labour earnings are the
major source of income. Employment provides social legitimacy as well
as access to income. At the opposite extreme, unemployment and casual,
insecure jobs lead to rejection from both material and symbolic spheres of
society. Open unemployment, persistently high in Western Europe and
growing rapidly in many Third World cities, is increasingly becoming a
crucial factor excluding young people not only from jobs and incomes but
also from social identity. The struggle for the limited resources available
becomes intense. While politicians continue to promote solidarity or
consociational models, the segmentation of the economic system, and the
barriers which are erected to protect sources of livelihood, suggest that the
monopoly paradigm (see Silver, Ch. 3) is widely applicable. Exclusion
from the labour market may be associated with increasing violence and
insecurity, with a growth of marginal and unproductive forms of income
generation, with individual anomie and helplessness. Some is visible, as
groups of youths while away the day on the streets, but much is hidden
within the home - for instance, women who drop out of the labour force
and do not appear in the unemployment statistics.
Open unemployment refersto exclusion from the labour market, but
there is also exclusion within the labour market. One of the important
contributions of research on the segmentation of the labour market has
been to show that some groups are trapped in segments where jobs are
insecure, ill-paid and low-skilled. The underlying issue here is the
dualization process with, on one side, the "bad" jobs with easier access but
where poverty is concentrated and, on the other side, the "good" jobs with
restricted access and which provide a degree of security and acceptable
working conditions. This implies that there are different levels of
exclusion, so it is possible to be included in the labour market and at the
same time excluded from the "good" labour market. Labour market
segmentation tends to be built around readily identified groups (notably on
the basis of gender, race and nationality) and so exclusion from livelihood
becomes associated with other forms of social exclusion.
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A MSOCIAL EXCLUSION" APPROACH?
3.
47
Exclusion from land
Exclusion from land is a critical issue in many developing countries,

and widely associated with poverty and insecurity - but land is a source
not only of livelihood but also of social integration in a broader sense.
Literature reviews examining the relationship between social exclusion and
access to land have shown that this link is strong even in apparently landabundant settings. One reason is declining availability of productive land
to the bulk of the rural population because of land degradation or because
of rapidly increasing land concentration in the hands of a few individuals
or enterprises. State intervention by no means always leads to less
exclusion, for it may involve the ejection of local residents in favour of
logging companies or tourist developments. Access to land is usually
obtained through discriminatory modes. In much of Africa, for instance,
this process may be controlled by particular groups, identified ethnically
or demographically (sex and age). In this respect, women are particularly
vulnerable to exclusion in that they tend to have not a direct but rather a
derivative access to land due, for instance, to their status in the family.
Moreover, access to land does not necessarily mean control over the use
of land, as there is often an obligation associated with its use, notably for
family subsistence purposes.
This aspect of exclusion has been effectively absent from the
industrialized country literature on exclusion (except in so far as land for
housing is concerned). But the exclusion approach applies forcefully to this
domain.
4.
Exclusion from security
Security has a number of different dimensions. One is physical security of the person, in terms of safety, freedom from risk of physical
violence. To this might be added freedom from environmental insecurity.
A second concerns security of livelihood. A third involves protection
against contingencies - accident, ill health, death. This issue, which has
been taken up strongly by UNDP in recent years (see, for instance, UNDP
[1994]), is one to which the analysis of exclusion can be usefully applied.
Insecurity of livelihood is linked to the exclusions from land and labour
markets discussed above, but focuses on risk - risk of loss of land or of
employment, and the possibilities for finding alternative income sources.
In comprehensive social security systems, unemployment insurance or
social assistance programmes provide a safety net, but these are rare in
low-income countries. Instead, informal sharing mechanisms at the
community or family level, sometimes structured as pooled resources in
48
mutual credit funds provide a - usually unsatisfactory - fall-back.

Protection against contingencies through social insurance is more
widespread, but it is usually those who are least well placed to withstand
the contingencies who are least well insured. Appasamy et al. (see Ch. 15)
highlight the ways in which inadequacies in social security coverage reflect
and lead to exclusion in India (see also Guhan [1994]). They argue that this
issue is underemphasized in policy design and that, with appropriate
promotional, insurance and social assistance measures, an acceptable
degree of security can be attained.
5.
Exclusion from human rights
A major advantage of the notion of exclusion is that it permits one to

consider both rights and welfare within a single framework. The attainment
of a living standard adequate for health and well-being in fact forms part
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but, in practice, inadequate
consumption standards are usually analysed in welfare terms. Nevertheless,
it makes a great deal of sense to link these two perspectives, for the
attainment of particular basic human rights may well be a precondition for
overcoming economic exclusion. Thus, the right to freedom of assembly
and expression is surely important as a basis for effective mobilization and
organization, in turn a precondition for overcoming other forms of exclusion. Where competing interests are at stake in the struggle against
exclusion, equality before the law is also a powerful weapon in the hands
of the less powerful.
The reverse relationship is also true, as economic and social
exclusions affect the attainment of other rights. Extreme need leads to
abuse and forces individuals to abandon rights to legal protection or
freedom of association. The exclusion of minority groups from full participation in modern economies may render them vulnerable to exploitation
and diminish their ability to defend their assets and their civil rights. These
exclusions are interdependent with exclusions which are more economic in
nature. For instance, the exclusion of populations from land may start with
a process aimed at restricting other rights.
On the other hand, it is often argued that premature attainment of
certain rights may be inconsistent with economic advance. In particular,
workers' rights (to strike, to negotiate collectively) are often restricted in
the name of promoting competitivity and growth. This was the case in the
Republic of Korea for many years, for example. It was argued there, and
continues to be argued in Malaysia and Singapore, for instance, that this
is the most efficient long-term route towards social and economic progress
H
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A HSOCIAL EXCLUSION APPROACH?
49
[Mahathir bin Mohamad, 1994]. In all three cases the model is organicist,
arguably State corporatist, and worker demands have been channelled
through enterprises or subject to central decision-making. Rising wages and
employment have apparently made it much easier to obtain the acquiescence of workers in restricting organization and industrial action (though
industrial unrest contributed to the overthrow of authoritarian rule in Korea
in 1987).
There is a basic question of citizenship here. Yepez [1994] quotes
Marshall's [1973] notion that the rights of citizens in modern societies have
been progressively extended and consolidated, starting with civil liberties,
continuing with democratic participation and finally extending to social
rights. This provides a framework for integrating citizenship, rights and
welfare; but the content of social rights remains ambiguous. Those which
need to be addressed, in order to establish their linkage with other forms
of exclusion, include rights to equality before the law, to freedom of
organization and expression, to security, dignity and identity.
6.
Exclusion and macro-economic development strategy
A central aspect of the analysis of exclusion is the idea that It IS

embedded in the way societies function. Thus, differences in development
paths and in macro-economic and structural adjustment strategies, imply
equally varied patterns of social exclusion. Similar aggregate economic
growth records may lead to quite different patterns of income inequality,
quite different patterns of distribution of the benefits of growth. In this the
institutional arrangements which mediate between economic and social
development are crucial. They may include or exclude, limit gains to a few
sectors or groups or spread advantage widely. Institutionalists within the
regulation school, such as Robert Boyer [1994], show how a mutually
interdependent set of institutional mechanisms underlies any particular
growth path, generating the economic incentives for investment and
production at the same time as they provide the social underpinnings of
growth by setting the terms on which different groups participate in and
benefit from development. Such arrangements therefore determine the
pattern of both inclusions and exclusions.
An important application of this line of thinking is to the analysis of
the social costs of structural adjustment. The retreat of the State and the
restructuring of production systems to adapt to a more market- and
externally-oriented economy have generated new patterns of inclusion and
exclusion, notably in terms of access to social rights, to employment or to
the best jobs in the labour market. Analysing the pattern of exclusion as an
50
outcome of the interaction between economic and institutional mechanisms

may provide significant contributions to the design of adjustment strategies
which are more inclusionary than those in the recent past.
II. Special features of the approach

1.
A multi-dimensional, multi-disciplinary view
The notion of exclusion links together both social rights and material
deprivations. So it encompasses not only the lack of access to goods and
services which underlie poverty and basic needs satisfaction, but also
exclusion from security, from justice, from representation and from
citizenship. A central idea is that exclusion has much to do with inequality
in many dimensions - economic, social, political, cultural. This broad
framework not only helps to identify the most important mechanisms and
dimensions of exclusion, which vary from one situation to another, but also
provides the basis for an effective interdisciplinary approach.
While the different dimensions of exclusion interact they are not
necessarily congruent. In other words, individuals and groups may be
excluded in some ways and some senses and not in others. Labour in parts
of East Asia, for instance, has been described as economically included but
politically excluded. In many societies, citizenship has multiple dimensions
and individuals participate to differing degrees in these different dimensions. Another implication of the multidimensional approach is that
exclusions and inclusions may coincide, indeed may feed on one another.
For instance, premature labour market inclusion - child labour, for
instance - may be the basis for exclusion from acquisition of skills and
self-development. Forced economic inclusion of ethnic minorities may at
the same time imply their social exclusion.
2.
A focus on process
Social exclusion may describe a state, but its particular advantage, in

comparison with most work on poverty, for instance, is that it focuses
attention on process. It captures both situations of poverty and deprivation
and the mechanisms which lead to them. In this it is important to distinguish two quite different situations: one of permanent exclusion, in which
groups live on the margins of society; and one in which exclusion is
created and recreated by the operation of social and economic forces, so
that individuals move from vulnerability to dependence to marginality, or
groups are constantly restructured, subject to deliberate actions to maintain
H
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A HSOCIAL EXCLUSION APPROACH?
51
their dependency. The assets over which different individuals and groups
have claims determine their ability to resist exclusion - assets extending
beyond the economic to include the social, political and cultural.
This perspective is particularly important in understanding the links
between deprivation and development. Particular patterns of development
have exclusion built into them, in that economic growth is concentrated on
particular regions or groups, the gains are captured by national or
international elites, the need for cheap and docile labour leads to the suppression of rights, the restructuring of older systems of production and
exchange leads to the suppression of institutions for sharing and participation. To understand the persistence of poverty, an understanding of such
mechanisms of exclusion is likely to be fundamental.
3.
A focus on social actors and agents
There are processes which include and exclude, but there are also
social actors who both include and exclude. An important aspect of the
treatment of social exclusion is to identify these actors, and understand
how and why they exclude others. Social groups actively defend their
domains against outsiders. The State may play the role of umpire,
controlling the exclusion of one group by another, or ensuring that
different groups stay in their place and work together. But this positive
view of the State can be misleading, for State actions may also lead to the
exclusion from services and opportunities of those on whom it is not
dependent, or to the forcible inclusion of groups against their will indigenous groups forced into the market and unable to maintain traditional
land rights, or peasants forced into plantation wage labour by taxation or
coercion. Other important actors here are enterprises, the military, local
authorities, religious bodies and local elites. Enterprises create jobs and
incomes and so include some in new economic opportunities, but if their
search for competitiveness takes no account of social objectives, they may
actively exclude workers from social protection. Academics and international agencies are not innocent, for their work focuses attention and sets
priorities.
The same logic implies a stress on the role of the excluded in
promoting their own inclusion. Exclusion from effective participation is a
dimension of exclusion but, because of the importance of agency, it is also
a fulcrum around which other aspects of exclusion turn. Participation here
includes issues of organization and representation, political voice,
empowerment and more general participation in social interchange.
52
This perception of agency in exclusion has important implications for

the design of policy. Attention turns to the behaviour of the "excluders",
and how it may be controlled; and to the ways different groups may
organize to promote inclusion. A wide range of actors may be involved in
intervention to prevent or reverse exclusion; the State will be one, but not
the only one, and perhaps not dominant.
4.
An impact at many levels
Exclusion can be understood at several levels: nations, regions,

institutions, social groups, individuals, the world as a whole. The question
is not one of exclusion within countries alone, for it makes little sense to
consider exclusions within national boundaries without considering the
greater exclusions beyond them. This is particularly important when we
come to policy issues, for a purely national perspective on social exclusion
is liable to promote inclusion by either redrawing the mental boundaries
around the populations concerned - so that immigrants can be conveniently forgotten or regarded as responsible for their own exclusion or, in the case of many industrialized countries, by shifting the burdens of
exclusion onto populations beyond those boundaries. A transnational view
is needed.
Below the international level, exclusion may have a national, regional,
group or individual character. Regional exclusion may reflect lack of
integration of particular ethnic groups in society, or may reflect the inadequate social and economic infrastructure of areas which have insufficient
resources for participation in the mainstream of development and merely
constitute a labour reserve.
5.
The terms of inclusion
Implicit in most of the foregoing is the idea that inclusion is good, exclusion is bad. But there are many possible forms of 'integration. The
dominant economic models may be rejected by large groups, notably in
former colonial settler countries with substantial indigenous populations,
who are none the less coerced into inclusion. Inclusion in the labour
market is not necessarily to the advantage of groups who are forced out of
alternative sources of livelihood. There is a widespread trend for increasing
wage labour by women but on terms which are inferior to those of men.
Rural-urban migrants may become incorporated in a process of industrial
development but with little social protection and a loss of community
support networks.
WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT A uSOCIAL EXCLUSION
APPROACH?
53
The basic issue is the terms on which inclusion occurs. The notion of
exclusion is closely bound up with ideas of inclusion or integration. This
by no means simplifies the problem. Integration is as ambiguous as
exclusion, for there can be many degrees and facets of inclusion. Inclusion
, can be voluntary or forced, may involve rights or responsibilities at various
levels, above all means entirely different things in different types of
society. In other words, thinking about integration means conceptualizing
the nature of social relationships, the nature of the society in which
integration takes place. It is therefore important to consider how social
exclusion occurs and is interpreted in different models of society, as is
done by Silver (Ch. 3).
III. Operational value

Ideas are weapons and, like other weapons, their value lies in the use
to which they are put. An "exclusion" discourse is possible from many
political perspectives. It can be a call for radical restructuring of society,
but it can also be a way of rendering major social problems innocuous by
breaking them down, so that unemployment becomes not a problem for
society as a whole, but a problem for the underskilled, for the handicapped, for migrants and for other specific groups. It may be used to
support a return to traditional values of solidarity, just as it may be used
to promote the empowerment of groups which have suffered systematic
discrimination and deprivation.
But the danger that the notion of social exclusion may be captured by
particular ideologies or political groups should not distract attention from
its very real advantages for analysis and policy. Some of these advantages
have been suggested above. They include a direct focus on the processes
which lead to deprivation and disadvantage, rather than a simple
description of a problem; a focus on agents of exclusion and inclusion,
offering perspectives on the ways in which exclusion may be overcome;
and a broad framework which brings together economic, social and cultural
aspects of livelihood and rights. The analysis of exclusion points to the
linkage between deprivation and injustice on the one hand, and the waste
of resources on the other. It also promotes thinking about inequality, not
as an abstract, theoretical concept, but in terms of its practical implications
for people's lives.
Social exclusion has become a mainstream policy concern in the
countries of the North, in Europe at least. In the South, its relevance
remains to be established. If the problem is essentially one of widespread
54
absolute poverty associated with low productivity, then addressing the

problem of social exclusion is likely to be helpful only in so far as it helps
to solve the basic problems of the production system. But if the aim is to
create a broad-based process of development which is built upon participatory institutions and a general sharing of the benefits of development, the
analysis of social exclusion and how it may be overcome is likely to be
important. And beyond the design of policy at the national level, the global
problems of inequality in access to livelihoods and to markets are in large
measure problems of exclusion.
An important aspect of the approach through social exclusion is that
it helps to reconsider the role of the State. In liberal thinking, the
ineffectiveness and the negative externalities of active State social policies
are highlighted, and policies for economic growth are stressed, in the
expectation that growth will increase the welfare of the entire population.
The analysis of exclusion, however, shows that there exist mechanisms that
exclude- many groups from markets and from public goods and services,
limiting their access to the benefits of growth. To the withdrawal of the
State and reactive policy, we may oppose the possibility of effective
proactive social policy based on the understanding of exclusionary mechanisms. Actions on the labour market seem to be crucial, given the
socializing function of labour and its ability to provide social legitimacy
and social identity as well as income. Such policies require an active role
for the State. But, at the same time, the moral authority of the State is
bounded; it cannot effectively represent the interests of excluded groups
against other groups on which it depends, indeed acts itself as an excluder
in some domains. Excluded groups have to be able to formulate their own
needs and to integrate them in the process of policy definition. Institutions
are required which promote their effective representation and provide them
resources, autonomy and influence. One purpose of such institutions would
be to build consensus around a "social project" which would determine the
social policies to be implemented. Far from an administrative and centralized logic, the new social policies would rely on empowerment and
entitlement and assign a key role to civil society.
From the ILO perspective, and perhaps more generally from a
perspective which focuses on the relationships between exclusion and
poverty, the link between livelihood and rights is the core issue. Exclusions
from the labour market, from productive assets, from the capacity to work
productively and gain an adequate income are the issues around which
other exclusions are structured. And policies for integration in productive
and rewarding work, under socially desirable conditions, are likely to
constitute the most important elements in the fight against both social and
u
WHAT /S SPECIAL ABOUT A uSOC/AL EXCLUS/ON APPROACH?
55
economic exclusion and poverty. But such policies acquire value, indeed
become feasible, only if they are linked to the effective achievement and
exercise of rights - rights to security, to protection, to identity and full
citizenship.
Boyer, R. 1994. "Do labour institutions matter for economic development? A 'regulation'
approach for the OECD and Latin America, with an extension to Asia", in Rodgers,
G. (ed.): Workers, institutions and economic growth in Asia. Geneva, IILS.
Commission of the European Communities (CEC). 1993. Towards a Europe of solidarity:
Intensifying the fight against social exclusion, fostering integration. Brussels.
Guhan, S. 1994. "Social security options for developing countries", in International Labour
Review (Geneva, ILO), Vol. 133, No.1.
Mahathir bin Mohamad (Prime Minister of Malaysia). 1994. Vision of the future of social
justice: Essays on the occasion of the ILO's 75th anniversary. Geneva, International
Labour Office.
Marshall, T. H. 1973. Class, citizenship and social development. New York, Greenwood
Press.
Rodgers, G. 1994. Overcoming exclusion: Livelihood and rights in economic and social
development. Discussion Paper Series No. 72. Geneva, IILS.
Touraine, A. 1991. "Face
Paris, Edition Esprit.
a l'exclusion",
in Citoyennete et urbanite, ouvrage collectif.
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). 1994. Human development report. New
York, Oxford University Press.
Yepez, I. 1994. Review of the French and Belgian literature on social exclusion: A Latin
American perspective Discussion Paper Series No. 71. Geneva, IILS.
Reconceptualizing social
disadvantage: Three paradigms
of social exclusion
Hilary Silver'
All changes comingto a head at this time - technological, economic, demographic, political, ideological - affected the poor to a greater degree than any
other class and made their poverty more conspicuous, more controversial, and in
a sense less "natural" than it had ever been before... The changes affecting the
poor were changes in kind as well as degree, in quantity, in ideas, attitudes,
beliefs, perceptions, values. They were changes in what may called the "moral
imagination" (Himmelfarb [1984, pp. 18-19], referring to England circa 1760).
Since the mid-1970s, the advanced capitalist democracies have been
undergoing a process of profound economic restructuring. As a consequence, new social problems have emerged that appear to challenge the
assumptions underlying Western welfare states. While universal social
policies still insure against risks predictable from a shared life-cycle, career
pattern, and family structure, the standardization of the life course can no
longer be assumed. More and more people suffer insecurities, have become
dependent upon "residual" means-tested programmes, or are without social
protection altogether. In the European Community, 50 million people live
below the poverty line of one-half the national median income, and 16
million people, or 10.5 per cent of the workforce, are officially
unemployed. Over half the latter have been unemployed for over a year
[CEC, 1994].
How are we to understand these changes? A historical perspective
shows that earlier economic and social upheavals brought about a shift in
I This is an abbreviated, revised summary of Silver [1994] in which a complete list of

references can be found. The long version of the paper discusses the deep historical context
of recent French debates on social exclusion and also examines the application of the three
paradigms of social exclusion in studies of citizenship and national identity, race and ethnic
relations, and long-term unemployment.
58
the "moral imagination", and led to the introduction of new concepts. The
idea of "poverty" emerged in the Great Transformations associated with
industrialization in late-eighteenth century Britain. It was at this time that
"the poor" were first set apart from the rest of society. By the end of the
nineteenth century, those suffering from economic dislocations came to be
distinguished from undeserving "paupers" who rarely, if ever, worked,
lived on alms, and lacked direction and self-respect. The notion of
"unemployment" first emerged as a political issue in Britain in the 1880s.
It was "perceived as a problem distinct from poverty, caused by factors
other than moral failings, deserving of public sympathy and remedial
action by the state... Much attention was subsequently focused on the need
to separate the 'efficient' unemployed, who could and should be helped
into the labour market, from the 'unemployables' or 'inefficients' who
should be removed from it" [Burnett, 1994, pp. 145-148]. With the rise
of Anglo-American "social liberalism," rights to social insurance were
legitimated on the basis of contributions made during employment. Unlike
means-tested programmes, insurance implied an obligation of the ablebodied to work when economic conditions allowed. Pauperism was slowly
restricted to a small segment of the poor unable to work - the "Fourth
World", as Pere Wresinski called them [Paugam, 1993a]. Since the
"poverty" addressed by means-tested benefit programmes came to be
regarded as a residual problem, its meaning progressively narrowed to
denote an insufficiency of income.
Just as in the past, today's economic and social transformations are
giving rise to a shift in the "moral imagination" , new conceptions of social
disadvantage, and the introduction of new terminology into public debates.
In some countries, the new social problems have been taken as symptoms
of a growing "underclass". In other contexts, they imply the development
of a "new poverty". But, particularly in France, these social transformations are said to reflect "social exclusion".
The discourse of "exclusion" is rapidly diffusing. For example, in
1989, the Council and Ministers of Social Affairs of the European
Community passed a resolution to foster integration and a "Europe of
Solidarity" by fighting "social exclusion" [CEC, 1993; Room, 1991]. The
preamble to the European Community Charter of Fundamental Social
Rights also stated: "it is important to combat every form of social
exclusion and discrimination, including discrimination on the grounds of
race, color, and religion". The European Commission's White Paper,
Growth, competitiveness, employment, called for fighting exclusion and
"the poverty which so degrades men and women and splits society in two".
Today, Germany, Denmark, Portugal, Italy, and especially Belgium, as
THREE PARADIGMS OF SOCIAL EXCLUSION
59
well as France, have introduced new institutions to discuss or act on social

exclusion. Even United States President Bill Clinton took up the rhetoric
of exclusion in late 1993 when, speaking of inner city problems, he
remarked "It's not an underclass any more. It's an outer class".
This paper focuses on what precisely is meant by social exclusion, and
what implications the introduction of this new conceptualization of social
disadvantage might have for social policy.
I.
Defining exclusion: A strategy
The approach of this paper is not to set out a single unambiguous

definition of "social exclusion". Existing efforts to do this have only
shown that the term seems to be !oaded with numerous economic, social,
political and cultural connotations and dimensions. One European Community document, for example, conceded that "it is difficult to come up
with a simple definition" [CEC, 1993, p. 10]. An EC Poverty 3 Programme debate over the meaning of exclusion also "did not lead to firm
conclusions with respect to the concepts but highlighted some relevant
aspects". Trying to clarify the concepts underlying exclusion "without
sufficient precision as to their meaning" only resulted in "a reading of the
implicit indications that may be picked up", listed as the notion's "main
ingredients" [Andersen et aI., 1994]. Similarly, a recent review of
sociological theories of exclusion [Weinberg & Ruano-Borbalan, 1993]
concluded:
Observers in fact only agreeon a singlepoint: the impossibility to define the
status of "the excluded" by a single and unique criterion. Reading numerous enquiries and reports on exclusion reveals a profound confusion amongst experts.
Even the Commissariat General au Plan (CGP) in France, which is responsible for designing and evaluating policies to combat exclusion, has
recognized how difficult it is to define the term and to synthesize existing
theories. The CGP's Commission on Social Cohesion and the Prevention
of Exclusion concluded that:
Every attempt at typology is necessarily reductive, particularly when it
concerns populations which are either excluded or in the process of becoming
excluded. The factors causing exclusion - individual, familial, or socio-economic
- are multiple, fluctuating, interacting and finally often cumulative.
60
Despite attempts at official definition:

In the final analysis the notionof exclusion is saturated with meanings, nonmeanings, andcounter-meanings; finally onecanmake almost anything of theterm,
as it signifies the resentment of those who cannot obtain that which they claim
[Freund, in Xiberras, 1993, p. 11].
The term "social exclusion" is so evocative, ambiguous, multidimensional and expansive that it can be defined in many different ways. Yet the
difficulty of defining exclusion and the fact that it is interpreted differently
in different contexts at different times can be seen as a theoretical
opportunity. The discourse of exclusion may serve as a window through
which one may view political cultures. From this perspective, the multiple
meanings of the term are not problematical, but rather inherent to a
concept which is "essentially contested" , in the sense that its proper use
"inevitably involves endless disputes" [Gallie, 1956].
Rather than putting forward a single definition of exclusion, this paper
offers a way of understanding the disputes surrounding the term
"exclusion" and understanding its usage in different contexts. It does so by
tracing the history of the idea in France and decoding the multiple
meanings of the term in a variety of national contexts in advanced capitalist
democracies.
The argument of the paper can be briefly summarized as follows. The
multiple meanings of the term firstly reflect the range of empirical
referents of the idea of "exclusion". The concept is often conflated with
the new poverty and inequality, discrimination and the underclass; and it
is associated with a variety of terms like superfluity, irrelevance,
marginality, foreignness, alteriiy, closure, disaffiliation, dispossession,
deprivation and destitution. Moreover, the answer to the question
"exclusion from what?" can generate multiple responses. Virtually any
social distinction or affiliation will exclude somebody. In the United States,
for example, the term calls to mind "exclusionary" immigration policy,
"exclusionary" zoning, and "exclusionary" social clubs. Consider also just
a few of the things the literature says people may be excluded from: a
livelihood; secure, permanent employment; earnings; property, credit, or
land; housing; minimal or prevailing consumption levels; education, skills,
and cultural capital; the welfare state; citizenship and legal equality;
democratic participation; public goods; the nation or the dominant race;
family and sociability; humanity, respect, fulfilment and understanding.
But, more important than the multiple empirical referents of the term,
the uses and meanings of "social exclusion" are embedded in conflicting
social science paradigms and political ideologies. This is because at the
61
heart of the question "exclusion from what?" is a more basic one, the
"problem of social order" under conditions of profound social change. Just
as the great transformations of earlier centuries gave rise to the ideas of
poverty and unemployment, and also to the first social scientific accounts
of social order to address them, so does the notion of exclusion attempt to
address the issue of social inclusion under contemporary conditions of
rapid transformation. In this case, theories of "insertion," "integration,"
"citizenship," or "solidarity" provide a point of reference for understanding different meanings and usages of the term "social exclusion",
making it possible to identify different paradigmatic approaches to
exclusion.
On the basis of an analysis of the literature on exclusion in Western
Europe and the USA, the paper elaborates a threefold typology of the
multiple meanings of exclusion which are situated in different theoretical
perspectives, political ideologies, and national discourses. Founded on
different notions of social integration, I call these types the solidarity,
specialization, and monopoly paradigms. These paradigms "specify not
only what sorts of entities the universe does contain but also, by
implication, those that it does not" [Kuhn, 1970, p. 7]. In effect, they are
ontologies that render reality comprehensible and mingle elements of what
"is" and what "ought to be". Moreover, when different paradigms are
adopted, practitioners speak from "incommensurable viewpoints" and use
the same language to mean different things.
Each of the three paradigms attributes exclusion to a different cause,
and is grounded in a different political philosophy: republicanism,
liberalism, and social democracy (Table 1). Each provides an explanation
of multiple forms of social disadvantage - economic, social, political, and
cultural - and thus encompasses theories of citizenship and racial-ethnic
inequality as well as poverty and long-term unemployment. All three paradigms are cast in relief when contrasted with conservative notions that see
social integration in organic, racial, or corporatist terms and with neoMarxist conceptions of the capitalist social order which deny the possibility
of social integration to begin with.
Identifying these paradigms is not simply an academic exercise. Specifying what exclusion means necessarily entails the adoption of particular
values and world views. Prior to recasting "social exclusion" as a general
phenomenon or a scientific concept transcending national and political
contexts, the values underlying its usage should be made explicit. This
serves to clarify the implicit objectives of any policies introduced to
combat exclusion.
IRl
Table 1: Three paradigms of social exclusion

Solidarity
Specialization
Monopoly
Conception
of integration
Group solidarity/
Cultural boundaries
Specialization/
Separate spheres/
Interdependence
Monopoly/
Social closure
Source of integration
Moral integration
Exchange
Citizenship rights
Ideology
Republicanism
Liberalism
Social democracy
Discourse
Exclusion
Discrimination
Underclass
New poverty, Inequality,

Underclass
Seminal thinkers
Rousseau,
Durkheim
Locke, Madison,
utilitarians
Marx, Weber,
Marshall
CIl
Q
()
Exemplars
Model of the new

political economy
de Foucauld
Xiberras
Stoleru, Lenoir,
Shklar
Dahrendorf, Room,
Townsend
Schnapper
Costa-Lascoux
Allport, Pluralism,
Chicago School
Balibar, Silverman
Douglas, Mead
Murray
Gobelot, Bourdieu
Skills
Work disincentives
Networks
Social capital
Labour market segmentation
.Flexible production
Regulation School
sr-
f:!
c:::
I!l
Q
:?
~
~
~
t::
~
~
fil
II.
63
The history of "exclusion" discourse in France
The identification of the paradigms of exclusion can appropriately

begin with the history of exclusion discourse in France. The term has
become a keyword in French discourse on poverty and inequality, and is
providing the impetus for new social policies. Some now deem exclusion
to be "the principal challenge confronting French society" (Esprit, 1991,
p.6).
Exclusion discourse began to appear in France during the 1960s.
Politicians, activists, officials, journalists and academics made vague and
ideological references to the poor as "the excluded". However, the coining
of the term is generally attributed to Rene Lenoir, who, in 1974 (when he
was Secretaire d'Etat a I'Action Sociale in the Gaullist Chirac government), estimated that "the excluded" made up one-tenth of the French
population: mentally and physically handicapped, suicidal people, aged
invalids, abused children, substance abusers, delinquents, single parents,
multi-problem households, marginal, asocial persons, and other social
"misfits". All were social categories unprotected under social insurance
principles at that time.' During the 1970s, the French Left also began to
distinguish between objective and subjective exclusion. The latter, drawing
upon Sartre's existentialism and the participatory ideology of Catholic
social action, referred to alienation and the loss of personal autonomy
under advanced capitalism. In stressing subjective exclusion, discourse
moved away from political expressions of class conflict towards the
struggles of mass urban and social movements. Exclusion meant being
treated as an object, a condition which could apply to virtually any
individual or group.
Exclusion discourse became widespread in the 1980s. As successive
social and political crises erupted in France, "exclusion" came to refer to
more and more types of social disadvantage. In the early 1980s, the use of
the term "insertion" in political discourse shifted from a focus on the
handicapped to youth leaving school without adequate skills to obtain ajob.
By the mid-1980s, both the Right and the communist opposition blamed the
socialist government for rising unemployment and what was being called
the "new poverty". In symbolic politics, the power to name a social
problem has vast implications for the policies considered suitable to
2 Since the mid-1970s, the government has introduced numerous policies explicitly
designed to combat exclusion of this sort, so that today single mothers and the handicapped,
for example, tend to fall outside the purview of commissions of integration and exclusion
rhetoric.
64
address it. Thus, in response to the opposition's emphasis on the new

poverty and inequality, the socialist government spoke of "exclusion. " The
term referred not only to the rise in long-term and recurrent unemployment, but also to the growing instability of social relations: family
instability, single member households, social isolation, and the decline of
class solidarity based on unions, the labour market, and the working class
neighbourhood and social networks. It encompassed not only material but
spiritual and symbolic aspects. In sum, exclusion became a new way to
describe the difficulty of establishing solidarities between individuals and
groups and the larger society.
The prototypical definitions of "social exclusion" can be found in the
publications of the Commissariat General au Plan (CGP) which has recognized the State's responsibility to nourish "social cohesion". For example,
the current Commissaire au Plan, Jean-Baptiste de Foucauld, argues that
preventing exclusion requires a different conception of social justice than
the oneunderlying the post-war social compromise which simply insured
the population against predictable risks [Foucauld, 1992a; b]. The welfare
state must bind itself to the ethical and cultural values that make citizenship
live not only in the form of rights, but as a particular relation to the other.
A more personalized, participatory welfare state should rest on new principles of social cohesion, insertion, sharing and integration [Nasse, 1992].
In another CGP account, exclusion is a metaphor for the social polyphony
of post-modern society, a lack of communication or mutual incomprehension of individuals and groups, preventing them from negotiating on
common recognition and belonging. The long review of the sociological
literature upon which this diagnosis was based [Xiberras, 1993] itself
defined exclusion as a progressive rupture of the social and symbolic bonds
- economic, institutional, and meaningful - that normally attach each
individual to the society. This rupture is seen to entail a risk for each individual in terms of material and symbolic exchange with the larger society
and also, adopting Durkheimian rhetoric, a threat to society as a whole in
terms of loss of collective values and destruction of the social fabric.
Within this viewpoint, insertion and integration are seen as the
appropriate responses to exclusion. This is reflected in the names of a wide
variety of new social programmes introduced in France during the 1980s.
For example, those who advocated the revenu minimum d'insertion (RMI)
adopted the Republican rhetoric of "solidarity", "cohesion", "social ties"
and, in a Rousseauian sense, a "new social contract". The discourse was
so compelling that, by the 1988 presidential campaign, the electoral
programmes of both the Right and the Left included a minimum income
proposal to promote insertion.
\
65
New political crises continued to expand the meanings of exclusion

and insertion. The rise of the Front National set off a debate over
immigration law. The Front National's claims that North African and
Moslem immigrants were "unassimilable" provoked the formation of new
anti-racist and ethnic movements like SOS-racism and France Plus which
mobilized mass anti-racist demonstrations. Some argued that the Jacobin
State was too strong and inflexible to recognize the legitimate solidarities
of ethnic groups. One began to hear about a racism d'exclusion which
provided a rubric under which the anti-racist movement could criticize all
kinds of "exclusion" - national, ethnic, cultural, religious, linguistic, sex,
social status, and physical appearance. Finally, exclusion encompassed the
issue of the banlieues (suburban housing estates).
The inter-related rhetoric of immigrant integration, youth problems,
and economic exclusion was spatially fixed after a series of violent
incidents in suburban housing estates, starting in Les Minguettes in 1981
and peaking in Vaulx-en-Velin, Sartrouville, and Mantes-la-Jolie in 1991.
Increasingly, residents of the banlieues were described as the excluded.
Through ongoing State decentralization and reform of social and housing
services, juvenile delinquency policies, the Developpement social des
quartiers (DSQ) programme, and the 1991 creation of a full-fledged
Ministere de la Ville, the State sought to combat "urban exclusion" . Again,
programmes were couched in Republican terminology: prets locatifs aides
d'insertion.fonds desolidariie logement, and programme developpementsolidarite", to name but a few.
Much of the rhetoric of exclusion in France is embedded in French
Republican thought. But there is a stream of literature which has a social
democratic perspective. This school of thought sees the main problems of
the banlieues as economic exclusion, aggravated by spatial, generational,
and political exclusion. In general, for these interpretations, the real
problem is not race and ethnicity, but social exploitation in an era when
class-based movements and organizations have decisively weakened.
III. Three paradigms: An introduction

Given the embeddedness of the concept of social exclusion in French
political rhetoric, and the varied usages of the term even in that single
national context, one might rightly wonder whether it is possible to recast
"social exclusion" as a general phenomenon or as a scientific concept
transcending national and political contexts. The term does not refer just
66
to poverty or inequality or unemployment or citizenship, but also to social

status, identity and isolation. Its meaning keeps expanding and yet it is
contextually and ideologically embedded. How can social exclusion become
an object of social scientific research when it is a value-laden moving
target?
This paper clarifies the different meanings and values attached to the
term through identifying the major paradigmatic approaches to exclusion,
namely "solidarity", "specialization" and "monopoly". These approaches
permeate the existing literature on exclusion in Western Europe and North
America. National exclusion discourse in France centres on the debate
between republicanism and social democracy and hence between the
solidarity and monopoly paradigms, though the former is dominant. In
Britain the debate is between social democracy and liberalism (the
specialization paradigm) while, in the USA, discourse and debate on social
exclusion tends to take place within liberal ideological assumptions.
1.
Solidarity
In French Republican thought, exclusion is the rupture of a social

bond (lien social) between the individual and society, referred to as social
solidarity. Adumbrated by Rousseau and exemplified by Durkheimian
sociology, the "social" order is conceived as external, moral and normative, rather than grounded in individual, group or class interests. A
national consensus, collective conscience, or general will ties the individual
to the larger society through vertically inter-related mediating institutions.
The traditional moral discourse of "social solidarity" rejects Christian
charity, liberal individualism, socialist class conflict and strictly political
citizenship as sufficient bases of social integration. Rather, it offers a
"third way" to reconcile individual rights with State responsibility.
Solidarity is less organic than humanist in its reconciliation of social
interdependence and the feeling of belonging to the collectivity with the
demand for individual fulfilment. In republican ethics, individual citizens
are less bearers of rights than participants in a communal "civility", a
public life of fraternity. Such moral unity and equality requires
incorporating mediating institutions that might compete with the State for
citizens' loyalty. The Jacobin State - strong, unitary, centralized,
egalitarian, universalist and secular - actively assimilated regional,
national, and religious cultures into a single, distinctive conception of
citizenship and national civilization. Rather than accepting cultural and
political pluralism, separate interests and memberships are reconciled and
synthesized into a unitary whole.
67
Thus, the solidarity approach lays heavy emphasis on the ways in

which cultural or moral boundaries between groups socially construct
dualistic categories for ordering the world. Exclusion, like deviance or
anomie, both threatens and reinforces social cohesion. The inverse of
exclusion is thus "integration" and the process of attaining it, "insertion". 3
In a Durkheimian sense, this implies assimilation to the dominant culture.
But most recent usages are "post-modernist" in that they incorporate multicultural or cultural pluralist notions about the reconfiguration of the basis
of solidarity as the dominant culture adjusts to minority culture.
This paradigm draws heavily on anthropology, sociology,
ethnography, and cultural studies more generally. It focusses attention on
the exclusion inherent in the solidarity of nation, race, ethnicity, locality
and other cultural or primordial ties that delimit group boundaries. Yet
applications go beyond analyses of Republican citizenship, ethnic conflicts,
and deviance to discussions of cultures of poverty and long-term
unemployment and of trends toward "flexible specialization" in political
economy.
2.
Specialization
In Anglo-American liberalism, exclusion is considered a consequence

of specialization: social differentiation, economic division of labour, and
the separation of spheres. It assumes that individuals differ, giving rise to
specialization in the market and among social groups. It is thus individualist in method, although causation is situated not simply in individual
preference but also in the structures created by cooperating and competing
individuals - markets, associations and the like. It thus conceives of the
social order, like the economy and politics, as networks of voluntary
exchanges between autonomous individuals with their own interests and
motivations.
Specialized social structures are comprised of separate, competing, but
not necessarily unequal spheres which become interdependent through
exchange. Social groups are voluntarily constituted by their members, and
shifting alliances among them reflect differentiated interests and desires.
Liberal models of citizenship emphasize the contractual exchange of rights
3 Nasse [1992] maintains that liberal individualist conceptions of society use insertion
to mean making room beside others or placing side by side, while Durkheimian cultural and
normative conceptions use the term integration to mean assimilation. However, a content
analysis of ten years of the French press found that the term integration was used
synonymously with insertion and adaptation with little reference to who was being
integrated to what [see Barou, 1993]. Insertion also has multiple meanings.
68
and obligations and the separation of spheres of social life. Thus, exclusion
results from inadequate separation of social spheres, the application of
rules inappropriate to a given sphere, or barriers to free movement and
exchange across spheres.
Because of the existence of separate social spheres, exclusion may
have multiple causes and dimensions. The same individual may not be
excluded in every sphere. Nor are social spheres and categories necessarily
ordered hierarchically in terms of resources or value. Specialization
protects liberties and may be efficient, as long as "excluded" individuals
have the right to move across boundaries. Individual freedom of choice
based on diverse personal values and psychological motives for engaging
in social relations should give rise to cross-cutting group affiliations and
loyalties, integrating the society. To the extent that group boundaries
impede individual freedom to participate in social exchanges, exclusion is
a form of "discrimination". However, the liberal State's protection of
individual rights as well as group and market competition impede this form
of exclusion.
In social science, liberal individualism is often reflected in
methodological individualism which treats group memberships as individual
attributes. It underlies neo-classical economics, theories of political pluralism, rational and public choice theories, and "mainstream" sociology. It
encompasses two streams of thought: libertarian or "neo-liberalism", and
"social" or "communitarian" liberalism.
3.
Monopoly
Finally, the third paradigm, "influential among the European left, sees
exclusion as a consequence of the formation of group monopoly. Drawing
heavily on Weber and, to a lesser extent, Marx, it views the social order
as coercive, imposed through a set of hierarchical power relations. In this
social democratic or conflict theory, exclusion entails the interplay of class,
status and political power and serves the interests of the included.
This paradigm's fullest expression descends from the work of Max
Weber. It treats group boundaries - "status" - as a source of domination
potentially independent of social class. Orthodox Marxism privileges class
solidarity and denies the potential for true social integration in class-based
societies. It aspires to universalism. In contrast, this paradigm assumes that
the unequal power underlying more general group monopolies can be mitigated with inclusive "social democratic" citizenship, especially as defined
by T. H. Marshall.
69
Weber's theory of status groups assumes that social action is

motivated by "material and ideal interests," by structure and culture,
constraint and autonomy. Status groups are a manifestation of power
relations; they claim social honour and esteem, and have their own
consciousness, consumption patterns, and style of life. Material, legal or
other forms of monopoly maintain the status group's exclusivity. Social
classes may be status groups to the extent that they can exclude non-owners
from competing for valuable resources. However, there is nothing necessary about this process. Indeed, one of Weber's most influential theses is
that, if the social closure of status groups creates monopoly and thus
inequality, it does not follow that social classes are always status groups.
Those who do not have to exchange in markets have power over the
terms of exchange, i.e, a monopoly. Weber used the term "closure" to
refer to a process of subordination whereby one group monopolizes
advantages by closing off opportunities to outsiders whom it defines as
inferior or ineligible. Any convenient, visible characteristic, such as race,
language, social origin, religion, or lack of a particular school diploma,
can be used to declare competitors to be outsiders. By restricting access to
opportunities and resources, closure allows collectivities to maximize
rewards. The group of insiders share a common culture and identity and
hence, norms legitimating exclusion.
Weber also recognized that such social closure may cause the excluded
to react and resist exclusion. When excluded groups successfully usurp ingroup privileges, however, they may redraw boundaries in such a way as
to exclude groups even less powerful than themselves, in a process Parkin
[1974] calls "dual closure". Indeed, this monopoly paradigm does not
assume that a society - however open - can include everyone and everything.
Social "closure" is achieved when institutions and cultural distinctions
not only create boundaries that keep others out against their will, but are
also used to perpetuate inequality. Those within bounded social entities
enjoy a monopoly over scarce resources. The monopoly creates a bond of
common interest among otherwise unequal insiders. The excluded are
therefore outsiders and dominated at the same time.
The particular boundaries of exclusion may be drawn within or
between nation States, localities, firms, or social groups. Processes of
social closure are also evident in labour market segmentation. Whatever the
nature of the boundary, the overlap or coincidence of group distinctions
and inequality is at the heart of the problematic of this paradigm. As
Gobelot argued, "every social demarcation is at once a barrier and a level"
[Gobelot, 1925/1967]. Paradoxically, every level distinguishes and every
70
distinction levels. The very barrier that demarcates class distinction,

however exaggerated and imaginary, also creates equality within class
boundaries.
IV. Three paradigms: Some clarifications

Several remarks about these paradigms are in order. First, they are,
of course, ideal types. In reality, different societies and cultures define
belonging in different ways. Moreover, at different times, national debates
emphasize some aspects of exclusion and not others:
Sometimes the emphasis is on migration and refugees (e.g. Belgium,
Germany), sometimes on long-term or extremely long-term unemployment and
exclusion from the labour market (e.g. Denmark, France, Netherlands); or on the
problem. of low income (Portugal). Discussion is sometimes directly linked to
specific policy-making, as is the case with the minimum income (France, Spain)
or can be part of more general consideration of the functions of the welfare state
(United Kingdom: Citizens' Charter) or discouraging the passivity engendered by
certain forms of social protection (Denmark, Netherlands, United Kingdom). It is
sometimes fuelled by association or media campaigns focusing on particularly
visible problems or those which in any case catch the public's attention, such as
the homeless (UK, France), drugs (Italy), child labour (Portugal), and inner city
crisis (France) [CEC, 1993, p. 32].
Although recognizing the cultural embeddedness of the concept of

exclusion makes the development of legitimate cross-national indicators
more difficult than measuring poverty or unemployment, the paradigms
illuminate the reasons behind the contested and selective meanings of the
term. Choosing one definition means accepting the theoretical and ideological "baggage" associated with it.
Second, as is appropriate for a social scientific analysis, each paradigm conceives of exclusion as a social relationship between the included
and the excluded. That relationship may certainly be conceived as social
action, as the activity of excluding, and thereby, calls attention to the
actors responsible. But does exclusion refer only to a change in the
condition of those who are at one time integrated, or can it refer to the
constant condition of excluded people who want to be included? To the
extent that exclusion is viewed as a process, analysts should specify its
beginning as well as its end. Similarly, the extent to which differences
produce exclusion depends on such issues as the permeability of boundaries, the extent to which membership is freely chosen, and whether social
71
distinctions have any social benefits. Indeed, some marginal or deviant

individuals may not even want to be included. Rather than define these
issues away, they should be explored.
Third, exclusion can be viewed macro-sociologically or microsociologically. Weinberg and Ruano-Borbalan [1993] distinguish between
macro and micro causes in contrasting exclusion from "above" and
"below". "Top-down" perspectives view exclusion as an employment
crisis, or a crisis of ineffective social and immigration policies, or as a
crisis of integrative social institutions of the nation more generally. In
contrast, local and communitarian "grass-roots" perspectives cast exclusion
as a crisis of community solidarity and social regulation. Both macro- and
micro-sociological trends may contribute to the process of exclusion.
Fourth, the distinctions among paradigms should not be confused with
institutional classifications, like welfare state typologies. Institutions are
historical accretions that bear the imprint of past conflicts between
ideologies and paradigms. To say, for example, that the French Republic
institutionalized Republican ideas implies that, during a particular period
of institution-building, a popular coalition was formed around a particular
ideological consensus. However, other coalitions contested these ideas and,
to the extent that they, too, had influence, the law, the welfare state, and
other social institutions embed opponents' ideas as well.
Fifth, all three paradigms must be distinguished from organic
approaches to social integration. Like those paradigms, organic models are
empirical, normative, and methodological; they describe social reality, provide conceptions of what a good society should be, and offer a selective
strategy of analysis. Organic models can thus be seen as a further paradigm, or family of paradigms, for analizing social exclusion. However, the
solidarity, specialization, and monopoly paradigms of social integration fall
within the spectrum of mainstream sociological thought which attributes
greater scope and autonomy to civil society relative to the State and market
than do other paradigms. Indeed, the discipline of sociology and its central
concern with integration arose to provide an alternative explanation of the
social changes brought about by the democratic and industrial revolutions
than those offered by utilitarian liberalism and socialism, as well as
reactionary thought.
However, where democracy and industrialization came late, as in
Germany, Italy, Iberia, and many less developed countries, other conceptions of social integration took hold. In some places, traditional
conservative, preindustrial, and corporatist notions of integration
degenerated into justifications for authoritarianism and fascism. In contrast,
Christian democracy and "societal" corporatism, particularly in the
72
postwar era, tempered organicist thought with a recognition of individual

rights and tolerance of ideological and religious rivals. Indeed, some
analysts classify France in this category, eliding Republican ideology with
Christian Democratic or neo-corporatist thought (see, for example, EspingAndersen [1990]).4 Finally, some "plural societies" developed a form of
stable consociational democracy in which elites compromise and check one
another's power on behalf of distinct social segments. These alternative
notions of social integration took hold in both European and Third World
contexts.
What most distinguishes organic approaches is less their politically
conservative or centrist tendencies than their concern to construct a social
order based on groups, be they functional, regional, or primordially based.
As mentioned, within this broad range of thought there are three streams:
Christian Democratic (societal or neo-corporatist); State corporatist; and
consociational. Although they differ in the emphasis they accord to individual rights and group autonomy, all reject extreme individualism and
collectivism. Rather, they reflect the principles of "community" and
"subsidiarity" .
Unlike liberalism, Christian Democracy is "personalist" rather than
individualist and, unlike socialism, it is "pluralist" rather than collectivist.
Similarly, consociationalism, by checking the power of majorities,
guarantees groups the autonomy to run their internal affairs within nation
States. And corporatism, or organic-statism to use Stepan's [1978]
terminology, rests upon official State recognition or "chartering" of
mediating associations which are thus centrally coordinated and controlled
for the public good, unlike their free, competitive, interest-based operation
in liberal pluralism or their suppression under command socialism.
Christian principles of social integration provide a distinctive
perspective on the issue of exclusion. On the one hand, the State has the
responsibility to ensure personal development and thus, social, political,
and civil rights for all. On the other hand, the inequality inherent in
4 In the comparative politics literature, France is usually portrayed as an ideologically

and religiously divided polity, lacking the political consensus of the Anglo-American
democracies. Based upon its history of reaction and fascist collaboration and its fragmented
party and union structures, many assume that the State suffers from democratic
immobilism. Based upon the electorate's lack of party loyalty and periodic rebellions
against central authority, it is concluded that representatives are not accountable and
unresponsive. However, most of these generalizations are based on politics prior to the
Fifth Republic and neglect the rise of a "political class," the increasing importance of the
central bureaucracy, and expansion of the welfare state.
73
horizonal pluralism - "sovereignty in one's own circle" - is also justified. Thus, if the pre-capitalist "corporatist-statist legacy" - feudal
paternalism, patronage, and clientelism; corporativism of cities, guilds, and
friendly societies; and Bismarckian statism - justified the earliest welfare
states, it also shaped the tendency of Christian Democratic social policies
to preserve differentials between social classes, occupations, and status
groups as well as support the traditional family [Esping-Andersen, 1990].
Thus, this viewpoint recognizes the social exclusion of those not
organically integrated into the various smaller, autonomous units of society
that make up the greater whole - families, communities, classes, nation
States, and so on - but is less cognizant of gender and economic
inequality as individual expressions of exclusion.
In contrast, Roman law recognized no individual freedom of association. The only legal organizations were those officially recognized by the
State on the basis of lex specialis, or "privilege" [Stepan, 1978, p. 38]. In
this view, the State may legitimately shape the structure of civil society so
that functional parts are integrated into an 'organic whole. In return for a
corporate charter, associations also have an obligation to the State to
perform a public service. In this, organic-statism differs from
republicanism. Indeed, in the second preface to The division of labour in
society, Durkheim rejected State corporatism because controls on worker
and other associations made them part of the official administration,
restricted meaningful participation, and precluded moral, rather than
coerced integration.
Several weaknesses of organic-statist integration produce what might
be called "social exclusion." First, the model provides no clear justifications for recognizing some groups rather than others. For example, the
model privileges or "over-franchises" functional groups relative to groups
based on primordial, e.g. ethnic, religious, regional, or linguistic
identities, which are thus excluded. Second, it is unclear why vertical
functional associations, with elite representatives, are privileged over
horizontal, decentralized, participatory and membership organizations, like
movements and community groups. The latter can be viewed as excluded.
Third, if functional groups are indeed granted autonomy, there is little to
prevent some groups - particularly those with initial power - from
gaining control over others, undermining the presumption of organic
harmony. Thus, inequality in civil society can also produce social
exclusion. Finally, while the State's concern with the integration of the
parts of society can lead to top-down control of functional groupings,
undermining their autonomy, dependent States cannot integrate multinational capital within national corporatist structures. This "excludes"
74
workers in the export sector from bargaining rights. These definitions of

exclusion differ markedly from the three perspectives under discussion.
Sixth, the solidarity, specialization, and monopoly paradigms address
more than one dimension or aspect of exclusion - economic, sociological
and interactional, cultural and political - and thus cut across the social
sciences. This interdisciplinary approach differs from prior classifications
of theories of exclusion which focus on conditions in one country, usually
France, or on one discipline, especially sociology. Although each paradigm
includes theories drawn from economics, political science, and anthropology, I, too, stress sociological theories because the concepts of exclusion
and integration are central to that discipline.
Seventh, even when empirical studies define social exclusion in
"global" terms, research tends to be more "sectoral". By focusing on a
specific population identified as being "at risk" of exclusion, studies often
draw on more than one paradigm. The research literature on exclusion
includes' studies of the following specific social categories:
(a) the long-term or recurrently unemployed;
(b) those employed in precarious and unskilled jobs, especially older
workers, or those unprotected by labour regulations;

(c)
the low-paid and the poor;
(d) the landless;

(e)
the unskilled, illiterate, and school dropouts;
(f)
the mentally and physically-handicapped and disabled;
(g) substance abusers;

(h) delinquents, prison inmates and those with criminal records;
(i)
single parents;
(j)
abused children, those who grew up in problem households or were

abused;
(k) youth, especially with no work experience or diploma;

(I)
child labourers;
(m) women;
(n) foreigners, refugees and immigrants;

(0) racial, religious, linguistic and ethnic minorities;
75
(P) the politically disenfranchised;

(q)
recipients of social assistance;
(r)
those needing, but ineligible for, social assistance;
(s)
residents of deteriorated housing or disreputable neighbourhoods;
(t)
those with consumption levels below subsistence (the hungry, the

homeless, the Fourth World);
(u) those whose consumption, leisure, or other practices (drug or alcohol
abuse, delinquency, dress, speech, mannerisms) are stigmatized or

labelled as deviant;
(v)
the downwardly mobile;
(w) the socially isolated without friends o~ family.
These absolute and relative social disadvantages may be inter-related.

Indeed, the extent to which these dimensions overlap is a frequent subject
of research on exclusion [Wuhl, 1992]. Some find very weak correlations
among the types of exclusion. But others conceive of exclusion as the
accumulation of such disadvantages, as the last stage in a process of social
disqualification [paugam, 1993b]. For example, those born into particular
groups, with a particular upbringing, education, family or work history
may in a sense be doubly or triply excluded. However, the disproportionate representation among the "excluded" of people with these social
characteristics does not imply that these characteristics determine whether
any given individual is excluded. One needs to examine the incidence of
these attributes in the included population as well. Some individuals with
such characteristics do make their way into secure, well-paid employment,
stable families, political participation and so on. Depending on turnover,
there need be no "hard-core" group of excluded people or families trapped
in a "vicious cycle".
v. Conclusion: Exclusion, politics and social policy

In this chapter, I have presented three major paradigms of exclusion,
each grounded in a different conception of integration and citizenship. In
the solidarity paradigm dominant in France, exclusion is the rupture of a
social bond between the individual and society that is cultural and moral,
rather than interested in orientation. Cultural boundaries give rise to
socially constructed dualistic categories for ordering the world, defining the
76
poor, unemployed and ethnic minorities as deviant outsiders. However,

Republican citizenship, by wedding national solidarity to political rights
and duties, imposes an obligation on the State to aid in the insertion of the
excluded. By posing as a "third way" between liberalism and socialism,
the Republican notion of solidarity weds economic to social concerns.
Similar emphases can be found in new schools of political economy
stressing normative regulation.
In the specialization paradigm, exclusion reflects discrimination.
Social differentiation, economic divisions of labour, and the separation of
spheres should not produce hierarchically ordered social categories if
"excluded" individuals are free to move across boundaries and if spheres
of social life governed by different principles are kept legally separate.
Cultural pluralism, like political pluralism, rests upon voluntary membership and group competition. Liberal models of citizenship emphasize the
contractual exchange of individual rights and obligations and the tensions
between the sphere of civil society based on liberty and the public sphere
based on equality and democracy. Liberal assumptions are embedded in
micro-sociology, with its emphasis on small groups, and in neo-classical
economics and other social sciences characterized by methodological
individualism.
Finally, the third paradigm sees exclusion as a consequence of the
formation of group monopolies. Powerful groups, often with distinctive
cultural identities and institutions, restrict the access of outsiders to valued
resources through a process of "social closure." The same process is
evident in labour market and enterprise segmentation which draws boundaries of exclusion between and within firms. At the heart of this paradigm
is the necessary overlap of group distinctions and inequality, "the barrier
and the level", to adopt Gobelot' s terminology. Inequality is mitigated by
social democratic citizenship which, in T.H. Marshall's formulation,
entails full participation in the community.
In whatever way they are conceived, the empirical manifestations of
rising exclusion in the advanced countries call into question the adequacy
of existing welfare state arrangements. Means-tested categorical
programmes designed to serve small constituencies are growing rapidly.
For more and more people, the assumption underlying post-war social
insurance programmes of a uniform life-cycle, career pattern, and family
structure no longer applies. The growing types of social disadvantage
appear to be "new." Demands to address these newly identified social
problems have increased as well.
Moreover, once-quiescent beneficiaries are politicizing under the
banner of "demographic identities", forming non-profit groups, and
77
pressuring local governments in areas where they are concentrated.

Concerned less with transfers than with unpopular and residual social
services (e.g. drug rehabilitation, assistance for refugees or immigrants,
urban programmes), this "politics of consumption" introduces distributive
conflicts not only between productive and unproductive citizens, but
between cultural groups as well. The demand for differentiated services
tailored to socially marginal groups also challenges the principle of
universalism that once legitimated the post-war welfare states.This crisis
in social policy requires a rethinking of the notions of "citizenship" and
"solidarity. "
While the manifestations of "exclusion" have led to new social policy
approaches, especially in France, any large-scale recasting of welfare state
institutions will require a broad political consensus. It is useful to recall
that the initial establishment of national welfare states was a process of
"institutional searching" for political compromise. To achieve such compromise, it was necessary to formulate political ideas that blended preexisting nation-specific norms and practices. As the paradigms illustrate,
such ideas are still reflected in existing welfare state institutions. Today,
as new social problems call for major social policy reforms, the importance
of new ideas to forge political consensus would appear to be just as
important. Does the notion of exclusion offer a new formula to achieve the
political compromises necessary to meet these challenges?
As I have indicated, fighting "exclusion" means different things to
different people. But only at the extremes of the political spectrum is one
likely to find those who are in favor of exclusion. Given the multiple
connotations of the term, it might provide a political opportunity to cement
a broad-based alliance in favour of new social policies. For example, the
importance that French observers attach to distinguishing "exclusion" from
other terms denoting social disadvantage suggests that the concept does
have political significance. By defining exclusion as a thoroughly new,
multidimensional problem touching those at all levels of the social
hierarchy in some respects or at some point in their lives, it may become
easier to build large, cross-class coalitions to combat it. Most people have
suffered from some kind of rejection or misery in their lives, and apprehension about it has become widespread. As the connotations of exclusion
expand to encompass the dashing of extravagant aspirations, "each individual will finally consider him- or herself as an excluded person"
[Xiberras, 1993].
For example, a widely-reported December 1993 survey by CSA/La
Rue, a newspaper sold by the homeless, found that 55 per cent of French
adults and 69 per cent of 18-24-year-old youth fear they themselves will
78
become "excluded" and three-quarters worried that one of those close to

them would be [Andre, 1994]. That feeling of vulnerability is not confined
to France. The Families and Work Institute found that 42 per cent of
American workers report their companies are reducing their workforces
temporarily or permanently [Gans, 1993]. That near majorities perceive a
clear threat of exclusion - in the broad sense of a loss of social status may account for the term's wide appeal and its increasingly broad
application.
Exclusionary discourse also mobilizes opposition. Examples are the
outrage provoked by Jean-Marie Le Pen and by the Paris mayor and
former Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, who set off a furore after expressing
sympathy for the French working-class family who must put up with the
"noise and smell" of living next door to an immigrant with three or four
wives and 20 children and who receives 50,000 FF a month in social
assistance without working.
However, whether public apprehension and indignation will be
sufficient to mobilize strong political support for new social policies
remains to be seen. For example, during the March 1994 demonstrations
against the second minimum wage for those under 25 years old, students
debated whether to focus on what a CGC union member called the
"Kleenex youth, which one utilizes and throws away", or to extend their
goals to fighting the Pasqua immigration laws and to demanding youth
programmes for the unskilled. If the common fear of exclusion may
cement an alliance among those differentially placed in the social
hierarchy, it may not be enough to overcome other social cleavages.
Indeed, to the extent that. exclusion is understood in the liberal,
individualistic terms of the specialization paradigm, it may become a
euphemism for stigmatized, isolated, or scapegoated groups. Its meaning
may narrow to those with multiple disadvantages. From a monopoly
perspective, the university student protests against declining employment
prospects may simply reflect a defence of their traditional prerogatives and
a demand for protection from increasing competition. Terms like
exclusion, the new poor, or the underclass - by identifying the victims of
economic restructuring and the end of full employment - may even justify
majority resistance to redistributive taxation and expenditures [Room,
1990]. Targeted social policies will then entail no sacrifice by the
privileged, and dualism will be reinforced.
Thus, while the idea of exclusion could be useful to reformers who
want to point to the inadequacies of current welfare states, it might
conversely serve to distract attention from the general rise in inequality,
general unemployment, and family dissolution that is affecting all social
79
classes. By "ghetto-izing" risk categories under a new label and publicizing

the more spectacular forms of poverty requiring emergency aid, policies
to combat "exclusion" may make it easier to re-target money on smaller
social categories like the homeless or long-term unemployed. It may even
undermine the universal social insurance programmes that traditionally
protected the working and middle classes. To conclude, just as the idea of
exclusion has many meanings, it can also serve a variety of political
purposes.
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exclusion and integration. Brussels, EEIG, European Commission DG V/E/2.
Andre, C. 1994. "La France des pauvres", in Alternatives economiques, No. 114,
February.
Barou, J. 1993. "Les paradoxes de l'mtegration: de I'infortune des mots
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Kuhn, T. 1970. The structure of scientific revolutions, 2nd edition. Chicago, University of
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Globalization and social exclusion:

Some paradoxes
Marshall Wolfe
The term "social exclusion" represents a relatively recent way of

conceptualizing or at least labelling a range of situations and trends already
visible as "problems", or threats to a self-evidently desirable future of
"social integration" or "solidarity".' (It also harks back to debates of the
1960s in Latin America over "marginality"). As with all such efforts its
users must struggle uneasily with their own criteria for "inclusion". Social
exclusion can easily become a catch-all for most of the phenomena that
seem menacing or ethically intolerable within the globalized capitalist
order. As policy prescribers should have learned by now, a changing of
labels does not go far toward the curing of social ills. To what extent does
the term help to clarify real mutations in human interaction within the
present order and in ideological frames of reference for international
discourse on "development"? To what extent are the phenomena of social
exclusion under way in the industrial or post-industrial societies comparable to those in the so-called "developing" societies?
When the UNRISD Research Programme on Popular Participation in
1979 used the word "excluded" in its working definition of the issues to
be explored ("the organized efforts to increase control over resources and
regulative institutions, on the part of groups and movements of those
hitherto excluded from such control") it hardly had in mind the broader
implications now attached to "social exclusion" [Stiefel & Wolfe, 1994].
The groups and movements in question were envisaged as excluded from
control over factors affecting their livelihood and their place in society.
They were being expelled or lured from previous forms of livelihood and
being incorporated under conditions of exploitation, insecurity and
impoverishment into ways of life functional to the "development process".
1 The first European Community text to contain the notion of "social exclusion" was
a resolution of September 1989. See CEC [1993].
82
The focus, then, should be on the terms of their incorporation, on their

ability to influence these terms through "organized efforts".
It was only in the course of reporting on the field research that the
"hitherto excluded" emerged first as a convenient umbrella label for the
peasants, proletarians, slum-dwellers, indigenous or "tribal" people and
women who were under consideration; and then as a way of conceptualizing an increasingly prominent trait of real processes of economic and social
change since the 1970s: exclusion in the sense of superfluity rather than
incorporation under conditions of exploitation and powerlessness. Exclusion in the sense of superfluity now seemed to be threatening not only the
impoverished rural and urban groups previously labelled "marginal", who
were indeed growing more rapidly than ever, but also much of the population that previously participated in "development" with some degree of
control over the terms of its incorporation: the industrial labour force and
the salaried middle strata. Many kinds of "newly excluded" were joining
the "hitherto excluded".
This new face of exclusion did not reduce the relevance of the original
focus of the inquiry into participation. "Exclusion" is an active concept
like "exploitation". Someone or something bars out or drives out someone
or something else, which reacts as best it can. The excluded in some
settings may become practically invisible to the power-holders - the
"policy-makers" - improvising minimal survival strategies and unable to
conceive promising tactics vis-a-vis the social order that excludes them.
For the most part, however, there can be no clearcut distinction between
struggles over terms of incorporation, that is, against exploitation, and
struggles to resist exclusion and open new channels for incorporation. The
changing settings generate responses that are in part unprecedented,
responding to the globalization of communications and cultural stimuli, in
part adaptations of pre-existing organizational forms, and in part
resurgences of bases for solidarity that seemed to have dwindled in
importance with modernization, the welfare state, and socialism (religious
and ethnic ties). Ways of livelihood proliferate that represent unresolved
mixtures of dependent functional integration into the dominant style of
"development" (sweatshop production, home piecework, street vending),
refuge from it through networks of production and exchange among the
excluded, and parasitism upon it. Associational ties combine mutual' aid,
clientelism, clannishness, intimidation, extortion and other worldly hopes.
The most dramatic aspect of the struggle against exclusion at present
is the expansion of migration across national frontiers in the face of rising
barriers against such migration. Tens of millions of people are enduring
hardships and also showing exceptional persistence and ingenuity to escape
GLOBALIZA TlON AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION: SOME PARADOXES
83
from perceived exclusion in their countries of origin into situations of

exploitation and insecurity in new countries. Many of them eventually
achieve satisfactory terms of incorporation and even save the economies of
their countries of origin from collapse through their remittances. 2
The adoption of "social exclusion" as a valid concept through which
to view the diverse and contradictory trends now emerging implies a
critical but not radically negative assessment of the style of "development"
that has come to dominate the world and that since the 1980s has become
for some countries a style of disintegration. This style lures and forces the
whole of the world's population toward inclusion in a global system of
production, consumption, expectations, political and cultural norms, while
at the same time barring out the majority in many different ways and
degrees and continually changing the rules of the game. At the same time,
use of the concept by policy-oriented institutions implies that once governments or other agents turn their attention to social exclusion they can
devise remedies that will make the system function for social integration.
Remedies that can mitigate certain extremes of exclusion can readily be
imagined, but the fundamental paradoxes of the system seem at present to
be beyond the understanding or control of any agent, and one might be
justified in pinning more hope on the improvisations emerging within
societies through the interplay of exclusion and integration.
People who are excluded within one set of norms and expectations can
often achieve some kind of inclusion once they accept different norms,
generally implying, at least for a time, intensified exploitation and
insecurity. That has been happening throughout human history. It may well
be, as trends since the 1980s suggest, that within the global system more
people are becoming permanently superfluous, irrelevant, or hindrances to
its functioning. Under foreseeable conditions of rates of population increase
positively correlated with poverty, accelerating environmental degradation,
technological innovations divorcing productive capacity from labour needs,
and eclipse of the great alternatives for ordering human society in a spirit
of social justice, it is hard to see how exclusion can fail to become more
pervasive and intractable. The globalized system generates exclusion
through its logic as well as through its precariousness. However, historical
trends rarely work themselves out in ways foreseeable to observers at a
given time. The recent past has been full of surprises and the future will
bring its own surprises, for better or worse.
2 The United States Population Fund [1993] estimates 100 million international
migrants, including 37 millions fleeing disasters, and US$ 66 thousand millions in
remittances to their countries of origin.
84
A survey of current transformations focusing on exclusion risks overemphasizing the explanatory power of this concept. It also needs to guard
against a propensity to suppose that all bad things go together: that
exclusion necessarily generates anomie, anti-social behaviour, resort to the
fanatical extremisms that continue to plague humanity. These phenomena,
however, seem just as likely to emerge from group competition over the
prizes associated with modernization and rising consumption levels, or
from defence of traditional power relationships and life styles that are
threatened by democratization and changing gender and age-group roles,
as from social exclusion.
Let us try to differentiate the main dimensions of exclusion as they
interact with each other and with the forces making for incorporation or
integration.
I.
Exclusion from livelihood
Up to the 1960s, discourse on development commonly singled out as

a central problem the "commitment" of people from peasant societies to
wage work in industry and other "modern" activities. It was assumed that
the demand for wage labour would continue to exceed supply until a late
stage of development, and that the supply would be insufficiently
committed and of low productivity owing to lack of appropriate work
habits, lack of education, poor physical condition and various cultural
traits, summed up in one version as absence of "achievement motivation".
In the earlier stages of "development" directed by colonial powers or
national oligarchies, various forms of compulsion were recommended and
applied. At later stages, with substantial urban and plantation wage labour
forces already in being, positive inducements came to the fore: education,
subsidized food supplies, social welfare and housing schemes linked to
industrial employment. In their approaches to recruitment and stabilization
of an industrial labour force the "real socialist" States were rather similar
to the capitalist "developing" countries.
When it became evident that the supply of people anxious to work for
wages was in most settings exceeding demand and that the excess was
finding refuge in "marginal" or "informal" occupations it could still be
argued that this was a remediable deficiency of the rate or pattern of
economic growth, or simply the formation of an "industrial reserve army"
functional to such growth.
In much of the world, the processes that in the past generated a labour
force for industrialization are continuing and are fulfilling the same
GLOBALIZA nON AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION: SOME PARADOXES
85
function: expulsion from small-holding agriculture and efforts by peasant

youth to escape a life of poverty and drudgery. (In Latin America, these
processes have receded to secondary importance, as rapid urbanization has
reduced the rural population to a static or shrinking minority). To a large
extent, the international transfers of productive activity in search of lower
labour costs are still providing real openings. In most of East and Southeast Asia, labour absorption is probably still keeping pace with supply, and
in the oil-producing States labour shortages are still attracting millions of
migrants, who are incorporated in livelihood opportunities while being
radically excluded in other dimensions to be discussed below.
Exclusion from livelihood became more clear-cut and extensive during
the 1980s in the countries most burdened by debt and forced into structural
adjustment policies, mainly in Africa and Latin America. Importsubstitution industries collapsed. Mining was hard-hit by falling mineral
prices and rising costs. Governments became unable to support the institutions they had acquired, which had long served as the main job sources for
university graduates. Inflation reduced the incomes of these latter groups
to levels violently excluding them from accustomed life styles, while
campaigns of privatization and debureaucratization eliminated the jobs of
many, or at least threatened their job security. For workers and salaried
middle strata alike, exclusion meant inclusion in a world of precarious
survival strategies and blurring of class self-identification.
Comparable, although less traumatic, trends were emerging in the
high-income countries, partly through economic slowdown and transfer of
some productive activities to lower-cost countries, partly through curtailment of welfare state activities, but more ominously through technological
and organizational innovations that were increasingly divorcing production
from the need for a large and relatively stable labour force. Traditional
heavy industries such as steel and auto production and mining had for some
time combined rising production with declining numbers of workers. More
recently, computerization began to eliminate some areas of white-collar
employment. Industries as well as commercial and financial enterprises
increasingly began to hire temporary workers at lower rates of pay, lesser
health and social security protection, and no job stability, so as to reduce
costs and strengthen flexibility. Exclusion now threatened even corporate
executives. 3
3 According to a recent summing up applying to the United States, "Companies

struggling through a weak economy are pushing profits up by pushing employees out. Very
few good new jobs are being created to replace the ones that are being lost. AlI types of
workers are affected, from gung-ho men and women at the highest levels of the corporate
86
Pressures toward exclusion from certain preferred lines of employment

derive not only from the creative-destructive logic of capitalism but from
overdue public efforts to modify this logic, particularly by curbing
environmentally unsustainable industrial and extractive activities and by
winding down military forces and armaments production. In the highincome countries, as well as elsewhere, pressures toward exclusion from
livelihood combine inextricably with challenges to seek and qualify for new
livelihood opportunities that are undoubtedly emerging, with increased
exploitation, and with changing tactics for organized self-defence against
exclusion and exploitation. In the well-paid technological and cultural
specializations that are expanding, arduous educational qualifications are
needed, and demands for such specializations may continue to change as
unpredictably as they have in the recent past. The services that are least
susceptible to rationalization but indispensable to the consumer society
continue to offer abundant job opportunities but at wages unacceptable to
those displaced from industries and white-collar occupations, as the chorus
of complaints at dead-end jobs serving hamburgers indicates.
Meanwhile, migrants find opportunities for inclusion and future
prosperity in occupations that the "newly excluded" reject. Women have
been able to incorporate themselves into the labour force at all levels,
partly through greater independence from traditional family roles, partly
through pressure to earn so as to maintain family consumption standards,
partly through employer preference for them in the occupations most
susceptible to exploitation. While young people have been most acutely
affected by exclusion from traditional industrial opportunities, and for
some exclusion seems to have become practically total except for illegal
and dangerous activities such as drug peddling, others have benefited from
education to gain privileged access to the newer and more attractive forms
of livelihood.
It would be premature to conclude that exclusion from livelihood is
bound to become more radical and pervasive, qualitatively different from
the painful adaptations that all societies have experienced since the
industrial revolution. However, insecurity over exclusion from culturally
defined standards of livelihood is on the rise in most of the world, and this
has much to do with the other dimensions of exclusion to be discussed
below.
hierarchy to kids fresh out of high school and college." ("Looking for work", New York
Times, 1 August 1993). See also "Service jobs fall as business gains: Automation's impact
shrinks employment in New York", New York Times, 18 April 1993; and "Temporary
workers on the increase in nation's factories", New York Times, 6 July 1993.
87
II. Exclusion from social services, welfare

and security networks
Up to the 1980s, popular expectations concerning social rights and
services to be guaranteed by the State had been rising over a long period,
in poor countries as well as rich. The right to education and basic health
services for all; to a social safety net against destitution; to shelter, safe
water and waste disposal; and to the satisfaction of various other needs had
become internationally accepted responsibilities of the modern State. Now
the State's capacity to meet these responsibilities and public confidence in
the effectiveness and legitimacy of its efforts to do so have been eroded.
In the upper-income capitalist or mixed-economy countries resistance to
redistributive taxation and bureaucratic paternalism have mounted, while
the diversity of interest groups crusading for different conceptions of rights
has become unmanageable. Elsewhere, similar factors have combined with
the drying up of external aid and loans, the net outflow of public funds to
meet debt obligations, the associated structural adjustment policies,
unfavourable export markets and, in some instances, a nearly complete
breakdown of the legitimacy and authority of the State.
In the upper-income countries the outcome thus far has been contradictory, with curtailment of some services and continued expansion of
others, with some groups of beneficiaries, particularly the aged, holding
their own while others, particularly single mothers and their children, have
increased in numbers and become paradoxically more dependent on services
that seem to confirm their exclusion and generate resentment in other strata
of society. The most striking change, particularly in the United States, has
been the emergence of significant numbers of families and individuals
practically excluded from shelter.
In many of the poorer countries, particularly in Africa and Latin
America, and also in the former "real socialist" countries, where State
social responsibilities were previously most ambitious, tile breakdown in
such responsibilities has been more far-reaching. As State ability to finance
and administer services and subsidies has dwindled, access to the former
has come to depend increasingly on the recipient's ability to pay, in part
through privatization and changing of fees for services previously free, in
part through illicit but unavoidable payments to functionaries whose salaries have fallen below subsistence levels. Subsidies to urban food supplies
(formerly at the expense of peasant producers) and to urban transport fares
have dried up. Policies "targeting" public social expenditures to the most
needy, as recommended by various international agencies, are in some
countries beginning to modify these trends, but in general exclusion of the
88
neediest probably continues to predominate over compensatory targeting.

The state-supported services fashioned on the models of the upperincome countries and aspiring to universality have in practice always had
a propensity to "restricted equity". That is, they became enforceable rights
for urban minorities (industrial workers, public employees, other categories
of white-collar employees and professionals) while rural majorities and the
more marginal urban sectors were de facto excluded. (Restricted equity
also emerged in the "real socialist" countries, in relation to State and party
bureaucracies.) Now access for the former groups has become more
restricted, in spite of their efforts to defend acquired rights, partly because
of shrinkage of State capacities, partly because of loss of the employment
status on which rights were based. The sentiment of exclusion and injustice
is very likely stronger among these groups than among those who
previously expected little from the State.
Access to the few public services that were really on the way to
universalization has been curtailed both by declining coverage and by
declining quality. This can be seen most clearly in the case of education,
which has been at the same time the most prized means to social integration and mobility and a widely-used device for social differentiation and
exclusion. Almost everywhere education has come to absorb very high
proportions of public resources. In a good many countries free higher
education has become a right even before universal primary education has
been achieved. The quality of such higher education was precarious at best,
owing to inadequate State financing, sudden "massification", and poor
preparation of most students. Now access is being narrowed in various
ways, by charging of fees and by inability of the children of the "newly
excluded" to meet costs of subsistence while studying. Meanwhile, the
rewards expected from such education have diminished with the shrinkage
of bureaucratic and other white-collar employment, while openings in the
new technological and professional specializations are increasingly
restricted to graduates of more prestigious private institutions.
At the other extreme of the educational system, elementary schooling,
which had come close to universalization in many countries, at least in
quantitative terms of enrolment, has lost ground, with its already poor
quality deteriorating further, with miserably paid teachers deserting," and
with pupils even more handicapped than before by malnutrition, family
insecurity, and obligations. to contribute to family livelihood.
4 In the Philippines, for example, thousands of trained school teachers have left the
system to work as maids in Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere, for wages several times
those offered by the public schools.
GLOBALIZATION AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION: SOME PARADOXES
89
For the rural areas that are least promising for modernized commercial agriculture, and in which combinations of self-provisioning peasant
farming with migration to earn cash incomes continue to prevail, the
withdrawal of State responsibilities is particularly excluding. Such areas
have benefited, irregularly and insufficiently, from schools, basic health
services, road building, water supplies and other State activities. The
activities are in many cases shrinking while capacity for self-provisioning
declines with population increases and land deterioration, terms of trade for
local produce and handicrafts become more unfavourable, opportunities for
migrant labour stagnate, and, in some areas, returning former residents
displaced from the cities must be absorbed. Relative neglect of such rural
localities is evident even in newly-industrializing countries where the State
has remained strong and resources adequate; here there is a natural propensity to concentrate public resources on activities and localities that seem
most promising for economic growth.
The people of many of the enormous urban agglomerations of Asia,
Latin America and Africa are approaching a kind of environmental exclusion from the possibilities of minimally satisfying life styles at the same
time as economic changes are excluding them from previous sources of
livelihood. The problems of these agglomerations have been studied over
a good many years, with dire prognostications as to their future viability,
but at least until recently they have shown remarkable resilience and
capacity to continue attracting and absorbing migrants. Public services
were inequitably distributed in different urban zones according to power
and income, but to some extent they reached even into the peripheral
shanty towns. Original and promising forms of community organization
emerged, generally combining self-help and self-defence with national or
municipal government cooperation.
Now, in many cities, the inadequate infrastructure seems to be
reaching a state of terminal decay. Electric power, transport, water supply
and waste disposal systems are breaking down together. Violent crime
reaches unprecedented levels and is simultaneously combated and abetted
by police extortions, torture and summary executions. Air pollution has
risen far above the limits supposed to be tolerable. The better-off
minorities protect themselves against some of the menaces by living in
walled and guarded compounds with their own services, water supply and
power generation, but cannot escape the polluted air, the threat of epidemic
disease, or the possibility of robbery or kidnapping once they emerge from
their strongholds. The proliferation of automobiles has a multiple excluding
impact. It forces the authorities to concentrate resources on remodelling the
urban space to accommodate them, exacerbates the sense of exclusion of
90
the majority unable to acquire automobiles, and hinders any policy to

provide efficient and affordable public transport.
In regard to shelter, the urban authorities have generally abandoned
past policies of publicly-financed or subsidized construction, a change that
affects mainly the "newly excluded", since the poor practically never had
real access to such housing. Programmes to regularize and provide services
to the squatter settlements and unregulated land sub-divisions through
which the disadvantaged have met their own needs for shelter have continued but have been overwhelmed by the dimensions of the problem and
the curtailment of public resources.
As with most other dimensions of exclusion, various forms of exclusion from the amenities previously expected from modern urban life have
become ominously visible in many of the great cities of the high-income
countries as well as elsewhere. It is evident that the inadequacies of
societal efforts to cope with such forms of exclusion are not determined
solely QY scarcity of public resources and administrative capabilities nor by
uncontrollable influxes of impoverished rural migrants. It would be beyond
the scope of the present text to comment further on this particularly
complex set of issues.
III. Exclusion from the consumer culture

The concept of social exclusion represents, among other things, an
attempt at a more operational view of the question of poverty, which has
generated such an unassimilable mass of statistical studies, diagnoses, and
policy proposals in recent years. For a large part ofthe world's population,
exclusion obviously means destitution, inability to satisfy the most basic
needs for food and shelter. For even larger parts, however, exclusion from
consumption is a more complicated matter. People throughout the world
are now exposed to messages concerning diversified and continually
changing norms for consumption. They have internalized such norms to an
extent that could hardly have been expected a few decades ago, when the
"revolution of rising expectations" became a current cliche, and that is
altogether out of keeping with the capacity of the majority to respond. The
present felt needs include packaged foods and beverages that are revolutionizing diets and distribution of family expenditures. They include the
durable goods that are largely responsible for spreading the consumerist
message, first the transistor radio, then television and various electronic
devices. They include the automobile, with its devastating effects on the
urban environment and its insatiable demand for roads, parking spaces and
91
cheap fuels. They include many artifacts that are reducing household
drudgery and making life easier, particularly for women, and that transform the possibilities for family and community interactions from the local
to the global.
They provide major stimuli for "popular participation" in innovation
and in the quest for more remunerative employment. They have practically
negated the possibility of popular acquiescence in styles of development
emphasizing austerity and capital accumulation, on the one side, and styles
emphasizing satisfaction of narrowly-defined basic needs, social equality
and environmental protection, on the other. Under these circumstances,
economic liberalization policies have consistently encountered surges in
consumer goods imports out-running increases in the exports needed to pay
for them. Government-sponsored social pacts calling for shared sacrifices
in consumption have been unable to restrain the groups committed by their
organizations. This has happened repeatedly in Latin America and most
recently in China, where the forces of pent-up consumer demand have
pushed aside the egalitarian and collectivist traits previously admired by
advocates of "another development", and generated a troublesome trade
deficit.
It would be pointless simply to deplore these phenomena or use the
negative features as a stick to beat free-market capitalism. For present purposes, the important question is the role of unrealizable consumerist aspirations in exacerbating the frustrations of exclusion from livelihood, exclusion from public services and security nets, and exclusion from meaningful
political choice. Although many people are still excluded through isolation,
extreme poverty, or cultural resistances, even these forms of exclusion are
being penetrated in incongruous ways by elements of the consumer culture,
as numerous accounts of present-day village life demonstrate. More commonly, exclusion today generates a determined quest for expedients to
enter the consumerist paradise, in its more ostentatious manifestations a
paradise for minorities that can exist only as long as the majority is
excluded. A Latin American joke divides the population into three groups:
those who have credit cards, those who want credit cards, and those who
have never heard of credit cards. The middle group is growing and the
third dwindling. In some countries the drug traffic has notoriously become
the most accessible channel for entry into consumerism.
Since new areas of consumption quickly become cultural necessities
and the possibilities for further diversification are unlimited, sentiments of
exclusion can be strong at any income level. Majorities in the "rich"
countries have achieved levels of consumption that can never be universalized, and that are already entering into contradiction with resource limits
92
and environmental sustainability. However, a few years of relative

economic stagnation have generated alarm, not only at immediate job and
other insecurities, but also by challenging the conviction that each
generation has a right to live better than its predecessor. One result can be
a stronger propensity to exclude or ignore the claims of supposed competitors, particularly migrants and ethnic minorities. Similar frustrations and
propensities to exclude are more segmented in the "poor" countries, and
more likely to bring about violent group conflicts.
IV. Exclusion from political choice

In this area the trends are particularly paradoxical. The previous forms
of exclusion from political choice through dictatorships and oligarchies are
far from extinct. In a good many countries, even if formal democracy and
competing political parties are present at the national level, the experience
of most people, especially in the countryside, is of arbitrary rule by local
bosses, landowners, military forces and police. In still other countries, the
breakdown of central authority and endemic civil war have made the idea
of political choice nearly meaningless. At the same time, people in more
countries than ever before are able to participate in relatively free
elections, have access to varied sources of information and argument, and
are able to voice their preoccupations openly. International recognition of
pluralist democracy as the only legitimate source of authority of the State
has strengthened and manifested itself in support for elections and political
rights. The plausibility of infallible leaders or vanguard parties entitled to
choose for the people in the name of democracy is at a low ebb.
Under these circumstances, however, realities and sentiments of exclusion from meaningful political choice do not disappear. The well-known
oligarchic and bureaucratic traits of mass political parties are as
conspicuous as ever, and confidence in their ability to present issues
honestly and respond to popular choices is also at a low ebb. The capacity
of even the largest and most powerful nation States to decide on and
adhere to coherent and autonomous policies has dwindled with the
emergence of the globalized economic order, the hegemony of marketoriented anti-State ideologies, and the eclipse of the socialist and populist
ideologies that previously offered hope of a better life through political
participation. Elsewhere, countries that have not been able to take
advantage of the opportunities offered by the globalized economy face the
recognition of necessity in the form of structural adjustment policies, with
notorious consequences for exclusion and insecurity in their populations.
93
If the excluded then choose candidates who promise to give priority

to their perceived needs, the most likely outcomes, to judge from recent
experience, will be either repudiation of the promises immediately after the
election, when the "victor" faces up to the constraints set by the world
system and the domestic balance of power, or policy voluntarism and
incoherence followed by economic crisis. In a few cases, the political
leadership has been able to maintain broad support and a degree of
economic recovery through coalition-building, convincing explanations of
the constraints, and measures alleviating the impact of structural adjustment
on the excluded. Elsewhere, the consequences include shifting combinations of political apathy and sullen resentment, extreme shifts in voting
patterns to punish incumbents, violent reactions to immediate threats to
livelihood and consumption norms, corruption on the part of politicians and
administrators who have lost hope of accomplishing anything positive, and
diversion of political preoccupations toward scapegoats of ethnic and
religious exclusivisms.
V. Exclusion from bases for popular organization

and solidarity
Exclusion from meaningful political choice leads back to the question
of "organized efforts" for "control" emphasized by the definition of
participation quoted above. The" resources and regulative institutions" that
the "hitherto excluded" might hope to control, partly through organized
intervention in the political process, partly through organized bargaining
with employers or produce buyers, and even the forces with which they
might have expected to struggle for control, have either been losing
relevance or receding to spheres in which popular control based on a
rational vision of present needs and future potentialities is hard to imagine.
The organizations and less formal expressions of solidarity through
which people have struggled to overcome exclusion are based on: (a) their
source of livelihood (trade unions, peasant unions, vendors' associations,
etc.); (b) their consumption and credit needs (cooperatives, credit unions,
etc.); (c) their relationships to State services or services provided through
municipal or voluntary channels (parents' associations, pensioners' associations, etc.); (d) their local community or neighbourhood; and (e) their
religious or ethnic affiliations. In all of these areas, as research has
demonstrated, popular innovations in organization and solidarity are
ongoing. However, increasing insecurity and instability in the bases for
organization test innovativeness to the limit, narrow the benefits that can
94
be hoped for from organization, and exclude large groups altogether. If

stable employment in traditional industries declines, trade unions must turn
to new clienteles that for many reasons are harder to organize, or give way
to localized and precarious groupings in the informal sector. If large
numbers of men migrate in search of work their main possibilities for
association may be through networks that exploit or even terrorize them in
exchange for assistance, while women have to evolve their own forms of
collective action in the villages, urban neighbourhoods and sweatshops.
Youth, for better or worse, evolve their own ties and goals with few
relevant lessons from the organizational experiences of their elders.
Religious and ethnic bases for solidarity become more important as other
bases weaken.
VI. Exclusion from understanding of what is happening

People from all classes and backgrounds are in a sense excluded from
confidence in being able to grasp the implications of the scientific,
technological, economic, political, cultural, demographic, environmental
and other transformations of the world today, while they confront these
transformations in their daily lives and are bombarded by presentations,
interpretations and warnings concerning them through television and many
other sources, including word-of-mouth rumour. Information becomes
more varied and accessible than ever before while the requisites for
keeping up with the information revolution become more formidable.
According to one formulation, societies are experiencing a transition from
social relations organized on the basis of work to social relations based on
modes of information [Calderon, 1993; Carnoy et al., 1993]. Inability to
use a computer becomes a form of exclusion. Even the best-prepared suffer
from what Alvin Toffler some years ago labelled "future shock". For
some, this means an unprecedentedly wide range of choices in life styles,
gender and age group identifications, and an equally wide range of causes
that can be embraced so as to achieve some sense of influencing change
and warding off specific menaces. For others, it means an unprecedented
range of possible survival strategies, all of them subject to unforeseeable
risks. For still others, it offers vicarious satisfactions in the form of
exhaustive information on sports events, the private lives of celebrities,
etc., to the practical exclusion of more unsettling information.
In the face of future shock and the disintegration of previous
expectations, most of humanity adapts as best it can, without becoming
traumatized, anomie, or frantic through inability to interpret what is hap-
95
pening. Even in the extreme cases of war-torn societies and mass expulsion
of populations, or in the cases of sudden reversal of political systems,
eclipsing doctrines that claimed monopoly capacity to explain societal
change and also eclipsing the elites that derived power from these claims,
some kind of reintegration can be expected to emerge. However, the
understandably widening appeal of simplistic, irrationalist, and exclusivist
substitutions for participation in the information revolution complicates the
picture of exclusion-inclusion that we have been building up.
VII. Policy issues and proposals

For persons of goodwill it might well seem obvious that social exclusion is an intolerable evil, not only in its consequences for the "excluded",
but also in its implications for the "included": the permanent threat of
being pushed into the ranks of the excluded by incomprehensible and
uncontrollable economic and technological transformations; the permanent
threat of reactions from the excluded that will become radically incompatible with political and economic stability and personal security. "Social
integration" then becomes a tempting slogan for the opposite of exclusion.
But how can societies move toward integration and away from exclusion
if the globalized capitalist style of "development" cannot help generating
exclusion and if the momentum of exclusion has become so great and so
complex? Can integration advance without genuine empowerment of the
excluded? Can the included welcome or tolerate such empowerment in
view of their status strivings, their insecurities, their convictions of
restricted equity and the ever-widening gap between consumerist aspirations and capacities to satisfy them? Can national governments and intergovernmental political and financial institutions devise remedies that are
more than expressions of good intentions?
As the preceding pages have suggested, the pressures toward integration or incorporation are as strong as pressures toward exclusion and
paradoxically intertwined with them. Resolution of the contradictory
pressures, within the likely future limits of resources, technologies,
population growth, human capacities for rational action and human
propensities to irrationality and parochial selfishness, can hardly be more
than partial and provisional. Advances in this direction seem to require
transformations not only in present economic, political and cultural trends,
but also in the ways of thinking about such trends.
Discourse on these questions has long been divided into two main
currents, with the ideas in both currents changing and diverging over time.
96
On the one side is the establishment discourse emphasizing the positive

aspects of what is happening, looking to an accessible future of social
integration and equity if correct economic policies are followed, if
scientific and technological innovations are freed to recognize their full
potential, if barriers to trade and investment flows are done away with, if
population growth slows down, and if popular majorities come to understand and accept these requisites. At one time this line of discourse
favoured State-managed development planning and investment (in capitalist
and socialist variants), then exclusive reliance on free markets, and now
seems to be turning back to endorsement of State social interventions to
correct deficiencies of the market. 5
The other line of discourse, also with many variants, sees mainly
mounting human suffering, alienation and future catastrophe in the trends
and policies that the establishment discourse labels "development". Some
participants continue to put forward proposals for "another development"
on a national or global scale, but have poorer prospects than a few years
ago of influencing the centres of power or enlightening and mobilizing the
excluded. To a large extent, hopes for plannable transformation have
become muted in the face of apparent triumph of a style of development
judged humanly disastrous. The following prognosis for Mexico may serve
as an example of this frustration: " ... perhaps from the new 'common
sense' of a freshly constituted democratic political culture new alternatives
for egalitarian economic development, as yet impossible to imagine, will
also emerge. If we observe in the foreground only the overwhelming
power and wealth of the core and the cold logic of capital accumulation in
the abstract, the future of Mexico seems dark indeed" [McCaughan, 1993].
The globalization of the processes that generate exclusion and shape the
struggles for inclusion have practically ruled out past hopes that some
national societies, through "de-linking" from the world system, might find
original paths reconciling social integration with sustainable development.
It is now evident that past advocacy of such national experiments generally
exaggerated achievements and ignored weaknesses that eventually brought
them to an end. The few national efforts at de-linking are caught in traps
of siege mentality and dogmatism, incurring human costs at least as high
as the exclusions and exploitations occurring elsewhere.
Other versions of rejection of globalized capitalist development pin
their hopes on the localized and partial de-linkings that persist and re-
5 The annual World Development Report issued by the World Bank constitute the most
systematic efforts to elaborate this discourse and at the same time grapple with the real
contradictions and inequities associated with "development".
97
emerge as group survival strategies in many settings." It hardly seems

likely, however, that such strategies will become either accessible or
acceptable to most of the excluded, who are by now cut off from the
cultural roots and values from which cooperative self-limiting life styles
would have to grow, or who are striving against all odds for access to
modern consumption norms and a political voice. The universalized vision
of human nature about to free itself from the aggressions and delusions of
"development" is no more convincing as a mobilizing myth than the economic developers' vision of individualistic economic man triumphing over
the barriers of tradition.
Can approaches be proposed, at least in very general terms, that
recognize the constraints on societal intervention in the paradoxical and
poorly understood transformations now under way, that eschew prescriptions wanted neither by the dominant forces nor by most of the excluded,
but that point in the direction of social integration? If plausible approaches
are at hand, what agents are likely to act on them? Can the dialectical clash
of crusaders for development and crusaders for anti-development lead to
a synthesis rather than a permanent dialogue of the deaf? The author of a
paper such as the present has a certain obligation to end with positive
proposals. The following are thrown out in full awareness that they go only
a little way toward resolution of the contradictions and that they evade the
question left unanswered by innumerable generalized policy proposals:
Who listens?
First, a rethinking is overdue of the functions of employment to
correspond to the real de-linking between productive capacity and human
efforts in some areas, the rising demand for highly skilled and continually
evolving technological specializations in others, the proliferation of lowpay and generally low-productivity jobs in still others, and the growth of
population residues either excluded altogether from employment or
restricted to activities clashing with their cultural and income expectations.
In view of the increasing heterogeneity of employment situations, the
divorce between work effort and productivity, and the contradictions
between what is done for the sake of income and for the sake of individual,
family and community needs, the policy goal of "full employment" might
well give way to a conception of "meaningful activity for all".
The main functions of employment up to the present can be summed
up as follows:
6 For provocative denunciations of development mythology combined with hopes of this

kind, see the contributions to Sachs [1992].
98
(a)
to produce goods and services and perform the social roles valued by
the society;
(b) to give individuals and families access to income enabling them to
satisfy their needs and wants;

(c)
to enable people to enter into relationships with the social order,

interpret personal interests in its maintenance or transformation,
associate themselves with a class or interest group, and acquire
organizational ties;
(d) to enable the individual to meet psychological needs for meaningful
activity, self-realization, creativity, and status as family breadwinner.

It hardly needs saying that the ways of livelihood of most people throughout history have combined these functions erratically and contradictorily.
In principle, the technological and informational revolutions should mean
almost unlimited possibilities for redistributing the ways in which human
beings spend their time and for diversifying their choices. In some respects
this is happening, in the midst of exclusion, forced improvisation, and
choices that the observer might well find deplorable. The gradual
shortening of labour time, diversification of work environments, and
diversification of leisure activities that seemed socially positive trends a
few years ago have been pushed aside as policy goals by globalized economic competition and the widening gap between consumerist aspirations
and capabilities. Renewed efforts in these directions seem feasible as well
as highly desirable. It might be naive to expect that such changes will ever
lead to ideally harmonious social orders, but if advances can come in
regard to other requisites for social integration to be discussed below, the
objective of meaningful activity for all might come closer to realization.
Second, the rethinking that is now under way concerning the division
of responsibilities between the world system, nation States, local administrations and organizations of the civil society should combine an
awareness of the indeterminacy of the future and the imperfections of all
human institutions with a striving to strengthen the possibilities for rational
political choices and a renewed challenge to the economicist insistence on
One Right Way to Develop. This effort must involve many levels of
human interaction and participation, but it is more hopeful to seek social
integration through changes in the world system than through attempts to
withdraw from it, whether at the level of the nation State or the level of
the local community.
At the same time, a reaffirmation of the planning and redistributive
responsibilities of the State is needed that takes into account the lessons of
99
past policy over-reaching while also confronting the excluding and concentrating traits of the dominant style of "development". Economic and
ideological changes throughout the world have left States with fewer
carrots and flimsier sticks. State social programmes and regulations, in
poor countries as well as rich, have lost a good deal of their legitimacy in
the eyes of the public for their inefficiencies, inequities, corruption and
bureaucratic paternalism, but their curtailment has contributed to the
exclusion of large groups that were beginning to obtain from them some
degree of protection and help toward social integration. In many respects,
centralized State programmes can be replaced with advantage by decentralized initiatives of municipal authorities and voluntary organizations but this.
is no more a panacea than past illusions of the welfare state planning to
meet all human needs. The poorest localities have least capacity for such
initiatives and the most excluded groups have least capacity for representing their interests in municipal administrations or for participating in
organizations. The geographical mobility of most peoples today makes ties
of local solidarity precarious. The voluntary organizations that try to
redress the balance, while they have proliferated and evolved remarkably
in recent years, are active in only a small fraction of the localities now
forced to meet their own needs as best they can. Any system of decentralization, if it is to contribute to social integration rather than abandonment
of the weak, leaves the State with at least two irreplaceable functions: first,
it must try to compensate, at least in part, for the enormous differences in
the resources that local groups and communities can mobilize for social
purposes. Second, it must set and enforce rules of the game for local
authorities and voluntary organizations with social purposes, in spite of the
obvious dangers inseparable from such a function. Commonly, one of the
most serious reasons for the erosion of State legitimacy has been the gap
between the overt purposes of State action and the behaviour of its
functionaries, generally in alliance with local power holders. In many
settings, decentralization might simply shift arbitrary power from State
functionaries to self-serving local cliques. Obviously, the State cannot
prevent this by regulations and bureaucratic oversight alone, but a
combination of realistic regulations, a government genuinely concerned to
apply them, and organized popular participation expressing grievances and
making demands can constitute a permanently tense but essential condition
for progress toward social integration.
The international agencies that have been the main proponent of
structural adjustment policies have, as the consequences of State
withdrawal of services and subsidies in the midst of economic crises
became notorious, turned to recommendations and financial support for
100
renovated State social action. They have urged that the State concentrate
what resources it can afford to allocate to social purposes on the poorest
population groups rather than continuing to aim at universalization of
services. Up to a point, such "targeting" policies might constitute
legitimate reversals of "restricted equity" in previous distribution.
However, the approach also has negative implications for social integration. The "hitherto included", themselves undergoing traumatic
adjustments, would naturally resent and resist the shift. The political
viability of targeting would thus be small, unless governments were
prepared to mobilize the hitherto excluded, or some of them, to offset the
better organized defenders of restricted equity. Another proposal modifying
the original insistence on targeting envisages mutually beneficial coalitions
between "the poor and certain non-poor groups that have an interest in
reform", but such coalitions might lead back to the kinds of clientelistic
and populist policies that structural adjustment was intended to bring to an
end.? In.any case, a number of governments (Brazil, Mexico and Peru, for
example) have embarked on sizeable programmes targeting the most impoverished groups and designed to compensate for the impact of structural
adjustment. The management of such programmes is bound to influence the
political dimension of coming struggles over exclusion and integration.
Third, one must grapple with the production and consumption
incentives that have dynamized "development" and the contradictions
between popular consciousness and the intellectual criticisms of their future
viability. This is one of the hardest topics to confront realistically and with
full appreciation of the momentum of the processes that are under way.
The "right to development", in .the sense of the right of all societies to
achieve the levels of production and consumption of the present highincome societies, and the right of the peoples of these latter societies to
achieve higher levels with each generation, are mirages, with consequences
inherently excluding as well as well as environmentally unsustainable. At
the same time, there is no prospect of voluntary acceptance of austere
egalitarianism and, since China's recent real cultural revolution, no
plausible idea as to how a society giving priority to this could function.
Consumerism has been paradoxically liberating and integrating as well as
excluding and alienating. There may be no accessible alternative to a flight
7 "Policies that help the poor but impose costs on the non-poor will encounter resistance
whether or not they increase national income... Giving the poor a greater say in local and
national decision- making would help to restore the balance. But since political power tends
to reflect economic power, it is important to design poverty-reducing policies that will be
supported, or at least not actively resisted, by the non-poor" [World Bank, 1990].
101
forward through permanent revolutions in technology, information, and

social relationships to consumer societies that generate equivalent satisfactions without unsustainable demands on resources and with an ebbing
of competition for conspicuous consumption. Any number of published
utopias and dystopias point the way.
Commission of the European Communities (CEC). 1993. Towards a Europe of solidarity:
Intensifying the fight against social exclusion, fostering integration. Brussels,
12 December.
Stiefel, M.; Wolfe, M. 1994. A voice for the excluded: Popular participation in
development. UNRISD, Zed Books.
Calderon, F. G. 1993. "Pasado y perspectivas del sistema sindical", in Revista de la
CEPAL, 49, April.
Carnoy, M. et al. 1993. The new global economy in the information age: Reflections on our
changing world. Pennsylvania State University press, University Park.
McCaughan, E. 1. 1993. "Mexico's long crises: Toward new regimes of accumulation and
domination", in Latin American Perspectives, Sage Publications, 20, 3, Summer.
Sachs, W. (ed.) 1992. The development dictionary: A guide to knowledge as power.
London, Zed Books.
United States Population Fund. 1993. State of World Population Report.
World Bank. 1990. World development report, 1990. Washington, DC, Oxford University
Press.

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INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOUR STUDIES

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR LABOUR STUDIES

UNITED NATIONS DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMME

A CONTRIBUTION TO THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT

First published 1995

examine the role of social processes and institutional structures in

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

(d) explore the implications of globalization for anti-poverty strategies,

social cohesion and social justice;

social aspects of globalization; the implications of new technology - all

This volume is based on the ILO's International Institute for Labour

Gerry Rodgers, Charles Gore and Jose B. Figueiredo

Introduction: Markets, citizenship and social exclusion

PART I - CONCEPTUAL ISSUES

What is special about a social exclusion approach?

Reconceptualizing social disadvantage: Three paradigms

Globalization and social exclusion: Some paradoxes

Social exclusion and social change:

Social exclusion and Latin American analyses

PART II - COUNTRY STUDIES

Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Russia

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Thailand

Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Tunisia

10. Patterns and processes of social exclusion in the Republic

11. Patterns and processes of social exclusion in Tanzania

B. Issue-oriented country studies

14. Ethnic solidarity and social exclusion in Cameroon

PART III - POLICY ISSUES

17. Policies to combat social exclusion: A French-British

Mouna Hashem, Consultant, New York.

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

Manabi Majumdar, Madras Institute of Development Studies, Madras.

Introduction: Markets, citizenship

The meaning of social exclusion

In Western Europe, the term "social exclusion" has recently become

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

poverty. It rather referred to a process of social disintegration, in the sense

INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

Relevance and value in a global context

Whilst the notion of social exclusion definitely has something more

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

The findings of literature reviews

Preliminary literature reviews;' which focus in particular on existing

INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

to problems, whose only rationale would be the supposed intellectual

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

particular processes of impoverishment. It does so, first, through directing

The value of the social exclusion approach

INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIPAND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

If this value is to be realized, the concept of social exclusion needs to

SOCIAL EXCLUSION: RHETORIC, REALITY, RESPONSES

INTRODUCTION: MARKETS, CITIZENSHIP AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION

settings, including developing countries and countries in transition. But its

Social exclusion as a process:

To explore the value and relevance of the social exclusion approach