The language of politics and the politics of language: Unpacking `social exclusion' in new labour policy

Author: Macleavy, Julie

Source: Space and Polity, Volume 10, Number 1, April 2006 , pp. 87-98(12)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Since the election to power of New Labour in 1997, the concept of social exclusion has played a defining role in framing welfare policy. The rapid absorption of its terminology in government discourse has signalled a shift away from existing notions of inequality and disadvantage to a broader understanding of material poverty, which also includes (or instead prioritises) other social, cultural and political factors. This has important implications for New Labour policy-making. In particular, it allows for problems of inequality and disadvantage to be reinterpreted and new political measures to be introduced. Such measures produce different effects across space and society, which may be argued to disadvantage policy subjects. The aims of this paper are to explore how social exclusion has become installed as the primary framework of welfare policy in the UK and to examine the key assumptions embedded within specific policy formulations using discourse and content analysis. It thus points towards the importance of language in stipulating relatively enduring and stable sets of socio-political connections, and its role in mediating a particular (political) vision of the relationship(s) between state, economy and society as implicit in New Labour's `Third Way'.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562570600796812

Affiliations: 1: Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences, University of Wales, Aberystwyth, SY23 3DB, Wales, UK

Publication date: 2006-04-01

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