Product Description: Against a background of globalization, risk and cultural pluralism, the problem of social exclusion and its possible remedies have become a major focus for political and social analysis and policy making. This collection of original essays by leading social thinkers and analysts offers a comprehensive exploration of the topic and considers various practical agenda...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Against a background of globalization, risk, and cultural pluralism, the problem of social exclusion and its possible remedies have become a major focus for political and social analysis and policy making. This collection of original essays by leading social thinkers and analysts offers a comprehensive exploration of the topic and considers various practical agenda...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

This interdisciplinary collection of essays takes a hard look at the gap between increasingly costs expectations of welfare including other social needs and available revenues. It shows that the issue is not a purely economic and certainly not a party-political one, but that it has significant ethical, some call it spiritual, components. From providing initially a broad account of welfare economics it presents contributions from political philosophers and theologians as well as accounts of successful initiatives to indicate the direction for solutions which will correspond to the complex realities of post-modern society.