Three Discourses of Social Exclusion

Deprivation, Diet, and Food-Retail Access: Findings from the Leeds ‘Food Deserts' Study

“…As Mohan (2000) notes, the intense concern with issues of social exclusion within the post-1997 Labour governments has contained elements of three broad discourses identified by Levitas (1998;1999)öa redistributive discourse, a social integrationist discourse, and moral underclass discourse öbut, above all, it has also been characterized by``an apparent renaissance of area-based policy'' responses to social exclusion (Mohan, 2000, page 296).…”

The Oldest Old and the Risk of Social Exclusion

“…Motivated by the moralistic notions of social integration through labour market participation (Levitas, 1998) that echoed the US 'workfare' schemes of the Clinton era, Blair's New Labour government launched the Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) in December 1997 to provide a cross-departmental approach to the complex problems of specific disadvantaged groups. It focused initially upon rough sleepers, school truants, pregnant teenagers and young people not in education, employment or training (Levitas et al, 2007).…”

Unpacking new labour's ‘Urban Renaissance’ agenda: Towards a socially sustainable reurbanization of British cities?

“…What seems to happen in the UK is 'a selective appropriation of the revanchist political repertoire' in order to deal with the escalating contradictions of urban entrepreneurialism (MacLeod, 2002, p. 602), with varying degrees of support within local political systems. The Urban Renaissance agenda is, in that sense, a reflection of the contradictions of New Labour's Third Way political project (Holden & Iveson, 2003, p. 57;Levitas, 1998). It can be interpreted both as an attempt to deal with, and address, the adverse impacts of neoliberal political and economic restructuring on the inner city, whilst also being part and parcel of the neoliberal urban project (MacLeod & Ward, 2002;Ward, 2003;Jones & Ward, 2004).…”

“…The political narrative of community and individual responsibility can deflect attention from the causes of poverty and the issue of wealth distribution (Imrie & Raco, 2003, p. 30) as well as from the 'rolling back' of certain welfare functions previously provided by the State. New Labour's New Labour's Urban Renaissance Agenda combination of neoliberal and neocommunitarian approaches (Fyfe, 2005) thus displays some degree of continuity with Thatcherite policies (Levitas, 1998;Heffernan, 2001). …”