Social Exclusion and the Politics of Order - Tapa dura

The politics of order has long divided those deemed fit to exercise freedom from others perceived to pose a threat to the safety and security of society, with paupers, vagabonds and unmarried mothers (among others) subjected to various controls in defence of social order, historical progress and national unity. In the closing decades of the twentieth century this relation between inclusion and exclusion became the explicit focus of political thought and action, in part because the excluded organised to demand recognition, equality and rights, but also because of innovations which originated in historically constituted strains and stresses built into the mode of ordering itself. Taking an original and accessible approach, the book traces out the historical roots of this process of transformation, beginning with an analysis of poverty and pauperism in the nineteenth century and continuing with a detailed examination of nomadism, disability, youth and lone parenting in the twentieth century. The central argument is that a new mode of governing has been assembled, which organises actors and agencies from the spheres of state, market and civil society into various forms of partnership. This shift from an order built on exclusion to one based on the rule of inclusion recasts the modern projects of equality and emancipation, which have neither been accomplished nor abandoned. Instead they have been reconfigured, with the new arts of inclusive governance simultaneously anticipating disturbances and recruiting the socially excluded into the dual task of governing their self and managing order. Drawing on recent Foucauldian-inspired research and governmentality theory, the book will be a valuable resource for researchers and students with an interest in the changing nature of government, policy and political struggle. -- .

Kevin Ryan is Lecturer in Political Theory at the National University of Ireland Galway -- .