Poverty and Exclusion in a Global World

In Western Europe the notion of social exclusion is rapidly gaining acceptance. Developed originally in France but spreading in both academic and political Anglo-Saxon debates, this notion refers to the new social problems resulting from deep societal and economic restructuring associated with the emerging global economy. This book investigates the notion of social exclusion as a new way to approach issues such as the 'new poverty' - long-term unemployment, precariousness, social polarization and disintegration. Particular attention is paid both to the global relevance of an approach in terms of social exclusion, and also its value compared with more conventional approaches in terms of poverty and deprivation. It is shown that social exclusion goes beyond these by explicitly embracing the relational as well as the distributional aspects of poverty - and emphasizes processes. The authors explore the specific forms of social exclusion in the ongoing processes of globalization, deregulation, the crisis of the welfare state and the rise of individualism. Successive chapters provide an analytical and operational framework which focuses not so much on social exclusion as a state of economic and social deprivation as on the dynamic processes that create such a state and push individuals into precariousness, vulnerability and, finally, exclusion. This book emphasizes that what has been happening to exclusion (as the new social question) is a fundamental question which needs to be posed about the present pattern of development shaped by market forces on a global scale.