Urban Studies, Vol. 37, No.

56, 10371055, 2000

Combating Social Exclusion in Europe: The New

Urban Policy Challenge
Rob Atkinson
[Paper rst received, October 1999; in nal form, January 2000]

Introduction
The past 20 years have witnessed what many
would regard as an extraordinary change in
the language and concepts employed to discuss, analyse and inform policy in the area of
social policy in general and urban policy in
particular. Many of the notions and strategies
that dominated the post-war era until the mid
1970s, which were closely associated with
the consensus based around the Keynesian
social democratic welfare state (Offe, 1984),
were subject to withering criticism from a
resurgent new right during the 1970s and
1980s (see Joseph and Sumption, 1979;
Green, 1987). What had previously been
conventional wisdom suddenly became
heresy, most notably the ideas that the state
could manage the economy and intervene
effectively to solve social problems. This
new conventional wisdom, with a political
base in the new right Thatcher and Reagan
administrations and global institutions such
as the IMF and World Bank, argued that the
state actually made matters worsethe solution was to unleash the power of market
forces and entrepreneurial initiative to reinvigorate the economic and social infrastructure of nations. One of the earliest and most
notable casualties of this resurgent 19thcentury liberalism was poverty. Governments
of a new-right persuasion effectively de ned
it out of existence (see Joseph and Sumption,
1979, for a clear statement of these views).

Ironically, this terminological eradication

of poverty found a distorted echo in the
views of north-west European states that believed that their highly developed social protection systems had actually eradicated
poverty. For instance the European Commission (1992, p. 7) pointed out that in the
1970s many member-states assumed that
poverty had been reduced to a residual state
of affairs which would disappear with progress and growth. In both cases, there was a
tendency to move towards a victimblaming strategy in which any residual
poverty was deemed to be the result of
inappropriate forms of individual behaviour.
In Britain, following the example of the US,
there was a brief irtation during the 1980s
with the notion of the underclass (McNicol,
1987; Murray, 1990). Thus during the 1980s
there was something of a hiatus in the
European vocabulary of social policy as
politicians, of cials and academics searched
for new terms to discuss social problems.
The urgency of this task was intensi ed by
the return of mass, often long-term, unemployment, and a not unrelated increase in
problems such as the numbers of people
living on low incomes, homelessness and
general urban decline. All of these factors
were obvious to the citizens of western
Europe in their everyday lives (see Eurobarometer, 1990) and politicians felt obliged

Rob Atkinson is in the Cities Research Centre, Faculty of the Built Environment, University of the West of England, Frenchay Campus,
Coldharbou r Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK. Fax: 0117 976 3950. E-mail: Rob.Atkinson@uwe.ac.u k.
0042-098 0 Print/1360-063X On-line/00/0561037-19

2000 The Editors of Urban Studies

1038

ROB ATKINSON

to respond, or at least be seen to be doing

something, in order to maintain their legitimacy with electorates that were becoming
increasingly disenchanted with politics and
politicians.
Notions such as the underclass found little
support in the Social Democratic and Conservative/corporatist
welfare
regimes
(Esping-Andersen, 1990) which characterised continental Europe. Thus the search was
on for a new way of conceptualising and
talking about the causes and symptoms of
what was initially termed the new poverty
(Room, 1990; Poverty 2, 1991). Into this
situation, the notion of social exclusion
emerged as a way of addressing what appeared to be, or was de ned to be, a new set
of problems caused by fundamental changes
in the nature of society (often summed up by
notions such as the transition from industrial
to post-industrial society or from Fordism to
post-Fordism). Terms such as social inclusion, social solidarity and social cohesion
began to be widely used to address the apparent disintegration of societies that appeared
to be a consequence of these wider developments. In particular, the European Union
(EU) was becoming acutely aware of its own
failure to address the needs of its citizens and
I would suggest it is no accident that the
EUor more accurately the European Commission (EC)has played a key role in developing and popularising the idea of social
exclusion which was deemed to pose a threat
to the European social model.1 The EC argued that these new forms of poverty and
marginalisation originated in the late 1970s
rstly resulting from the economic crisis, particularly rising unemployment and
insecurity in respect of labour conditions;
then others persisting or developing as a
result of the profound economic, technological and social changes that characterise
the evolution of industrial society
(European Commission, 1992, p. 7).
By the late 1980s/early 1990s, attention
began to focus on the most obvious and
persistent manifestations of these problems,
which were often to be found in urban areas.

It was in the towns and cities of western

Europe that the outcomes of economic restructuring, and the subsequent restructuring
of social protection systems, were most visible, where the contrast between winners
and losers was most obvious. These developments occurred within both declining and
growing citiesi.e. on both interurban and
intraurban levelsand no city appeared immune to the effects of the epochal changes
Western societies were undergoing. Thus
terms such as dual city, social polarisation
and social segregation became common currency in the debates over what was taking
place in urban areas.
During the 1980s, within the EU, some
member-states were slow to react to these
changes and in particular to their urban manifestation, whilst others, such as the UK,
which had been struggling to cope with the
implications of long-term economic decline
and its impacts on urban areas since the late
1960s, turned towards market-based solutions (known as property-led regeneration;
see Turok, 1992; Imrie and Thomas, 1993).
In both cases, the result was surprisingly
similarthe plight of the urban poor was
largely ignored. In the rst case, this was
because they were thought not to exist and,
in the second, because it was assumed that
the bene ts of urban economic regeneration
would eventually trickle-down to them.
However, by the beginning of the 1990s,
neither approach was sustainable; ignoring
the problem would not make it go away and
governments were becoming increasingly
aware of the need to target speci c policies
on those who had been cast aside by economic restructuring or were unable to participate in the labour market. Thus across
Europe a range of urban initiatives began to
emerge both within member-states and at EU
level.
Before discussing social exclusion and the
urban policy response we should acknowledge the wider context in which these developments have occurred. In particular, the
dominance of an approach that assigns primacy to economic growth through competitiveness (see European Commission, 1993)

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

does not bode well for the future. Whilst

there is a great deal of talk about countering
(urban) social exclusion and achieving social
cohesion and solidarity, the reality is that
these aims are rmly subordinated to neoliberal economic policies. Moreover, in the
context of a single market and increasing
global competition, there is a perceived need
to reduce the costs of social protection and to
create a more exible labour market;
exible both in terms of wages and working
practices. Given that the sums spent by member-states on social protection systems far
outweigh anything they spend on urban policy, or receive from the Commission for
these purposes, the impact of any reductions
in these systems on urban areas, particularly
for the more disadvantaged citizens, is likely
to be profound. In addition, the demands of
meeting the membership criteria for EMU
have also placed considerable pressure on
national social protection systems with analogous results and it seems likely that the
associated stability-orientated framework of
EMU (European Commission, 1998c) will
create similar problems, despite the Commissions view that it will have the opposite
effect. Much of the Commissions optimism
seems to be based on the assumption of
economic growth which will, in the medium
term, produce an increase in tax revenues
that in turn will pay for increases in public
services without any increase in the rate of
taxation.
My own view is that there is unlikely to be
any signi cant change from the situation of
jobless growth that currently characterises
the economies of Europe or any relaxation in
the downward pressure on wages. As the
Economic and Social Committee (1998) has
pointed out, there is a need to specify more
clearly how policies on competitiveness and
employment relate to the urban agenda and
the extent to which such policies take on an
urban dimension. This is particularly important because, as Stewart (1994, p. 268)
has pointed out,
All European policies are dominated by
economic imperatives In economic

1039

terms European urban policy is both

about increasing the ef ciency with which
low cost business locations are produced
and maintained and about supporting the
spatial mobility of capital and labour
(emphasis in original).
The Commission (1998a, p. 5) has acknowledged that one of the guiding principles of its
action must be market ef ciency. However,
this emphasis inevitably means more interurban competition which in turn will create
more winners and losers, thereby creating
more demands on national and EU policies
directed at declining urban areas and countering social exclusion. At best, the Commission can intervene to attempt to correct
market failures through the use of the
structural funds.
The remainder of this paper will rst outline the development of social exclusion as a
concept, before going on to discuss the new
generation of urban initiatives which have
emerged during the 1990s to tackle urban
social exclusion.
Social Exclusion: Origins and Development
It is widely acknowledged that the notion of
social exclusion originated during the 1970s
in France (Silver, 1994; Martin, 1996;
Revauger, 1998; Spicker, 1998). The problem is that there are as many theories of
social exclusion as there are writers on the
subject, for anyone, or any group, that
adopted a lifestyle at odds with mainstream
society was deemed to be excludedthus
those adopting a bohemian lifestyle (for
example, jazz musicians, drug-takers), as
well as the poor, were de ned as excluded.
In a sense, the issue was one of whether or
not an individual or group chose a particular
lifestyle or had it forced upon them by wider
structural forces. In essence, the predominant
interpretation of the French Republican
ethos, and its associated notions of solidarity,
failed to recognise the legitimacy of difference and therefore stigmatised those who
chose to adopt unconventional lifestyles. At

1040

ROB ATKINSON

the same time, the broader usage of exclusion threatened to depoliticise the processes causing exclusion by focusing
attention on individual (or group) behaviour,
thereby rendering structural inequalities an
acceptable fact of life (Revauger, 1998).
However, by the 1980s, exclusion was increasingly being seen as a problem with its
roots in wider societal changes, in particular
changes in labour markets (see Paugam,
1995 and 1996).
What unites French accounts is a concern
with relational issues, in contrast to AngloSaxon poverty researchers apparent focus on
distributional issues, and the impact of societal changes on the social and moral unity of
the Nation (the Republic). Thus the issue of
solidarity is central to debates surrounding
exclusion. However, the notion of solidarity
is by no means straightforward. As Spicker
(1998) has pointed out, in French social and
political discourse there are two distinct
ideas of solidarity at work. The rst is based
around the idea of mutual aid (or mutualism)
within occupational or status groups whereby
individuals support one another against uncertainty. Such an approach lies at the heart
of the social protection systems characterised
by Esping-Andersen (1990) as Conservative/
corporatist and necessarily entails group selfinterest and inequality between groups, and
as such may be seen as inherently exclusive. On the other hand, there is the wider
form of solidarity already referred to above
based upon the construction of the nation and
citizenship (which itself can also be exclusive). It is this latter notion of solidarity that
has become central to wider European debates about social exclusion. However, it
should not be assumed that the other, narrower, form of solidarity has disappeared as
it remains central to Conservative/corporatist
social protection systems. Moreover, this enshrinement of differential entitlements to social protection is strongly at odds with the
more universalist approaches characteristic
of Scandinavian social democratic welfare
regimes and of the British welfare state during the 1950s and 1960s.
The question is: how did a notion which

had its roots in a unique, and often untranslatable, situation gain such common currency
throughout the EU? The answer undoubtedly
lies in the European Commission and in particular in the Delors presidency. As Abrahamson (1996) notes, the social policy
sections of the Directorate-General for
Employment, Industrial Relations and Social
Affairs (DG V) in the European Commission
were dominated by French of cials who
therefore inserted the notion into the social
policy discourse of the Commission. This
approach found strong support in the rst
activist phase (198592/93) of the Delors
presidency during which there was a strong
emphasis, at least rhetorically, on the need to
establish an independent social policy in the
European Community, with Delors himself
becoming closely involved in social policy
issues (see Wendon, 1998a and 1998b).
Delors desire, and those of a number of
member-states, that the development of the
single market be accompanied by greater
social integration and cohesion appeared to
provide a rm foundation for the development of the social dimension (see Leibfried
and Pierson, 1992; Leibfreid, 1993; Lange,
1993; Goma, 1996). During this initial phase,
social exclusion began to emerge as a key
concept, justi cation and mobilising force in
the Commissions developing social policy
discourse (see Green Paper, 1993).
Social exclusion within the Commission
was rmly established and developed as both
a concept and policy in 1989 by the launch of
the Poverty 3 initiative and the setting up of
an Observatory on National Policies to Combat Social Exclusion (see Robbins, 1994;
Duffy, 1995; European Commission, 1995).
Poverty 3 had the explicit remit of supporting
innovative approaches to combating social
exclusion within member-states. By the early
1990s, Poverty 3 and the Observatory
produced a new theorisation of social exclusion that attempted to combine elements
of the French approach, and its emphasis
on social and cultural exclusion, with the
AngloSaxon tradition and its focus on income inequality and material exclusion. This
new approach sought to reconcile the French

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

and Anglo-Saxon traditions through the use

of the concept of citizenship rights (see
Comite des Sages, 1996; Atkinson, 1999a).
As Room (1995, p. 7) noted:
The Observatory sought to investigate
social exclusion in both relational and distributional terms. To evaluate, on the one
hand, the extent to which some groups of
the population are denied access to the
principal social and occupational milieux
and to the welfare institutions that embody
modern notions of social citizenship; to
examine on the other hand, the patterns of
multidimensional disadvantage to which
these groups are vulnerable, especially
insofar as these persist over time.
Thus social exclusion can be conceived in
terms of the denialor non-realisationof
citizenship rights (Berghman 1995, p. 19).
Research carried out by Irish Poverty 3
researchers (Commins, 1993, p. 4) argued
that we should not only to look at citizenship
rights, but also at the societal institutions
in which those rights are embedded and
actualised, namely:
(1) the democratic and legal system, which
promotes civic integration;
(2) the labour market, which promotes
economic integration;
(3) the welfare system, promoting what may
be called social integration; and
(4) the family and community system, which
promotes interpersonal integration.
Social exclusion occurs when one or more of
the systems break down, thus allowing us to
focus on a comprehensive, multidimensional
and dynamic process. It seems likely that we
can only genuinely talk of social exclusion
when, for individuals or groups, several of
these systems break down as part of a chain
reaction. For instance, as Paugam (1996) suggests, where an individual or a group is
employed but poorly integrated in terms of
the family or community system, longterm
unemployment may lead to social isolation
which in turn will accentuate tendencies of
social exclusion as the integrative impact of
these institutions breaks down. The crucial

1041

issue is the extent to which individuals and

groups are embedded within institutional
systems. However, we also need to take into
account the nature, resilience and adaptability
of these systems in the context of changing
economic and social situations.
The attempt to understand and combat social exclusion through the concept of citizenship is not without its dif culties (see
Atkinson, 1999a). However, there are deeper
and more serious problems with the concept,
particularly as it operates within the discourse
of the European Community/European
Union. As Levitas (1996) has persuasively
argued, the dominant meaning of social exclusion within the European Community/
European Union has taken on a pseudoDurkheimian conservatism, but, particularly
post-1993, one subordinated to a neoliberal
economic discourse which emphasises the
market, competitiveness and ef ciency.
Within this context, paid work is seen as the
primary mode of integration into society. As
a result, issues of gender, race, class, low pay,
the working poor, etc., tend to be given less
emphasis (see Strobel, 1996). Thus attention
is largely focused upon those living on the
margins of society who display socially unacceptable forms of behaviourfor example,
drug addicts, criminals, welfare dependants,
the homeless, the mentally ill, etc.i.e. the
poorest of the poor, a subset of poverty
(Abrahamson, 1996, p. 5). The result is that a
simplistic and reductive model is created
which
fails to distinguish between different situations and ends up imposing too simple a
picture of a dual, or twospeed society divided into those who are in and those who
are out (Strobel, 1996, p. 174).
Nor are terms such as social cohesion and
integration any less problematic. Such concepts tend to be presented in neutral terms,
but as already noted the dominant discourse
of exclusion is located within a particular
social and economic discourse (social conservatism and economic neoliberalism). With
reference to cohesion Pahl (1991, p. 348) has
argued that, in Britain

1042

ROB ATKINSON

Since the capacity of occupational associations [for example, trade unions] to generate social cohesion is at best partial and at
worst seen to be dangerous, the focus has
shifted to the family and the community not so much as counters to state
power but rather to aid the state as appropriate loci of social control and social
responsibility.
With regard to integration, Potter (1996) has
argued that such a notion presumes a social
consensus into which individuals/groups can
be inserted, but this is to disregard the very
different, and potentially con ictual, interests
and lifestyles of those concerned. Given
these points, notions of cohesion and integration must be treated as social and political
constructs and therefore problematic. More
generally, Revauger (1997) argues that the
notion of social exclusion distracts attention
from fundamental societal inequalities, about
which the conventional political wisdom believes nothing can be done, and enables us
to think the unthinkable: social regression
and mass unemployment (Revauger, 1997,
p. 39).
Clearly there are both positive and negative aspects to social exclusion as a concept
and policy and there is a danger that in
certain circumstancesfor example, of
severe economic downturn and mass longterm unemploymentit could, as Abrahamson implies, follow the underclass route and
engage in victim blaming. This scenario is
not one which should be lightly dismissed, as
the long-standing distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor remains a potent animating force in all European
societies. However, social exclusion does offer a less emotive, perhaps less understood
and therefore less politically contentious
alternative to poverty. Silver (1994, p. 540)
suggests that
by highlighting the generalised nature of
the problem, the idea of exclusion could
be useful in building new broad-based
coalitions to reform European welfare
states.

Much, however, depends on the meaning

given to the term. Social exclusion means
different things to different people and this
ambiguity permits a continuing dialogue
about matters that some would equate with,
or at least include within, the concept of
poverty (Walker, 1995, p. 102).
Whether we like it or not, social exclusion
as a concept, and therefore as an element of
policy discourse, is here to stay for the foreseeable future.2 However, as I have indicated, serious problems remain with regard
to its conceptualisation. Moreover, the very
newness of the concept poses serious problems for researchers in terms of establishing
a generally accepted de nition. This also has
implications for how we measure and empirically identify exclusion. For instance,
Abrahamson (1997) assembled a range of
data relating to aspects of poverty which
could serve as proxies for social exclusion,
but argued:
One thing is de ning inequality, poverty
and social exclusion, another is operationalising and measuring these phenomena. Yet another thing is comparing
nations. It is virtually impossible to come
by up-to-date data concerning these issues,
and it is even more dif cult to come by
very reliable data (Abrahamson, 1997,
pp. 148149).
This situation could have been addressed
within the EU through the Observatory on
National Policies to Combat Social Exclusion; unfortunately, the Observatory was
disbanded when Poverty 4 was rejected by
the Council of Ministers in 1994. Perhaps
more seriously, there was a hiatus of several
years before other parts of the Commission
took up these issues, although recent research
has begun to address this problem (see European Commission, 1998b). The irony remains, however, that a new approach has
been developed and become embedded, to
varying degrees, within the social protection
systems of the EU. However, there is no
widely accepted de nition of this concept
and an almost complete lack of reliable data
that could be used empirically to identify and

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

investigate it.3 One is therefore led to wonder: how will governments develop and implement policies to combat it? My own
suspicion is that they will continue to use the
old poverty measures and that by doing so
will hope to hit the social exclusion target;
by adopting this strategy, governments at
least appear to be doing something about a
problem which they have helped to move up
the political and policy agendas.
The Urban Policy Response
The general issues outlined in the preceding
pages have elicited a variety of responses at
European, national and local levels creating a
complex mix of policies across the EU. With
regard to urban policy, it is important to note
that the manner in which each member-state
has tackled its urban problems varies
markedly. Some countries have developed an
explicit urban policy (for example, the UK,
France, the Netherlands); others have largely
chosen to tackle urban problems through the
adaptation of mainstream programmes at the
local level (for example, Denmark) whilst
some countries (for example, Spain, Portugal
and Italy) have done neither. (See the individual national studies of urban policy in van
den Berg et al., 1998.) To put things rather
simplistically, only a few member-states
have what Parkinson et al. (1992) term an
explicit urban policy, the majority having
an implicit policy. The main factors which
appear to determine the development of an
explicit urban policy are the extent and
political visibility of urban decline, particularly economic decline and its effects (for
example, increases in urban unemployment
and poverty). This in part re ects the degree
to which a country is urbanised, and for how
long a majority of the population has lived in
urban areas. Thus in the UK, where the
processes of urbanisation go back to the early
19th century and which is one of the most
urbanised European nations, explicit urban
policies have existed since the 1960s.
Whereas in Finland, where urbanisation is
largely a post-1945 phenomenon and a
signi cant proportion of the population re-

1043

mains in rural locations, there has until recently been little political impetus to develop
explicit urban policies. However, in the
1990s, many more member-states experimented with explicit policies as all large
cities experienced decline. Thus in Denmark
there has been a range of urban initiatives
since the mid 1980s, culminating in the
launch of kvarterloft in 1996. The situation is
made more complex by a lack of EU-wide
urban data, and in some member-states an
almost complete absence of reliable data,
which makes any attempts at comparative
analysis extremely dif cult. To a certain extent, this problem should be eased by the
Commissions decision that in future Eurostat should begin collecting urban data,
although this will require the development of
a series of generally accepted indicators. This
latter point is currently being addressed
through the conduct of an Urban Audit which
will help to provide a baseline from which to
assess the current position (see also OECD,
1997).
Whilst such a development is both welcome and important, I would suggest that it
is only a rst step. The next step, as suggested by the Economic and Social Committee (1998), should be to engage in a more
general and comprehensive urban impact
analysis whereby all existing and new policies are assessed in terms of their implications for urban areas. These developments
could produce a more strategic approach to
urban problems as different organisations
identify the implications of their policies for
urban areas, thus making it easier for strategic co-ordination of action to take place at
EU level.4
Underlying these general developments
has been a growing concern over the growth
in urban problems, particularly unemployment and low incomes, across the EU, as
Martin (1998, pp. 1819) has noted:
Urban unemployment has been a growing
phenomenon throughout Europe, manifesting itself in particular parts of cities rather
than across cities as a whole. The coexistenceand often close juxtaposition

1044

ROB ATKINSON

of intra-urban areas of employment growth

and high incomes with other intra-urban
zones of high unemployment, low incomes
and high dependence on welfare bene ts
has become increasingly common.
The Commission has attempted to draw attention to these common problems and the
increasing prevalence of urban social exclusion. For instance, the notice launching
the URBAN Initiative stated that
Some of the Communitys most acute
problems associated with the lack of economic opportunity, low incomes and a generally poor quality of life are found in
urban areas. The growing tensions within
European society are evident particularly
in the serious level of social exclusion in
an increasing number of inner city or peripheral urban areas (Of cial Journal of the
European Communities, No. C 180/6,
1994).
More recently, the EC has decided to move
away from the use of isolated initiatives
such as URBAN and has launched a more
wide-ranging and clearly focused initiative to
raise awareness of urban problems, to encourage the dissemination of knowledge and
best practice as well as generating new thinking on how to tackle urban problems. The
outcome of these developments has been the
publication of two Urban Communications
by the ECTowards an urban agenda in the
European Union (European Commission,
1997a) and Sustainable urban development
in the European Union: a framework for
action (European Commission, 1998a)and
the holding of an EU European Urban
Forum, under the auspices of the Austrian
Presidency, in Vienna during November
1998.
In order to address the problems of urban
areas, the EC has argued for the development
of a comprehensive approach which, whilst
adopting
area-based multi-sectoral policies must
integrate such areas into the wider social,
economic and physical fabric of the city
and the region (European Commission,
1998a, p. 12).

It is in the development of a more coordinated approach to such problems that the

Commission believes it can play a key role.
Drawing in part upon the experiences of
individual member-states, the Commission
believes this can be achieved by helping to
co-ordinate the actions of, and encouraging
co-operation between, different levels of
government and those at the same level (i.e.
vertical and horizontal co-ordination/
co-operation). However, the EC is acutely
aware that many member-states consider urban issues to be primarily an arena of national concern (i.e. under the terms of
subsidiarity the EU has no remit to become
involved). Given this, the Commission has
mainly focused its attentions on stimulating
research and innovation and arguing that
while
Policy efforts in Europe address many of
the problems affecting European cities these efforts have often been piecemeal, reactive and lacking in vision
(European Commission, 1997a, p. 3).
Thus the EC has mainly restricted itself to
arguing that there is a need to strive for better
co-ordination between different levels of
government and different policy sectors to
ensure that more general policies on economic growth, unemployment, housing, etc.,
do not come into con ict with, or undermine,
urban policies.
Central to the ECs strategy is the idea that
it is
becoming more important to engage the
participation of local participants to ensure
their needs are addressed in implementing
legislation or programmes (European
Commission, 1997a, pp. 78).
It is therefore essential to
build partnerships through which residents
and key local actors can in uence the future of their communities, at the same time
counteracting the trend towards low levels
of participation and increased alienation
from the political process (European Commission, 1998a, Annex, p. 7).
In the next section of the paper, I will con-

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

sider the experience of community participation in urban regeneration through the formation
of
multisectoral
partnerships
involving the public, private, community and
voluntary sectors.
Community Participation
Regeneration Partnerships

in

Urban

Across Europe, there are a wide range of

schemes which have attempted to tackle urban social exclusion by involving local people in area-based regeneration schemes
through the medium of partnerships (see European Commission, 1997b; Chanan, 1997;
Parkinson, 1998; Turok et al., 1998). Community participation in urban regeneration
partnerships is thought to make schemes
more ef cient and effective in the sense that
it helps to ensure that they address the problems which local people perceive as important. Residents often come up with new and
innovative ideas/methods for dealing with
problems and their participation ensures the
legitimacy of such schemes. In addition,
community involvement ensures that preexisting community groups, and their activities, are not ignored, but are drawn into the
regeneration process.
In terms of the four institutional dimensions of exclusion discussed above (Commins, 1993), area-based schemes can
contribute in a number of ways:
It is hoped that some unemployed residents will be able to gain direct employment in schemes which are part of the
projects.
Training schemes will equip others to nd
employment in regeneration projects or
elsewhere in the city.
By providing services such as welfare advice centres, many people will be better
equipped to take up bene ts to which they
are entitled but have not previously
claimed.
Local authorities will, either voluntarily or
through pressure from residents, provide
better services to the area.
The very act of participation itself will

1045

reduce the alienation many excluded

people feel from the political system.
And, nally, the process of participation
may bring the community together, as they
attempt to identify and articulate their
interests, and therefore enhance social
cohesion in the area.
Clearly this is an ambitious agenda and one
would not expect to nd every project exhibiting all these characteristics to the same
extent, if at all in some cases. A great deal
will depend upon the previous national experiences of urban regeneration and, as noted
above, there are considerable variations between member-states with regard to this issue. It is perhaps here that the Commission
has an important role to play by launching
initiatives which will help to disseminate
examples of best practice, to stimulate innovation and, in some instances, to raise awareness of problems which have previously not
gured on the political and policy agenda or
in the publics consciousness.
At the supranational level, initiatives such
as Poverty 3, URBAN, INTEGRA and a
range of other schemes associated with the
structural funds have ful lled this function
(see European Commission, 1995, 1996a and
1997b; Chanan, 1997). For instance, the majority of Poverty 3 projects were located in
urban areas and thus played an important role
in raising the awareness of urban social exclusion in individual countries such as Spain
where previously such issues had not gured
on the policy agenda. At national level, there
are a wide range of schemes such as the
Single Regeneration Budget in England,
kvarterloft in Denmark; and Contrats de
Villes in France. (See Parkinson, 1998, and
European Commission, 1997b, for European
overviews. For national discussions, see Le
Gale`s and Mawson, 1994, on France; Schuiling, 1996, on the Netherlands; and Atkinson,
1999b and 1999c on the UK.) With varying
degrees of explicitness, these schemes have
sought to counter social exclusion and facilitate integration by involving communities in
regeneration partnerships. However, it needs
to be stated that partnerships and community

1046

ROB ATKINSON

involvement are no panacea for these problems, they bring with them their own limitations and dif culties. For instance, many of
the problems experienced by people living in
excluded spaces have their origins in wider
structural (i.e. economic and social) forces,
political actions and institutional/organisational problems. On their own, area-based
initiatives cannot solve the problems of these
areas; it is vital that such schemes articulate
with, and are supported by, wider policies
(on the economy, employment, social protection)in other words, placed-based policies
need to be integrated with people-based policies.
Turning to the multisectoral partnerships
that have increasingly come to characterise
area-based urban regeneration, we need to
acknowledge that they are often problematic.
In part, this derives from the relative newness of organisations which attempt to combine the public, private, voluntary and
community sectors. Until relatively recently,
there has been little experience of how such
organisations operate and as a result partnership formation is very much a learning process. For instance, until recently in France
urban regeneration partnerships were largely
partnerships between different levels of
government, and the community and voluntary sectors were ignored. In a sense, all the
participants have to learn to work together
and, at least attempt, to set aside their individual interests and develop a notion of the
common good. Many of the problems
which partnerships have experienced stem
from an unwillingness to recognise that they
involve power relations and there has been
relatively little sustained discussion, at European or national levels, of what partnership
means or of the processes of partnership
formation and operation (Mackintosh, 1992,
and Hastings, 1996, are notable exceptions).
Moreover, the role of the community in these
new partnerships has been treated as largely
unproblematic based upon the assumption of
a more or less stable consensus existing between the various partners (see Atkinson and
Cope, 1997; Atkinson, 1999a and 1999f).
Elsewhere (Atkinson, 1998a, p. 59; 1998b)

I have argued that there are a number of,

potentially, contradictory processes at work
in these new partnerships:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(7)
(8)
(9)
(10)

synergy;
transformation;
budget enhancement;
a method of avoiding the failures of
1980s-style, market-led physical regeneration;
a method of reducing private-sector risk
and thereby facilitating investment;
a form of legitimation or symbolism
which masks the continued dominance
of property-led forms of regeneration;
a method of making regeneration more
relevant to the needs of marginalised/
excluded groups;
a method of insertion/integration acting
to create social solidarity and cohesion;
a way of creating a culture of self-help
(social entrepreneurialism) within marginalised communities; and,
a method of managing the community.

Partnerships have thus taken on a range of

important roles in the new urban governance,
attempting to co-ordinate and manage the
disparate elements deemed necessary for successful urban regeneration. However, the development of partnerships does not take
place in a vacuum; it is not a neutral process.
The construction and operation of partnerships will inevitably be biased in favour of
those able to set the regeneration agenda
and it is quite possible that, rather than participation being empowering for the community, it will be disempowering and
disillusioning (or perhaps merely con rm the
existing cynicism of many residents regarding the actions of government).
The problem of co-ordination and management involved in partnership is clearly a
dif cult one and the introduction of the community creates new problems.5 One of the
most obvious, and long-standing, problems is
who (or what) constitutes a community (see
Atkinson and Cope, 1997, pp. 202204, for a
summary of these debates). The governmentality literature (see, for example, Rose,
1996) views this turn to the community as

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

part of the emergence of a new form of

government whereby the state, acting at a
distance, seeks to constitute the community
in a particular manner which re ects a programme that attempts to create certain norms
of behaviour and action that will be internalised by individuals and communities.
Such processes also involve restructuring the
boundaries between those who are included
and those who are excluded on the basis of
adherence to such norms. This is not a
smooth process as the attempts to exercise
government in this way inevitably meet resistance. Community participation in local
governance, as Cockburn (1976, especially
chs 4 and 5) pointed out, is a two-edged
sword. By involving the community, obstacles to development can be removed and
resources deployed more effectively; but, it
can also lead to the reproduction of con icts
within the organisations of governance
which, in extreme cases, can produce a form
of paralysis as community representatives
block proposals for regeneration. Such cases
have occurred in the UK and Denmark where
con icts between the community and other
partners over the aims and conduct of regeneration have effectively paralysed projects
for up to two years until agreement could be
reached between the contending parties.
The UK experience suggests that, even
where well-organised community organisations already exist, the agenda appears to
have been largely set by those in local
government. Not only is more time needed to
allow greater participation, but also more
resources are required to enable communities
to organise themselves and put forward suitably detailed proposals. An essential part of
this capacity-building process will be the
construction of community-based organisations to run local regeneration schemes and
to link into more extensive regeneration
strategies covering the wider urban area and
region. It is only in such fora that negotiations over the allocation of resources and the
co-ordination of strategic action can take
place. In the UK, as elsewhere, the building
of community capacity was largely thought
to be unproblematic and it is only recently

1047

that funds have been explicitly set aside for

these purposes.
One of the few attempts seriously to address this issue is contained in a European
Commission report on community economic
development, regional development and European structural funds (European Commission, 1996a). The report argues for the
need to distinguish between communities
which lack the capacity to participate effectively (level I communities) and those which
have already developed this capacity (level II
communities). This report recommends that,
in the case of level I communities, the initial
emphasis of any regional economic development process be on building community capacity (see also European Commission,
1997b, pp. 3538). Speci c funds need to be
set aside for this process and allocated on the
basis of need rather than through a competitive bidding process, whereas level II communities can enter into some form of bidding
process for funds. One of the key objectives
of projects in severely disadvantaged urban
areas must be to ensure that, in the future,
level I communities will be able to compete
effectively in the bidding processes through
which structural funds (and often national
funds) are allocated.6 This report (and European Commission, 1997b) is one of the
few which explicitly acknowledges that developing the capacity of disorganised communities requires considerable time (perhaps
1015 years) and resources. Moreover, it
argues that if social and economic inclusion
(i.e. countering social exclusion) is to be
successful, one of the ultimate aims must be
to transcend localism and move towards a
community of communities.
These points are important and deserve
some consideration. It is often assumed that
communities living in excluded spaces lack
social cohesion and therefore need to be
organised through the establishment of formal organisations. As a result, there has been
a tendency to focus on the formal institutions
of governance (i.e. government) and to give
less attention to what Healey (1997a, p. 200)
terms the soft infrastructure of governance
which refers to:

1048

ROB ATKINSON

the relation-building through which

suf cient consensus building and mutual
learning can occur to develop social, intellectual and political capital to promote
co-ordination and the ow of knowledge
and competence among the various social
relations co-existing within places
(Healey, 1997a, p. 200).
As Healey (1997b) has pointed out, the social relations and networks within a locality
can be a rich source of support for urban
regeneration and the ght against social exclusion. Research for the European Commission (1997b) has shown that even in
excluded spaces there are often a wide
range of groups present. However, these
groups are often poor in terms of the social
capital which would enable them to participate in urban regeneration partnerships, or
the forms of social capital present may actually serve to isolate communities from mainstream society. Clearly, there are major
dif culties in deciding exactly what forms of
social capital are present and how relevant
they are to facilitating community participation. As Healey (1997b) has pointed out,
some forms of social capitalsuch as a distinct sense of community identity based upon
a strong sense of separateness or othernessmay help to create greater social cohesion within an area, whilst simultaneously
emphasising its distance from mainstream
society (see also Forrest and Kearns, 1999,
ch. 2). Moreover, it should not be assumed
that the necessary forms of social capital can
easily be developed. The work of Putnam
(1993) suggests that the forms of social capital (for example, trust, shared norms and
co-operative horizontal networks) most often
required for effective democracy and to
compete in the contemporary world are not
easily developed and must be deeply embedded in the social, cultural and economic relations of an area. Moreover, we need to
differentiate between excluded spaces.
Some areas mainly contain people who are
there as a result of powerlessness rather than
choice, and this is often the only common
relationship they share with one another.

These spaces, which are often areas of unpopular social housing, experience high levels of population turnover and thus lack
stability; here, the task of community capacity-building is especially dif cult as few
residents identify with the area. On the other
hand, some excluded spaces (for example,
more traditional working-class areas which
have high rates of long-term unemployment)
contain relatively stable populations who
have a distinct sense of community, but
also a very sharp awareness of their separation from society. Whilst both types of area
are excluded, very different capacity-building strategies are required in each. Also, it
may be necessary to differentiate between
excluded groups in the same area. Danish
action-researchers working in Aalborg East
found that whilst initiatives such as employment training, the development of community facilities, better public transport
connections to the wider area, a reinvigoration of the neighbourhood council, etc., improved the area as a whole, they did little to
improve the position of the most disadvantaged residents. Thus they adopted a twin
track method which involved working intensively with the most marginalised individuals
while, at the same time, pursuing the wider
initiatives outlined above to improve the area
as a whole (see European Commission,
1997b, pp. 3638). Given this, it is necessary
to begin to think critically about local social
relations and how they might contribute to
empowerment, community participation and
urban regeneration. One way of approaching
this issue is through the notion of everydaylife and a consideration of micro-level
democracy (see Atkinson, 1999e). However,
systems of governance and traditional forms
of representative democracy often have
dif culty, both practically (i.e. in an organisational sense and in terms of how to represent effectively marginalised/powerless
groups) and discursively (i.e. in theoretically
justifying group representation), in incorporating speci c spaces, their social relations
and needs into more formal systems of governance.
The development of genuine community

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

participation thus requires a fundamental rethink of attitudes by politicians and of cials

in central and local government. They need
to recognise the legitimate right of local people to participate as an equal partner in setting and implementing the regeneration
agendathey need to have a sense of ownership. To achieve this, it is essential to
engage in forms of open dialogue that permit
the development of a robust consensus from
which inclusive regeneration strategies can
be developed (see Healey, 1997a, especially
part 3). These developments will need to be
accompanied by, often radical, organisational
restructuring to facilitate community access
to and control of services (see Burns et al.,
1994). In a sense, these developments pose a
challenge to traditional forms of governance
and this in itself is a major problem to be
recognised and overcome.
Even if such restructuring is enacted,
signi cant problems will remain. There is no
guarantee that the most deprived areas will
be targeted: some schemes may focus on
areas where noticeable improvements can be
achieved quickly and cheaply, whilst others
may focus on areas with signi cant development potential in order to attract privatesector investment, thus maximising leverage
and economic development. Also, most
schemes will focus upon relatively small areas, raising the crucial issue of territorial
justicewhy should one area be given preference over others? Schemes may focus on
only one aspect of the problem (for example,
poor housing) and ignore other interconnected problems (for example, unemployment), with the result that short-term
physical improvements will be undermined
by the persistence of deep-rooted socioeconomic problems. This was certainly the case
in the UK during the 1980s and early 1990s
where attempts to regenerate run-down housing estates often left problems of unemployment and poverty largely untouched (see
Power and Tunstall, 1995). More recently, in
the UK, there has been a recognition that in
such areas joined-up problems need to be
tackled in a joined-up way (see Social Exclusion Unit, 1998)a lesson which also

1049

appears to have been learned elsewhere in

Europe most notably in the Danish
kvarterloft initiative (see also European
Commission 1997a and 1998a; Parkinson,
1998).
There also remains the problem of how to
ensure that those in precarious positions or
already excluded bene t from any developments. Given the restrictions of European
law, it has often proved dif cult to create
binding agreements with developers regarding the employment of people from disadvantaged groups. As a result, and given the
current dominance of the importance of human capital, considerable emphasis has been
placed on training and education programmes in order to insert the precarious/
excluded into the world of work. Clearly, the
labour market still occupies a crucial role as
an integrating mechanism to combat social
exclusion. For instance, Clasen et al. (1997,
p. 37) have noted that
Exclusion from the labour market automatically marginalises the long-term unemployed but for many it begins to erode
other social ties. The longer people are
unemployed, the less they are able to
maintain the economic and social fabric of
their lives and the more unmotivated and
unemployable they become.
However, in a world where a sizeable part of
the population experiences either long-term
unemployment or insecure employment, the
centrality of traditional notions of work and
its role as an integrating mechanism for all
needs to be questioned. Mingione (1991, ch.
2) argues that the dominant concept of work
is closely associated with of cial work and
that we need a much wider notion. He argues
that
the criterion for inclusion of an activity as
work is whether it contributes to material
survival. (Mingione, 1991, p. 74).
This wider de nition allows the recognition
that resources, particularly of a noncommodi ed nature, produced within the
household or in the community are a crucial
aspect of work and survival strategies. By

1050

ROB ATKINSON

recognising their legitimacy and equivalence

with traditional paid work, such forms may
act as mechanisms of insertion to both counter social exclusion and to encourage cohesion. At the same time, the legitimacy
accorded such activities may also reinforce
the civic dimension of inclusion (see van
Berkel, 1995). In relation to urban regeneration, the contribution which communitybased activities (for example, the provision
of care facilities for the young and old, community housing, womens refuges) can make
to a renewed sense of citizenship and participation in the wider society (i.e. an enhanced
sense of social solidarity/cohesion and a
counter to social isolation) is considerable.
Yet despite this, economic policy operates
with a traditional notion of work and governments seem unwilling to attempt to change
their own de nition of work. Thus we need
to develop a new concept of the social economy which goes beyond the conventional
cash economy and recognises the contribution to economic life which so-called social
activities make (see European Commission,
1997b, pp. 3841 and ch. 3).
Conclusion
It may appear from the preceding pages that
combating social exclusion in general and
urban social exclusion in particular are now
rmly established as policy priorities at EU
and member-state levels. However, there remain questions regarding how we tackle urban social exclusion particularly through the
medium of regeneration partnerships in excluded spaces. We have only just begun to
think about them and it is not unfair to say
that the process we are engaged in is a
learning process, although an impressive
body of academic case studies of individual
excluded spaces is now building up (see
Lawless et al., 1998; Madanipour et al.,
1998; Musterd and Ostendorf, 1998). The
concept of social exclusion remains relatively new and lacks a clear de nition. As a
result, there are no widely accepted methods
of measuring it; far too often, studies of
social exclusion use poverty as a proxy indi-

cator and as a result fail to capture the relational and spatial dimensions of exclusion.
Thus it is dif cult to achieve general agreement on which areas to tackle rst, and often
the selection of areas is based upon subjective judgement and political expediency.
Gradually, however, across Europe we are
building up a common stock of knowledge
and practice about how to tackle social exclusion in particular areas. This is an uneven
process and, in a sense, each new regeneration project is a learning exercise in itself as
those involved have to discover, often
through a process of trial and error, what
works and what does not. The danger is that
this learning process can be protracted and
excluded populations become increasingly
disillusioned and cynical as yet another in a
long line of regeneration initiatives fails to
deliver the promised improvements in their
lives. Thus it is vital to involve local communities from the very beginning in setting
the regeneration agenda, identifying what
can be done quickly to improve peoples
lives (for example, the provision of better
local services in these areas) and drawing up
a timetable for implementing schemes which
have clear bene ts for local people. All of
this will take time (perhaps 10 or 20 years)
and demands considerable levels of sustained
investment and thus requires a major commitment by the parties involved. Too often
there is a desire for quick results which will
transform an area overnight; the experience
of urban regeneration suggests that this
rarely happens. Even if successful regeneration partnerships are launched, they are unlikely to be able to solve the problems of an
area through their own actions. Thus it is
important to ensure that such partnerships are
inserted (or nested) in a wider range of
regional and national (and even European)
policies which support their activities. The
reality is that without wider support individual regeneration projects may improve
the outward appearance of an area, but any
progress in solving social problems will be
undermined by developments in the wider
environment. Perhaps, as Donzelot has
argued

COMBATING SOCIAL EXCLUSION IN EUROPE

It is not the business of urban policy to

reduce
unemployment,
delinquency,
racism, or at least not directly. These issues are dealt with by other policies, using
greater resources, though perhaps not always effectively. The objective of urban
policy is rather to make these policies
converge on the issue of exclusion and
thus citizenship (quoted in Yepez Del
Castillo, 1994, p. 625).
Notes
1.

4.

The European social model of society is

de ned as one which:
seeks to combine a system of economic
organisation based on market forces, freedom of opportunity and enterprise with a
commitment to the values of internal solidarity and mutual support which ensures
open access for all members of society to
services of general bene t and protection
(European Commission, 1996b, p. 13).

2.

Social exclusion may well represent an

instance of what Wacquant refers to as
advanced marginality whereby poverty
now appears to be increasingly long-term
if not permanent, disconnected from
macroeconomic trends and xated upon
disreputable neighbourhoods of relegation
in which social isolation and alienation
feed upon each other as the chasm between
those consigned there and the rest of society deepens (Wacquant, 1999, p. 1640).

He argues that economic change has made a

signi cant fraction of the working
class redundant an absolute surplus
population that will probably never nd
regular work again (Wacquant, 1999,
p. 1642).
3.

For the moment, governments and researchers are likely to persist with well-established indicators such as those associated
with income (for example, poverty and inequality in the distribution of income), unemployment (particularly extent and length),
health (for example, mortality rates), housing
(for example, indicators of sub-standard accommodation) and spatial concentration of
these factors. Various combinations and
methods are available to operationalise these
indicators and construct composite indicators
of multiple deprivation. However, none of
these approaches is without problems and it

5.

1051

is questionable whether they actually measure social exclusion, or at least the cultural
and relational dimensions of exclusion. More
recently, the European Commission (1998b)
has supported research into non-monetary
indicators of poverty and social exclusion
which attempts to develop indicators of the
material, relational, individual and spatial aspects of exclusion. However, this work is
still exploratory and it is likely to be some
time before it can be operationalised and
even then there are likely to be problems in
the collection of data and comparison over
time and space.
However, the identi cation of a policys implications for urban areas is by no means
straightforward. It may be portrayed as a
neutral process (for example, via SWOT
analysis), but involves judgements about
causal processes, the relevance of particular
policies, how they are likely to impact on
their chosen objects and how they will interact with other factors. Indeed, the very attempt to identify outcomes is a politically
contentious issue and one which may well
come into con ict with established organisations involved in the delivery of policies as
well as with the politicians promoting such
policies.
The issue of co-ordination between and
among different levels of government and
with other sectors (i.e. the community, voluntary and private) is, as the reader will have
recognised, a recurrent theme in contemporary regeneration. Clearly, the ability to combine effectively the activities and resources
of all those involved is crucial to the
achievement of synergy (the holy grail of
partnership) and, arguably, to combating social exclusion. Alcock et al. (1998) highlight
the need to articulate effectively and integrate the activities of participants. Whilst
they did nd examples of effective coordination, one of the conclusions they
reached was that even with regard to the
internal activities of local authorities
there was little to suggest the widespread
emergence of genuinely inter-agency corporate working pulling together regeneration and strategies for tackling
disadvantage (Alcock et al., 1998, p. iii).
With reference to the other partners, there
was a general feeling amongst them that they
were frequently left out of the loop when it
came to key decisions. This raises wider
questions regarding the possibility of not
only horizontal co-ordination, but also vertical co-ordination. On this issue, Kunzmann

1052

ROB ATKINSON

(1998) has forcefully argued, albeit with reference to European spatial policy, that the
search for the mirage of co-ordination is a
pointless diversion and
that actors, ministries, institutions or agencies just do not wish to be co-ordinated,
for whatever real or strategic reason, be it
simple disagreement on goals, more subtle
envy and greed, or just for power reasons
(Kunzmann, 1998, p. 101).
He recommends that
a conceptual framework for incremental
policy action should be adopted and pursued, which links single policies and efforts to an overriding holistic concept
(Kunzmann, 1998, p. 115).

6.

This assumes of course that agreement on an

overriding holistic concept is possible and
that agencies can be persuaded to bend
their policies (and resources) to support particular initiatives. What Kunzmanns arguments do achieve is to direct attention to the
issue of power and politics (see Atkinson and
Cope, 1997) and the fact that, at least in part,
partnerships are about con ict management.
As part of the process of transformation,
which I would argue is essential to the
achievement of synergy (see Atkinson,
1998b), partners need to at least attempt to
set aside their own interests and engage in
a process of what Stone refers to as a capacity for understanding or social learning (Stone, 1989, pp. 211212) whereby the
partners in a coalition engage in a process of
mutual account-taking. In certain circumstances, social learning can have the effect of
intensifying co-operation and rede ning the
identity of the individual partners, thereby
producing a new, more inclusive, corporate
identity for the regime (Stone, 1993, pp. 13
14). Such an approach does not mean that the
partners should simply abandon their particular interestsafter all, the tension generated
by these differences is part of the process of
creating new approachesbut merely that
they should openly acknowledge them and
engage in open debate about them and how
they relate to the regeneration project.
The question of the competitive allocation of
funding is a highly contentious one, and
while I have a great deal of sympathy with
Edwards (1997, pp. 835841) critique of
this mode of allocation, it needs to be acknowledged that even when funding was/is
allocated on the basis of need this by no

means guarantees a straightforward and uncontentious process. Need is dif cult to

de ne and inevitably there is a degree of
political interference as national and local
politicians lobby for their particular area.
Whatever the mode of allocation, it should
be open, transparent and accountable to
democratic bodies.

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