General aspects regarding social inclusion

• Author: Andra Nicoleta Dascalu Puran
• Position: Asist. Ph.D. Candidate, University of Pitesti, Law and Public Administration Departament
• Pages: 110-113

GENERAL ASPECTS REGARDING SOCIAL INCLUSION

Dasclu Puran Andra Nicoleta

Abstract

Upholding the huma n rights and especially ensur ing its citizens a decent way of life, ar e the objectives

which Romania has ta ken, especially in the context of Eur opean integra tion. For the a ccomplishment of these

objectives our country ha s d eveloped social politics regarding social exclusion, politics imposed on by the

Europea n Union bodies.

Key words: social exclusion, social inclusion, social politics, socia l reconstruction.

Introduction

Romania’s integration into the European Union has also drawn the in ternal conversion of politics and

legislation regarding social inclusion. Although the concept is not clea rly defined, the ba se of social politics is

given by social exclusion, a term which is often mistaken with poverty, margina lization and under class.

For the accomplishment of social in clusion one must take into considera tion the main fields of interest:

the labor market, education, health a nd socia l car e, professional prepar ation, etc., and also the deter minant

factors of the phenomenon of social exclusion.

In order to define the term of social inclusion we must first start with defining the term of social

exclusion. Regarding this term there is in the doctrine a multitude of opinions.

The origin of the term “social exclusion” is found in France, in 1974, when Rene Lenoir, state secretary

with social affairs in the De Gaulle government lead by Jacques Chirac –, published the book “Les Exclus”.

After Lenoir, the excluded represented all the social categories which were not included in the social insurance

systems specific to the social state.

At a E uropean level, the ter m of social exclusion appeared at the end of the 80’s and beginning of the

90’s, during the warrants of the Delors Commission. Even since 1975 there were initiated and conducted b y

communitarian in stitutions (T he Council, T he Commission) a series of programs regarding poverty. The third

program, conducted between1989–1994 and informally known as Poverty III, financed the construction of the

Observatory over national politics a gainst social exclusion. I n the first part of the 90’s, social exclusion a nd

inclusion were inte grated (mainstreaming) in all European Union p olitics, beginning with the Maa stricht Treaty

and its relate d protocols, the reform of the objectives o f the European Social Fund, documents of the European

Parliament and the Social Action Programs of the Commission (Estivil, 2003).

Some authors claimed that o ne of the reasons for which social exclusion ha s been adopted so quickly at

the level of European institutions was the refusal of conservatory governments from that time in Europe, more

exactly the Thatcher Government from Great Britain (Berghman, 1995, Nolan, 1996), and the German Kohl

Government (Hills, 2002) to acknowledge the existence of poverty, preferring the ter m of social exclusion1.

The concept of social exclusion had an independent evolution fro m the co nsecrated term of “poverty”,

being tied to the idea of rights arising fro m the quality of citizen of a country. I f poverty was defined, initially, in

regards to income, social exclusion was defined in regards to social rights, as the right to labor, living

accommodations, health services, and not exclusion as a terminal point in the process of poverty 2.

In the Romanian doctrine, the definition suggested in the social politics dictionary is found in t he

Encyclopedia of Social Development. According to the authors, social exclusion “mainly refers to a situation of

failure regarding the full accomplishment of the right of citizen, both because of structural causes of a socio-

economical nature as well as to causes of an individual nature”3.

Also, social exclusion is assimilated to the ter m of social marginalization. So, Law 116/2002 regarding

the prevention and co mbating social marginalization defines this concept in art.3 as the marginal socia l position

to isolate individuals and groups with limited access to economic, political, educational and communicative

resources of the collectivity; it is manifested by the absence of a minimum of living social conditions.

Inclusion is a much newer term than that of social exclusion, being defined as the answer politic to

situations of social exclusion, in the docu ments of the European Council from 2000, amongst which the Lisbon

Strategy is pointed out. Alongside the December summit of the same year which took place in Nice, the

objective of social inclusion became an integrating part of antipoverty national plans.

* Asist. Ph.D. Candidate, University of Piteşti, Law and Public Administration Departament, e-mail: andradascalu@yahoo.com

1 D. Arpinte, Adriana Baboi, S. Cace, Cristina Tomescu, I. Stnescu, Politici de incluziune social, Calitatea vieii, XIX, no. 3–4, 2008, p.

341.

2 Simona Ilie, Srcie şi excluziune social.Incluziunea social ca obiectiv al sistemului de p rotecie social, Calitatea vieii, XIV, no. 3–4,

2003.

3 C. Zamfir, Simona Maria Stnescu, (coord.), Enciclopedia dezvoltrii sociale, Polirom Publishing House, Iaşi 2007, p. 241.