Social exclusion in Europe: policy context and analytical framework

Abstract

Any attempt to locate social exclusion from a social policy point of view must use a European frame of reference. For the policy-making context, in which social exclusion has been put, the agenda was not the traditional national one that was dominant in the old discussions of poverty and social deprivation, but rather the European policy level. Moreover, the various programmes, networks and initiatives that were subsequently set up at the European level constitute the framework in which the first attempts took shape to operationalise, analyse and monitor social exclusion. The first section of this contribution will therefore deal with the European policy context in which the fight against social exclusion came to figure. The second section will discuss the conceptual framework in which the concept of social exclusion should be located. The third section will focus on the ways in which its assessment and monitoring have been elaborated thus far and will venture some suggestions as to what the next steps should be. Yet, before embarking on these issues it may be necessary to dwell somewhat on the way in which the concept of social exclusion was launched. It is, after all, a rather new concept – although it might have been used earlier as one of the many concepts that have been ventured as possible synonyms for poverty, its systematic use is of rather recent date (for an overview of concepts with some reference to poverty, see Bouget and Nogues, 1993). Towards the end of the second European poverty programme the European Commission published a document in 1988 in which reference was made to ‘social exclusion’.

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