Poverty, social exclusion and social polarisation

The need to construct an international welfare state

Bibliographic Data

ID23136223
AuthorsPeter Townsend (0000-0001-7106-8107, corresponding author)
Year2002
Pages2-24
Publication date2002-09-25
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueWorld poverty (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherPolicy Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1332/policypress/9781861343956.003.0002
OpenAlexW2296886882
ISBN9781861343956
LanguageEN
Citations received12

This chapter presents a general account of trends in development from the 1960s, when poverty was placed at the forefront of international concern. The continued emphasis on economic growth by the Bretton Woods institutions has attracted increasingly critical attention. The partial shift of attention to ‘social exclusion’ has widened the understanding of the causes of poverty but has not led to the mobilisation of effective action on the part of the international agencies or the most powerful states. It is the phenomenon of ‘social polarisation’ that is attracting too little interest, and yet is fuelling increasingly difficult and even dangerous, as well as contentious, social conditions.

Action (physics) · Basic needs · Construct (python library) · Culture of poverty · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Phenomenon · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Social exclusion · Social Welfare · State (computer science) · Welfare · Welfare state · Law · Social Policy and Reform Studies