The Inclusive Society?

A topical critical examination of the idea of social exclusion and the new political language of social cohesion, community, stakeholding and inclusion. The author examines the actions and rhetoric of the Labour Party and Labour Government under Tony Blair's leadership, and identifies three different discourses of social exclusion. Using this model, she explores views of inclusion put forward by Will Hutton and other stakeholders, by communitarians including Etzioni and Gray, and by the Labour Party from the Borrie and the Commission on Social Justice, to Blair and the Social Exclusion Unit. This work is intended for departments of politics (courses in British politics, social policy, comparative politics and political theory), sociology (courses in inequality and poverty), a more general political readership on social policy and politics of social exclusion and poverty, and politics of the Left among policymakers, think-tanks, pressure groups, and so on.