This book re-evaluates the importance of social policies in shaping well-being and combating exclusion, and enhances understanding of how these policies are formed in a globalizing world. It emphasises the context- and path-dependence of patterns and policies of inclusion and exclusion, and provides a framework for supporting social policy making.

ARJAN DE HAAN has been Social Development Adviser at the UK Department for International Development, China since 1998, and this book was finalised when he was Visiting Professor at the University of Guelph, Canada. His research interests include migration, labour markets and livelihoods, particularly in South Asia. At the Poverty Research Unit at the University of Sussex, UK, his work focused on poverty monitoring and analysis, and he published on concepts and measurement of social exclusion.