The EU’s social and urban policies from the perspective of inclusion. History and usage of the concept

Printz, Antoine [UCL]

Over the past few years, we have gone through a major evolution of our political view of society’s structure, creation, and organisation, with the social question now seen through the prism of the inclusion/exclusion dichotomy. Such an evolution is not neutral in terms of how it translates into social policy, as it injects specific processes and perspectives into all social measures. With this new inclusion/exclusion angle, we are evolving towards new ways of approaching social topics. What is the contribution of this perspective to urban social policies? What are the socio-economic implications of this shift in the public policy framework? In order to better examine these topics, it appears necessary to offer a theoretical clarification of the concept. The researcher’s goal will therefore be to approach these questions from a long-term perspective, breaking them into categories and examining their empirical effects, e.g. through European Union (EU) social policy.