Summaries Although the concept of social exclusion has its origins in northern social policy discourses, it can add value to attempts to think about social policy in the context of development if it can provide a unifying framework for analysing the social implications of economic disadvantage and the economic implications of social disadvantage. This article develops one possible version of such a framework. It identifies the different kinds of disadvantage which underpin social exclusion, and goes on to analyse social exclusion as the product of institutional processes, group dynamics and social practices. It concludes by drawing attention to the positive role that social policy can play in counteracting the adverse implications of exclusion as well as to its negative role in reproducing them.