Addi van Bergen

General introduction 9 1 Since the 1990s, the concept of social exclusion has been widely applied in the policy contexts of European and other Western countries. In Australia, a comprehensive plan was launched to tackle SE and build an inclusive nation in which all Australians have the opportunity to participate and be treated with dignity and respect [26]. Canada’s social policy focuses on groups at risk of SE, such as recent immigrants, persons with disabilities, and sexual, religious and racial minorities [27]. The fight against poverty and social exclusion has taken a central place on the EU’s social agenda [28, 29]. Social exclusion has also been adopted as a priority by international organisations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Development Programme UNDP [15, 17, 30-32]. In the Netherlands social exclusion has been a recurrent theme in national politics and social policy from 1995 onwards. It stood for insufficient willingness and ability to participate in economic and social relationships [33]. Social exclusion has been linked to the threaten of social dichotomy and seen as both a social phenomenon and an individual characteristic [5, 33]. Currently, social exclusion policies in the Netherlands are limited to targeting poverty reduction, ensuring financial self-sufficiency and boosting labour market participation [34-36]. However, at the municipal and regional levels, social exclusion has found a place in policies on social care for vulnerable groups such as multi-problem families, persons with serious mental illness and people experiencing homelessness [37]. Social exclusion is depicted as a downward spiral of loss and disaffiliation rooted in an interplay between society (insufficient access to social and community resources) and the individual (inadequate self-regulation). In short, social exclusion is primarily a political term, and the meaning given to the term reflects particular institutional, political, historical and geographic contexts [24, 25, 38]. Defining social exclusion A scientific approach to social exclusion requires a clear definition and an operationalisation that closely reflects the underlying concept. Scholars have identified a number of key elements shared among the wide variety of meanings given to the concept of social exclusion. General consensus exists across the literature that social exclusion is multi-dimensional, dynamic, relative, relational and recognises agency [16, 17, 21, 31, 33, 39, 40]. 1. Multi-dimensional. Social exclusion encompasses social, political, cultural and economic dimensions, and operates at different social levels including micro (individual, household), meso (neighbourhoods) and macro (nation state, global regions). 2. Dynamic. Social exclusion is understood as a dynamic process which impacts people in various ways and to different degrees over time. 3. Relative. Social exclusion is context specific and gradual. There is no natural boundary between being excluded or not.