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Summary Inequality and social exclusion
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Dit is een samenvatting van het vak inequality & social exclusion, een vak uit de cluster sociale ongelijkheid in het master jaar.
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SOTA 1 – On social exclusion, inequality, and poverty: aconceptual exploration – Stijn Oosterlynck
Content
• Social exclusion: a polysemic concept
- history of a concept: Where does it come from?
- three paradigms
- defining the concept: from social difference to social exclusion: What is it?
• Poverty
- defining poverty as a form of social exclusion
- six perspectives on poverty: how we can understand poverty (to
understand the different dimensions)
- anti-poverty policy: views on poverty from 18th century until today
1 Social exclusion: history of a concept (Silver, 1994)
• origins of concept in France in 1970s: it was born in a specific context
→ ‘Social Exclusion’ was a book that became popular, because people started
using it → became a word on itself
- used to refer to social categories unprotected by welfare state: people who
could not gage a loan/wage on the working department would still be
protected (too young, too old, …) against social risks of the labourmarket
- we noticed that some groups of people with a higher risk to not participate,
are still not protected.
For example: young migrants (difficult to find a job: before you can have an
unemployment benefit you have to work/contribute before), people with physical/mental
disabilities, orphans, widows, single parent family, drug-addicts, alcohol-addicts, …
=> if you don’t live in a standard family, you’re often not protected because you don’t
live like the normative conceptual idea of how you should live: if you don’t fit in this idea,
you’re not protected by the welfare state
- social insurance against predictable risks of ‘standard’ family: based on this
normative idea on how people live, but not everyone has this type of
family, so they aren’t protected
• concept expanded and changed in response to social and political crises
- spread across Europe from late 1980s onwards (e.g., EU policy
documents): people began to use ‘Social Exclusion’ -> started with youth
who used it to fight for human rights => it’s a new issue, so people need a
new word to describe this problem properly and the EU picked it up
1
,1.1 Social exclusion: a polysemic concept
• polysemic = multiple meanings: people use it to refer to different phenomenon,
concepts
Is that a problem from a social science perspective? Why would you use a concept that
has a similar meaning but doesn’t cover the reality? Because the society is complex, we
need flexible concepts.
• problem for comparison: your measure is needed to compare; different meanings
are a problem: you must be sure that you’re talking about the same thing
• … but also opportunity to learn about different ‘realities’ (phenomena are not the
same): don’t use a concept that don’t fit in reality, let’s work with those different
notions of social exclusion
• informed by political ideologies and associated social science paradigms: different
views to look at the world
• source to capture complexity of actually existing social exclusion
1.2 Three paradigms
• exclusion refers to changing nature of social disadvantage: try to capture the
changing nature of social exclusions in reality; specify where you’re excluded from
• exclusion from what? ... social order/society: What is it?
• different modes of social integration of social order:
- externally imposed
For Example: law (police, justice system, government, …), market (forces governments
or people to act in a certain way -> need to have an income), school duty, …
- voluntary interaction between individuals: free societies, people have a free
choice, to do things they want with who they want
For Example: people choose who they work together with (free labour market), which
organizations they would like to join (school, media, organizations, …), free press, … =>
people choose feely who they associate with
- national, cultural and value consensus: norms and values, we have a
consensus on which values are important in our society
For Example: if you are a migrant, you have to learn the values of the country
(integration course; assume that people who were born here have these norms and
values) -> migrants can’t choose if they’ll follow it or not, if they don’t, they won’t be
accepted and have no permission to stay.
We stand for cultural diversity but in the European union there is a freedom of
movement: so, the Belgian government is not allowed to give integration courses to
people from European countries
=> because we think people in Europe are similar to one another but are very
differ from people outside Europe
2
, => the way we create order is the freedom of movement (voluntary
interaction between individuals) -> a different view on social order has an
impact on how you understand the values of Europe
- … identify different causes for social exclusion
Dependent on how you define the social exclusion you have a different
understanding about what social exclusion means
3 paradigms that led to the definition of Social Exclusion: solidarity,
specialization + monopoly
1.3 Solidarity paradigm
= idea that is based on behavioral law and value consensus
• Durkheim is most associated with this tradition
• rooted in French Republican tradition
• social integration through cultural boundaries and group solidarity: in order to
integrate in society, you must draw clear cultural boundaries + people need to
follow these
• solidarity is social bond between society and individual nurtured through a
collective conscience and tied together through institutions: in order to have social
order, you need to think about how you maintain this relationship between
individuals and the group: it’s through these societal institutions where people are
socialized for example:
- college: it’s not just to get knowledge: you learn to listen to authority, to
wake up early, … you get socialized! (norms and values)
- groupwork: if you don’t do your task, you’ll be seen as lazy
- long-term unemployment: people who don’t work, aren’t an active factor in
society (don’t wake up early) and also don’t get socialized/disciplined
=> to include everybody, we have to maintain that social bond!
• state (Republic) promises citizens subsistence and right to work; we make sure
that they can participate
• in return citizens participate in work and public life: to be solidair and to unite,
you set boundaries: you need to participate, if they don’t -> solidarity breaks
down
• exclusion occurs when cultural bond breaks down and individuals are no longer
morally integrated in society’s institutions
- this model has high levels of solidarity, but in order to be able to do so we
have to maintain our cultural boundaries: if not than solidarity will be unable
to uphold
3
, For example: organization can’t set itself apart by cultural boundaries. Like in France
where you can’t wear a headscarf, because when you wear it, you’ll set yourself apart
from the others and that’s not okay
1.4 Specialization paradigm
• associated with Anglo-Saxon liberalism: allow people to associate themselves
with everyone they want to, then you have a specialization of society (specific
way of life, religion, …): you get different groups, and everybody can choose
freely (not force) and differently and because of that people are happy =
integrated society
For example: they don’t see a headscarf as problem: it’s an individual choice
=> social exclusion is discrimination: when you take away the freedom of people than
we’re talking about social exclusion
• social order network of voluntary exchange and association between autonomous
individuals with own interests
• leads to specialized, interdependent, and competing groups and social structures
• exclusion as discrimination = when group boundaries impede individual freedom
to participate in social exchanges -> not breaking cultural boundaries, but you’re
taking away the freedom of people!
• exclusion is individual process of ‘disaffiliation’ from social and economic
networks --> specialization into different groups
• rights to social insurance legitimated on basis of contributions made during
employment (social liberalism – social contract)
--> Social insurance system is not based on freedom, it is contribution based:
you have to contribute (work, pay taxes, … you can’t choose to not pay taxes) =
imposed from outside! If you pay more, you get more!
− Liberalists will argue: Its contribution based so that legitimized the system;
you pay taxes on the level of your income, your employment benefit is based
on your wage (if you can’t work as a professor, you get a higher
unemployment loan than for example a cleaning lady because you cultivated
more, for example: high retirement) = not need-based
− You choose whether you want to assure yourself (assurance)
− Social contract: we all together agreed that we will contribute without signing
a contract as an individual
1.5 Monopoly paradigm
= Based on the idea that you can only have order if we impose it from outside:
society is quite unequal and there are many reasons why we could not agree with each
other → hard to maintain modern societies without to impose it
4
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