Poverty is an important topic in the social sciences and in the implementation of social policies. In the 1980s, a new approach centering on the concept of social exclusion and aimed at addressing the multiple dimensions of poverty emerged within several European countries, including France and the United Kingdom. According to proponents of this approach, poverty and exclusion from mainstream society are intertwined in practice. For example, those who are unemployed for a long duration are not just excluded from employment; they are also excluded from proper training and education, as well as from residential facilities, community services, and political decision making. Although the causal relationship between social exclusion and poverty remains unclear, many social policy researchers and policymakers in the European Union (EU) have recognized that social exclusion is a critical issue that should be targeted by policies. With the increase in immigrants and in numbers of the unemployed and underemployed in EU countries, the social exclusion/inclusion approach has gained popularity.
The term “social exclusion/inclusion” has travelled widely and been applied by social policy researchers in several Asian countries. The two books that feature in this review are examples of attempts to apply the concept in Asian settings. The first of the two books, Towards an Inclusive Society by Jeon, was originally written as a textbook for his graduate seminar, and was subsequently developed to serve community-level practitioners (pp. i–ii). Jeon explains that the book focuses on the topic of residence, because its relation to social exclusion has not been adequately theorized. Moreover, there is a lack of accumulated case studies on this topic (p. ii). This focus on residence and social exclusion is promising, given the widespread and long-held recognition among researchers that residence and neighborhood are crucial factors for understanding poverty. However, there are only a few references to previous studies on poverty, neighborhood, and housing in these two books. A rigorous examination and analysis of the accumulated body of studies on this topic would facilitate the development of a new theoretical framework.
The first book comprises three parts. The first part, which is titled “Poverty as Process,” presents an overview of the background and meaning of the term social exclusion/inclusion. Drawing on several studies, Jeon emphasizes the multidimensional and dynamic nature of this term. As I have noted above, this approach encompasses not just economic deprivation but also social, cultural, and political deprivations and can therefore be described as “multidimensional.” Although Jeon does not clarify the meaning of the term “dynamic,” it is likely that he refers to deprivation experienced not just at a particular point in time but as an enduring process. Thus, it covers a period of employment extending to long-term unemployment as well as experiences stretching across multiple residences and stages in life from youth to later life.
While Jeon elucidates a number of characteristics of the social exclusion approach and provides an overview of several arguments in the first part of the book, the actual term “social exclusion” remains undefined. This absence of a definition frustrates the reader, as it becomes impossible even to count how many people are socially excluded or to determine whether their numbers have increased. A plausible reason for omitting a definition could be that within the social sciences, for example in sociology and economics, social exclusion is not an analytical concept used to describe a society. Rather, it is used rhetorically within political debates by policymakers, activists, and social policy researchers. Although analytical concepts such as the unemployment rate and relative deprivation must be strictly defined and applied within empirical research, the term “social exclusion” seems to be used persuasively to gain consensus on what the important policy target is. Therefore, while its definition may not be important, its rhetorical effects in political discourses may be crucial.
In the second part of the book, Jeon examines how social exclusion is related to residence and community. Although this is arguably the most important part of the book, it comprises only fifteen pages. Furthermore, its contents are quite common – for social scientists. According to Jeon, social exclusion relating to residence and community is concentrated within a particular area, persists over a long period, and is intertwined with other dimensions such as healthcare and educational opportunities. Whereas inadequate residence can be one dimension of social exclusion, it can also be a cause and a consequence of other dimensions of social exclusion. These arguments are not new for contemporary social scientists.
The third part of the book comprises seven individual case studies on various community practices for fostering social inclusion. Although this part is intended to illustrate the application of the framework developed in the first and second parts of the book, it does not appear to have any substantive relationship to the previous parts. However, some chapters may be interesting to readers, because they describe new social inclusion movements in Japan and Korea. For example, Jeon describes activities developed by social enterprises for supporting housing for the homeless. Although these case studies are not organized or presented in a manner that contributes to the development of a theoretical framework for social exclusion/inclusion, their compilation may prompt analyses that lead to new developments in the future.
The second book, a volume edited by Jeon in 2016, is similar in content to the third part of the book discussed above. Here, Jeon has compiled various independent studies conducted on social exclusion/inclusion in Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. The first chapter, which focuses on a political conflict centering on support for the homeless in Florida in the United States, is an exception. Some chapters present short historical accounts of social policies on public housing introduced after World War II, while others describe the everyday lives of those who are socially excluded. Social movements for housing are also described in the book. As with the third part of the first book in this review, the content of some of these chapters may be new and interesting for readers. These compiled case studies may potentially prompt the advancement of the social exclusion/inclusion approach.
Notwithstanding this potential, this edited volume lacks a cross-national comparative perspective. Although it presents a number of cases across several countries, these case studies are not compared with similar ones from other countries. Therefore, readers cannot identify which aspects of social exclusion are unique to a society and which ones are universal features that recur across many industrialized societies. Cross-national or cross-regional comparisons are necessary for identifying which social policies will effectively promote social inclusion. Although such comparisons often entail a number of methodological difficulties, successful comparative studies evidently lead to new theoretical developments, an example being Esping-Andersen's welfare regime theory.
Apart from developing a comparative perspective, I have an interest in an area not discussed in these books, namely the applicability of the social exclusion/inclusion approach to Asian countries. As noted above, the term “social exclusion/inclusion” was developed in several European countries with different welfare regimes from those of Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. Though the term has appeal in EU political debates, this may not be the case in Asian contexts. For example, despite several Japanese social policy researchers, apart from Jeon, arguing for the effectiveness of the social exclusion/inclusion approach, it has not been adopted by Japanese policymakers. Localization of the concept may be needed for its integration into Japanese political debates. This may be a future research direction for advancing this approach.
