Exclusion In Europe Research Articles

Climate acts as an environmental filter to plant pathogens.

Climate shapes the distribution of plant-associated microbes such as mycorrhizal and endophytic fungi. However, the role of climate in plant pathogen community assembly is less understood. Here, we explored the role of climate in the assembly of Phytophthora communities at >250 sites along a latitudinal gradient from Spain to northern Sweden and an altitudinal gradient from the Spanish Pyrenees to lowland areas. Communities were detected by ITS sequencing of river filtrates. Mediation analysis supported the role of climate in the biogeography of Phytophthora and ruled out other environmental factors such as geography or tree diversity. Comparisons of functional and species diversity showed that environmental filtering dominated over competitive exclusion in Europe. Temperature and precipitation acted as environmental filters at different extremes of the gradients. In northern regions, winter temperatures acted as an environmental filter on Phytophthora community assembly, selecting species adapted to survive low minimum temperatures. In southern latitudes, a hot dry climate was the main environmental filter, resulting in communities dominated by drought-tolerant Phytophthora species with thick oospore walls, a high optimum temperature for growth, and a high maximum temperature limit for growth. By taking a community ecology approach, we show that the establishment of Phytophthora plant pathogens in Europe is mainly restricted by cold temperatures.

Model of psychosocial determinants of health in processes of social exclusion.

The substantial increase in the number of families facing social exclusion in Europe and its direct relationship with health inequities is a challenge for studies approaching the social determinants of health and policies dealing with welfare and social inclusion. We start from the premise that reducing inequality (SDG10), has a value and contributes on other goals such as improving health and well-being (SDG3), ensuring quality education (SDG4), promoting gender equality (SDG5) and decent work (SDG8). In this study, we identify disruptive risk factors and psychological and social well-being factors that influence self-perceived health in trajectories of social exclusion. The research materials used a checklist of exclusion patterns, life cycles and disruptive risk factors, Goldberg's General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), Ryff's Psychological Well-being (PWB) Scale and Keyes' Social Well-being Scale. The sample consists of 210 people (aged between 16 and 64 years): 107 people in a situation of social inclusion and 103 people in a situation of social exclusion. The data treatment involved statistical analysis, including correlation study and multiple regression analysis, aimed at developing a model of psychosocial factors that may act as health modulators, considering social factors as predictors in the regression model. The results showed that individuals in the sample, in a situation of social exclusion, have a greater accumulation of disruptive risk factors, and these are related to having fewer psychosocial and cognitive resources to cope with stressful situations: less self-acceptance, less mastery of the environment, less purpose in life, less level of social integration and social acceptance. Finally, analysis showed that in the absence of social integration and purpose in life, self-perceived health statuses decline. This work allows us to use the model obtained as a basis for confirming that there are dimensions of psychological and social well-being that should be considered stress-buffering factors in trajectories of social exclusion. These findings can help design psychoeducational programs for prevention and intervention with the aim of improving psychological adjustment and health states, as well as to promote proactive and reactive policies to reduce health inequalities.

Free school meals for all poor children in Europe: An important and affordable target?

AbstractOne of the objectives of the newly adopted European Child Guarantee is to ensure effective and free access to at least one healthy meal each school day for all children at risk of poverty and social exclusion in Europe. However, little is known about the starting point of Member States in terms of school meal provision. This paper aims to fill this information gap. It maps the current free school meal provision in the 27 Member States, reviews existing relevant evidence to illustrate the expected impact and presents estimates of the public budget needed to meet the Child Guarantee's objective.

Reducing poverty and social exclusion in Europe: estimating the marginal effect of income on material deprivation

Abstract Advances in measuring poverty in non-monetary terms enable governments to track social progress on ends, the things that societies value doing and being. Using a national-level regression-based empirical strategy, this research demonstrates the magnitude of previously unmeasured policy effects on material deprivation, a non-monetary indicator of poverty. We apply this methodology to a comparative microdata set covering 32 European countries and estimate the average marginal effect of a small universal income increase on material deprivation. We illustrate the impact of the income transfer from various policy angles commonly used when analyzing the poverty reduction effects of social transfers. We show how impacts vary with characteristics such as country and household deprivation levels and the type of social transfers received. The methodology enables an analysis of the redistributive impact of social transfers on non-monetary social outcomes and is also suitable for other non-monetary social outcomes such as housing deprivation and food insecurity.

Representative Bureaucracy and Perceptions of Social Exclusion in Europe: Evidence From 27 Countries

Representative bureaucracy theory predicts that mirroring social groups in the composition of the bureaucracy will lead to inclusive policies and less overall exclusion of diverse individuals. While supporting evidence on policy outcomes is abundant, findings on subjective perceptions are mixed. This study tests three hypotheses linking representative bureaucracy to perceived same-group discrimination in the general population. It introduces a novel multidimensional index of bureaucratic underrepresentation, and uses mixed effects hierarchical models to approximate answers. Exploratory findings suggest an “ awareness” mechanism may explain the counterintuitive relationship between underrepresentation and feelings of exclusion, in which more diverse public sectors develop alongside higher awareness of discrimination.

Can decentralization help address poverty and social exclusion in Europe?

ABSTRACT Poverty reduction and the tackling of social exclusion are overarching goals of development and welfare policies. This paper explores the extent to which decentralization contributes to poverty and social exclusion alleviation in European countries and regions. We find evidence that increases in central government transfers of political, administrative and fiscal authority to subnational tiers of government reduce poverty and address social exclusion at the national level. This, however, mainly happens in countries with a high degree of governance quality and, fundamentally, in urban areas. The link between decentralization and poverty and social exclusion alleviation is more uniform at the regional level, as greater regional autonomy is connected to lower poverty and social exclusion, regardless of the quality of regional government. Hence, when regional governments have the capacity to design their own independent policies, a reduction of poverty and social exclusion and improvements in well-being generally ensue.

Digital Exclusion During the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the reliance on digital services increased in most developed countries leaving many communities who are digitally excluded cut-off from vital services such as health and social care. Globally, digital exclusion is proposed to be one of the largest issues on discrimination within countries where smart cities and digital-by-default policies have been promoted, preventing certain groups of society from having access to public services. Addressing why people are being digitally excluded is important in improving the access people have to healthcare and other services that improve a person’s quality of life. Through a focused review of literature and publicly available secondary information, this paper examines the impact of Covid-19 on digital exclusion in Europe, Scandinavia, North America and Asia Pacific region and the methods that have been successful in limiting digital exclusion. Results show that while some countries handled the COVID 19 pandemic well, other countries’ attempts widened the gap with more people becoming digitally excluded.

La reconstrucción de la identidad musulmana de las jóvenes de ascendencia marroquí con estudios superiores en Cataluña

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the daughters of Moroccan families living in Catalonia re-signify their identity as young Muslim and Catalan women, by presenting their own (re)construction of Muslimness. This is the result of the tendency to identify “Muslim” people and “the Muslim” as a paradigm of “the irreducible,” sustaining monolithic and static discourses and social representations that result in more deeply rooted forms of discrimination and exclusion in Europe. The methodological design of the research is based on a qualitative approach that, through life stories, makes it possible to identify the subjective meanings of social practices and lived experiences. The starting point was a sample of young —so called “second generation”— women (born in Catalonia or arrived before the age of twelve); daughters of Moroccan parents, with associative experiences and who are or have been in higher education, in order to show the specificity of the role played by educational levels in the configuration of religious identity. The results show the strategies developed by the young women to manage the tensions within their families and communities, resulting from living in a context where Islam is a minority, which presents challenges and dilemmas when it comes to redefining their religiosity and identity as Muslim women. Indeed, this suggests that the second generation do not follow a linear model of cultural assimilation. Instead, they reinforce their self-image as “bearers” of a transformed religiosity that they construct in their daily lives. This is precisely where the originality of this article lies.

Microfinance as a Mechanism against Financial Exclusion in the European Rural Areas – an Inspiration for the Czech Republic

One of the factors influencing the emergence of disparities between rural and urban regions is the varying level of financial inclusion of the population. The system of microfinancing is becoming an important mechanism against poverty and social exclusion in Europe. However, there is available very limited legal, regulatory and historical information on the microfinance system in the Czech Republic. As a result, microfinance institutions are absent and small entrepreneurs tend to use expensive consumer credit products, thereby increasing the risk of over-indebtedness. The aim of this research is to examine the repayment performance of the European microfinance institutions with increased share of clients from rural areas. Based on an empirical statistical analysis of an unique European microfinance institutions´ database, we are presenting evidence that suggests that microfinance systems perform better in rural than in urban areas. This finding is strongly recommended for consideration in the development of policies to guide legal frameworks regarding microfinancing.

Talking culture: New boundaries, new rhetorics of exclusion in Europe,

In the contemporary debate concerning European integration and the “problem” of Third World immigration no less than in developments in anthropology in the past decade, the boundedness of cultures ...

Experience of Urban Hospitality: An Ecological Approach to the Migrants’ World

This article was inspired by a collaborative action-research experience undertaken in Brussels by ARCH (Action Research Collective for Hospitality), aimed at further understanding the dynamics of hospitality and improving hospitality towards refugees, based on collaboration with actors of civil society. In a context of spreading policies of hostility and exclusion in Europe and the lack of arrival infrastructures for undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, the people tend to occupy public spaces of the city. Consequently, these spaces become the central nodes where civil society organizes the humanitarian aid and practices of hospitality and at the same time are places for interactional tensions and institutional violence. In other words, they become an urban stage where the tension between hospitality and exclusion is played out. Based on this research, our article proposes to take the urban consequences of hostility policies seriously by analyzing the ecology of the migrants’ world in the city. Our aim is to understand their experience of segregation and hospitality in the urban environment—and more specifically in public spaces. Public spaces are indeed the only livable spaces for people for whom no room has been made. However, what constitutes their hospitality for migrants, i.e., their capacity to be inhabited, enters into tension with the constitutive dimensions of urban publicness (like accessibility, visibility, or urbanity). Understanding the experience of hospitality in urban public spaces for those who have no other place to live is seen as a condition as well as a means to enhance their urban inclusion.

Comparative Politics of Exclusion in Europe and the Americas: Religious, Sectarian, and Racial Boundary Making since the Reformation

Based on a critical reading of three recent books, I argue that the exclusion of Jews and Muslims, the two major non-Christian religious groups in Europe and the Americas, has continued on the basis of ethnic, racial, ideological, and quasi-rational justifications, instead of or in addition to religious justifications, since the Reformation. Furthermore, I argue that the institutionally orchestrated collective stigmatization and persecution of Jews and Muslims predated the Reformation, going back to the Fourth Lateran Council under Pope Innocent III in 1215. The notion of Corpus Christianum and Observant movements in the late Middle Ages, the elective affinity of liberalism and racism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and the divergence in religious norms at present are critically evaluated as potential causes of ethnoreligious exclusion.

Book Review: Olena Fedyuk and Paul Stewart (eds), Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe: Migration, Work and Employment Perspectives

Book Review: Olena Fedyuk and Paul Stewart (eds), <i>Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe: Migration, Work and Employment Perspectives</i>

Migrations and Borders: Practices and Politics of Inclusion and Exclusion in Europe from the Nineteenth to the Twenty-first Century

ABSTRACTCurrent media images of a “fortress Europe” suggest that migrations and borders are closely connected. This special issue brings together scholars from history, sociology and anthropology to explore cross-border mobility and migration during the formation, development, and transformation of the modern (nation-)state explicating the conflictive and fluctuating character of borders. The historical perspective demonstrates that such bordering processes are not new. However, they have developed new dynamics in different historical phases, from the formation of the modern (nation-)state in the nineteenth century to the creation of the European Union during the second half of the twentieth. This introduction explains the dynamic relationships between borders and migratory movements in Europe from the nineteenth century to the present by approaching them from four different, overlapping angles, which the articles analyze in more detail: (1) the multiple actors involved, (2) scales and places of borders and their crossings, (3) the instruments and techniques employed, and (4) the significance of social categories. Focusing on the historical, local specificity of the complex relations between migration and boundaries will help denaturalize the concept of the border as well as further reflection on the shifting definitions of migration and belonging.

Race, migration and neoliberalism: distorted notions of Romani migration in European public discourses

ABSTRACTThis article analyzes the migration of Roma based on recent public, academic, policy and political debates in connection with two specific case studies in France and Italy. Moreover, it aims to understand how contemporary racialized discourses and neoliberal social and political forces (re)create Roma as a racialized internal ‘other’ to legitimize subtle anti-Romani politics in Europe. By doing that, it argues that the current migration of Roma cannot be understood apart from the proliferation of the hegemonic neoliberal ideology that facilitates the racialization of Roma and normalizes their social exclusion in Europe. Moreover, it explores the role of neoliberalism in the racialization and subjugation of Roma in Europe.

Public health in the Calais refugee camp: environment, health and exclusion

The ongoing emergency for refugees is having profound and hidden health consequences for thousands of displaced persons who live in informal ‘makeshift’ camps across Europe. This interdisciplinary paper reports the results of the first environmental health assessment in such a location, in what was Europe’s largest informal refugee camp in 2016, in Calais, northern France. We detail the lack of facilities for sanitation, safe provision of food, water and shelter, demonstrating how conditions fall short of agreed international standards for formal refugee camps. Rather than the notion of migrants being the cause of health problems, this paper critically reveals the hidden materiality of bodily injury caused by poor health conditions, where the camp itself produces harm. Drawing upon theories of biopolitical exclusion, the paper concludes by (i) emphasising the empirical and conceptual themes that tie refugee politics and biologies together and (ii) makes a call for increased attention to makeshift camps as key sites of health exclusion in Europe and beyond.

Does Global English Support the Development of Social Europe?

AbstractThe relevance of languages and multilingual communication for social policy and solidarity in the context of the nation-state has generally been recognized. However, in the context of Europeanization, this factor has been underestimated and neglected in scientific research. This paper argues that languages and multilingual communication are relevant for the design of Social Europe. In order to support this hypothesis, the paper relies on an analytical tool, the so-called floral figuration model proposed by De Swaan (1988). This model allows us to isolate social and linguistic actors and track down complex patterns of linguistic and communicative exclusion in Europe’s system of multilevel governance. These patterns also refer to international or global English or its technically adapted Brussels variety, ‘Euro-English’. From this, also follows that these patterns of linguistic and communicative exclusion must be rendered into inclusive ones before a European social policy can be realized.

THE RELEVANCE OF LANGUAGES AND MULTILINGUAL COMMUNICATION FOR SOCIAL EUROPE?

The relevance of languages and multilingual communication for social policy and solidarity in the context of the nation state has generally been recognized. However, in the context of Europeanization this factor has been underestimated and neglected in scientific research. This paper argues that languages and multilingual communication are relevant for the design of Social Europe. In order to support this hypothesis the paper relies on an analytical tool, the so-called floral figuration model proposed in De Swaan [1]. This model allows us to isolate social and linguistic actors and track down complex patterns of linguistic and communicative exclusion in Europe's system of multi-level governance. These patterns also refer to international or global English, or its technically adapted Brussels variety Euro-English and appear in a case study on the Netherlands.

Corruption, Fatigued Democracy and Bad Governance: Are They Co-Determinants of Poverty Risk and Social Exclusion in Europe? A Cross-Country Macro-Level Comparison

Using a macro panel of 31 European countries, this paper explores the hypothesis that cross-country differences in the exposition to the risk of poverty or social exclusion (as defined by the Europe 2020 anti‐poverty strategy) are strongly affected by countries’ political, institutional and legal characteristics and particularly by the level of perceived corruption in the public and political sectors. As expected, the results show that economic growth, income distribution, public expenditure and investment, as well as education but not technical development, have strong effects on poverty reduction. This notwithstanding, results indicate that corruption and poor institutional quality significantly interact with economic cofactors and threaten the positive effects of growth on poverty. Altogether, the results signal the need for reassessment of the Euro 2020 strategy, which mainly relies on economic instruments alone.

Concepts of poverty and social exclusion in Europe

This paper provides a critical analysis of the concepts of poverty and social exclusion in three parts. First, it examines the relationship between poverty and social exclusion, a distinction that has been the subject of analysis, debate and controversy. Second, the concepts of poverty and social exclusion as used in the European policy discourse are analysed, and how changes in terminology, links to the economic growth agenda, and emphasis on employment as a response can be noticed. The recognition of the ‘territorial dimension’ of poverty and social exclusion has been an increasingly important feature of EU discourse and actions. Third, the paper explores the inherent territoriality of poverty and social exclusion, which has paved the way for localised spatial responses. The authors argue that economic concerns have triggered a continuous tendency to narrow down the focus of definition and action, in order to offer clarity of scope to researchers and policy makers, but that such narrowing could also undermine our ability to address a complex multi-dimensional process. In particular, prioritising economic dimensions to the neglect of the other aspects of social exclusion is problematic in dealing with major social problems.