Page 160 - Contemporary Political Sociology Globalization Politics and Power

146 Citizenship

precariousness of many people ’ s lives (Lister, 2004 : 75). Much of this was
seen as a result of new social conditions: “ the rise in long - term and recur-
rent unemployment and the growing instability of social relations …
family break - up, single - member households, social isolation, and the
decline of class solidarity based on unions, workplaces and social net-
works ” (Silver, 1996 : 113). “ Social exclusion ” does not have the moral
resonance of terms like “ underclass. ” Indeed, it is quite closely linked to
defi nitions of poverty as relative deprivation, delineating a group that is
excluded from social norms rather than excluding themselves. It is widely
used in EU policy documents and in Britain (a rare example of the UK
adopting a European rather than a US policy discourse, Lister notes)
(Lister, 2004 : 76).
Nevertheless, many of the criticisms made of the term “ underclass ” have

been applied also to “ socially excluded. ” In the first place, it is argued that
it still suggests that the poor are somehow fundamentally different from
others in society. Norman Fainstein argues that the poor are not qualita-
tively different from the rest of the population; it is not their characteristics
as a group we should consider in order to understand growing poverty. He
argues that the whole family of terms – “ underclass, ” “ ghetto poor, ” and
“ excluded ” – work “ to deflect attention from the dynamics of economic

and political processes which generate and reproduce the very populations
and places which appear to lie under or outside of capitalist systems ”
(Fainstein, 1996 : 154 – 5). Similarly, Giovanna Procacci argues that “ social
exclusion, ” suggesting as it does that the poor are “ outside society, ” dis-
places and contains the problem of inequality. While “ exclusion ” suggests
a static division of social space, with citizens inside and the poor outside,
the idea of inequality points to the possibility of achieving equality. It,
therefore, implies a more dynamic analysis of social institutions and the
way in which they produce poverty (Procacci, 1996 ).
Second, although “ social exclusion ” does not refer exclusively to exclu-
sion from the labor market, in the UK government policies to combat
social exclusion have focused on ending poverty by getting people into
paid employment. This has involved a mixture of incentives, including
income support for households on low - wages as well as welfare - to - work
schemes for single parents. The emphasis on paid work as the basis of
citizenship is not new; it is a feature of all insurance - based systems in
which welfare is tied to employment status. As Lydia Morris argues,
however, the emphasis on paid work to end poverty is problematic because
it does not take into account wider social changes that impact on social
rights. Citizenship in the welfare state was premised on full, male employ-
ment and the nuclear family, consisting of a male breadwinner and female