Article

Journal of Social Work

2015, Vol. 15(1) 4564
The Luhmannian ! The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1468017313504607

inclusion and its jsw.sagepub.com

relevance to
Social Work1
Werner Schirmer
Department of Social and Welfare Studies, University of
Linkoping, Sweden; Center for Social Theory, Ghent University,
Belgium

Dimitris Michailakis
Department of Social and Welfare Studies, University of
Linkoping, Sweden

Abstract
 Summary: Although the concept of social exclusion is central to the academic discip-
line of social work, there is not much theoretical clarity about what it actually means.
For instance, exclusion is used as a synonym for poverty, marginalization, detachment,
unemployment, or solitude. We argue that the systems-theoretical framework devel-
oped by the German social theorist Niklas Luhmann (19271997) provides the con-
ceptual tools to understand inclusion and exclusion in a theoretically adequate way that
is highly relevant to Social Work.
Since there is scarcely any literature on Luhmanns work in the field of social work not
written in German, this article aims to provide a systematic introduction to the
Luhmannian theory of society with respect to the distinction of inclusion/exclusion
and its relation to social work to an English-speaking audience.
 Findings: After a presentation of some basic concepts, it will be argued that exclusion
is not a problem per se nor is inclusion always and per se unproblematic. The
Luhmannian approach suggests that inclusion and exclusion are operations of social
systems that treat human beings as relevant addresses for communication. Against
that background, systems theory gives a clear and accurate description of what social
work can (and cannot) do in terms of inclusion/exclusion.
 Applications: The main purpose of social work is exclusion management. Exclusion
management involves working on the social addresses of individuals with the aim of

Corresponding author:
Werner Schirmer, University of Linkoping, Campus Norrkoping, Norrkoping 60174, Sweden.
Email: werner.schirmer@liu.se
46 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

improving their attractiveness for other social systems, a (re)orientation towards being
includable. It appears in three forms: exclusion prevention, inclusion mediation, and
exclusion administration.

Keywords
Social work, exclusion, inclusion, Luhmann, social work theory, systems theory

Introduction
It is probably a commonality in the literature that one raison detre of social work
is to deal with social exclusion. It is likewise a commonality that there is not much
theoretical clarity on what is actually meant by the term exclusion. A review of
the pertinent literature in leading Social Work journals and textbooks (Axford,
2010; Buchanan, 2006; Dominelli, 1999; Hallerod & Larsson, 2008; Heikkila &
Sihvo, 1997; Pierson, 2010; Sheppard, 2006; Taket et al., 2009; Washington &
Paylor, 1998) shows that the concept of exclusion is rarely underpinned by social
theory, and the term is often used as a synonym for poverty, marginalization, i.e.
people detached from participation in society, especially deprived of a job, money,
family, friends, etc. Furthermore, there is often the normative misunderstanding
that the occurrence of social exclusion is per se a problem, with the consequence
being that inclusion is seen as the solution.
Drawing on the framework of social systems theory developed by Niklas
Luhmann, we will argue that exclusion and inclusion are pairs of a binary distinc-
tion and that they play a crucial role in understanding the relation between society
and the individual as well as for the societal function of social work. In the German
literature, there is a considerable body of work applying and developing
Luhmanns general theory of social systems to the case of organized social help
and its relation to society (Baecker, 1994; Bommes & Scherr, 2000b; Fuchs, 2000).
However, as there is scarcely any work published in international journals (among
the exceptions are Scherr, 1999; Villadsen, 2008; Wirth, 2009), the aim of this
article is to provide a systematic introduction to the Luhmannian theory of society
with respect to the inclusion/exclusion distinction and its relation to social work to
an English-speaking audience. We will draw on Luhmanns original work as well as
on that of the most important Luhmann scholars in Social Work. The article begins
with a contextualization of Luhmannian systems theory within general systems
theory and in relation to social work (Systems theory and social work).
Starting out with dierentiation theory, the section Luhmanns theory of society
oers a clarication of the key component of Luhmanns concept of modern soci-
ety, i.e. functional dierentiation into systems such as the economy, politics, sci-
ence, religion, etc. Further, the relation between function systems and organization
systems is discussed. The section Society and the individual deals with the often
misunderstood relation between human beings and society in Luhmanns theory.
This part will map out in detail how human beings, despite being part of the
Schirmer and Michailakis 47

environment of social systems, are crucial as psychic systems and persons.

While the rst two sections are very abstract, they are necessary steps in order to
comprehend the description of the inclusion/exclusion distinction in the last sec-
tion. This is the pivotal section, as it shows how people are included in and
excluded from social systems. It is argued that exclusion and inclusion are not
per se problem and solution, respectively. On the one hand, inclusion as such
can be problematic; on the other hand, exclusion is an operative requirement for
modern society.
Nonetheless, inclusion in some function systems and organizations is vital for an
adequate social life. Against that background, systems theory argues that the spe-
cial function that social work fulls for society is exclusion management, which
occurs in three forms: exclusion prevention, inclusion mediation, and exclusion
administration.

Systems theory and social work

Before we start developing Luhmanns account of systems theory, a few words need
to be said about the relation between systems-theoretical approaches and social
work. The biologist von Bertalany is usually seen as the founder of general sys-
tems theory (von Bertalany, 1968). However, for the social sciences, it was
Parsons whose path breaking book The Social System had a clear focus on
systems already about 20 years earlier (Parsons & Smelser, 2012 [1951]). As pointed
out by Payne (2002, p. 272f), the social work textbooks by Goldstein (1973) as well
as Pincus and Minahan (1973) were the rst to introduce systems thinking into
social work. Goldstein emphasizes that clients are to be understood as parts of
social systems; likewise the relation between client and social worker can be
described as a system. Pincus and Minahan mention the relevance of resource/
support systems and their relation to clients. Furthermore, there is a whole trad-
ition of cybernetic and systemic approaches in psychiatry, psychology, and family
therapy, foremost by Bateson (1972) and the Palo Alto-School around
Watzlawick, Beavin, and Jackson (1967) that had considerable impact on social
work (see Kleve, 2007). The common denominator of all these dierent systems-
theories is that they refuse to analyse phenomena in isolation (e.g. people and their
behaviours) but consider these as elements of a system. In other words, people and
actions are placed within a context and studied in their relation to other people and
actions. The main focus is then on the relations between these elements and the
emergent, systemic eects which cannot be explained by the mere properties of
the elements. Additionally, systems-theoretical approaches are interested in how
these elements together form a system, i.e. a unity which due to its distinctive
properties dierentiates itself from an environment.
Although there is this general compatibility between many systems-theories,
there is also what an external observer might call a division of labour. On the
one hand, there are approaches within social work, psychotherapy, family therapy,
etc. which aim to solve clients problems and/or improve the relation between client
48 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

and social worker/therapist. These approaches are interventionist insofar as their

underlying idea is that interventions are more successful when considering systems
theoretical insights. On the other hand, there are systems-theories that are oriented
more towards gaining knowledge; these share the underlying idea that systems-
theory oers insights more appropriate for understanding the world than non-
systemic theories. Examples are the complex frameworks by von Bertalany,
Maturana, and Varela in biology or Parsons, Weick, Wallerstein, and Luhmann
within the social sciences.
Social work as an applied science is basically interventionist but in order to be
good at this, it draws from interdisciplinary sources of knowledge, such as biology,
medicine, psychology, sociology, pedagogics, etc. Hence, in the same way as bio-
logical, cybernetic or psychological systems-theories provide relevant insights that
can be used within social work in order to make interventions better, we can argue
that Luhmanns sociological systems theory provides equally relevant insights for
social work. The focus lies, as mentioned above, on a better understanding of the
social conditions of inclusion and exclusion, and this shall be shown in the follow-
ing sections.

Luhmanns theory of society

Functional differentiation
The Luhmannian theory follows the well-established sociological tradition of dif-
ferentiation according to which society is not understood as a single unit (such as a
collective of people) but in terms of dierence. This assumption has many prede-
cessors in social theory. Just think of the Marxist dierence of bourgeoisie and
proletariat, Webers polytheism of value spheres, Simmels intersecting social cir-
cles, or a bit more recently the Habermasian dierence of life world and systems.
Luhmanns approach is, more specically, an enhancement of the functionalist
strand of dierentiation theory following primarily Durkheims social division of
labour and Parsons dierentiation of the social system into four function systems
known as the AGIL scheme. In line with these authors, Luhmann assumes a func-
tional dierentiation of modern society (Luhmann, 1997, p. 743).
But unlike earlier versions of systems theory (mainly Parsons), Luhmann does
not consider action as the unit of the social. Instead, he takes interdisciplinary
developments of second-order cybernetics (Von Foerster, 1984) and communica-
tion theory (Shannon & Weaver, 1972; Watzlawick et al. 1967) seriously and
denes communication as the key element of social processes (Stichweh, 2000).
Accordingly, Luhmann understands society as the comprehensive social system
encompassing all communication. The dierence between the social and non-
social realm is equivalent to the dierence between communication and non-
communication. Everything that is not communication is exterior to society, like
human beings with their bodies and minds. We will return to this point later in the
article (see the section Society and the individual).
Schirmer and Michailakis 49

It is important at this stage of our analysis to note that society consists of

communication systems (not assemblies of people or patterns of social actions).
The way to approach the analysis of social phenomena is to analyse communicative
structures. According to Luhmannian systems theory, contemporary society is no
longer primarily structured by social stratication or geographical dierences.
Obviously, these dierences persist but only in the form of secondary, collateral
orders. Instead, the core characteristic of society is dierentiation into a number of
communication systems such as the economy, politics, law, science, religion, medi-
cine, education, social help, etc. What these systems have in common is that they
full a function for society, i.e. they solve a specic reference problem for society.
Politics, for instance, solves the problem of order by providing collectively binding
decisions (Luhmann, 2000a); the economy deals with the allocation of resources
under conditions of scarcity (Luhmann, 1988a); science helps to advance know-
ledge (Luhmann, 1990). Function systems full their particular functions exclu-
sively, i.e. no other system in their environment is competent for this specic
function. As Luhmann (1988b) puts it:

The political system cannot replace the economic system, the economic system cannot
replace the educational system, the educational system cannot replace the legal system,
the legal system cannot replace the political system, because no functional subsystem
is able to solve the core problems of another system. (p. 120)

On the basis of their functional primacy, the function systems achieve operative
closure (Luhmann, 1997, p. 748). Operational closure means that the systems struc-
ture their communications based on their unique observation code (also known as
guiding dierence). Examples are payment/no payment for the economic system,
true/false for science, ill/healthy for the medical system, or lawful/unlawful for the
legal system. Due to its specialization, each system is hypersensitive to specic
events that its unique guiding dierence allows it to see; it is blind and therefore
indierent to everything else. The function system codes reduce the enormous
complexity of the world to a small window of relevance. The economy, for
instance, is sensitive to the world in terms of commodities and prices, but not to
truthfulness, aesthetic values, or political expedience. The legal system transforms
every event in the world into a potential legal problem, depending on its (un)law-
fulness. Science focuses on whether knowledge is methodologically and theoretic-
ally tenable, while it is indierent as to whether this knowledge contradicts
microeconomic rationalities or the catechisms of leading religious congregations.
Religious communication, in turn, observes in terms of immanence or transcend-
ence, no matter how irrational or methodologically devious this might look from
other functional perspectives.
Their observational code and operative closure not only allow function systems
to distinguish their own communications from the communications of other sys-
tems. At the same time, they also create mutually incompatible function-specic
constructions of (i.e. information about) society. The functionally dierentiated
50 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

society is therefore characterized by a fragmentation of values and descriptions of

social realities (Luhmann, 1998). In this regard, modern society is not a single unit
but a multiplicity of incongruent function system-specic views of it.

Organizations and function systems

With the shift toward functional dierentiation, modern society has reached a
degree of complexity and interdependence between subsystems unprecedented in
earlier societies. This is partly a result of the primary structure of society but also of
another line of social dierentiation that needs to be taken into account, namely
the dierentiation of levels of communication systems into society (i.e. the level of
function systems), organization systems (e.g. governments, churches, business cor-
porations, schools) and face-to-face interaction systems (e.g. meetings, court trials,
church services, dinner parties; see Luhmann, 1982).
In this section, we concentrate on organization systems and how they relate to
function systems. The organization is a type of social system which reproduces
itself through a recursive network of decisions and which discriminates between
members and non-members (Luhmann, 2000b). In contrast to function systems,
organizations have two special features: they can have a hierarchical structure and
build up complex arrangements of behavioural expectations; they have a commu-
nicative address (Luhmann, 1997, p. 834f) which enables them to communicate
with other organizations.
Organizations normally operate within the context of function systems. We can,
for instance, easily consider banks and businesses as organizations in the context of
the economy; schools in the context of education; churches in the context of reli-
gion; hospitals in the context of medicine; research institutes and universities in the
context of science; parties, governments and non-governmental organizations in
the context of politics; or courts in the context of law. However, it is important to
note that organizations are operatively distinct from their function systems; they
follow their own internal routines (such as decision procedures, membership rules,
micropolitical rationalities). The more complex they are the greater their capability
of internal dierentiation (for example into dierent departments, subdivisions,
work groups). This produces an unbeatable advantage over function systems. As
we outlined above, the logic and guiding dierence of one function system cannot
be subsumed in another. One simply cannot observe legally from an economic
perspective. The horizon of the economic system contains only economic distinc-
tions and therefore provides economic criteria. But an organization (or individual)
can shift from one perspective to another. In this way, communication in organ-
izations is necessarily linked to several function systems. That is, in producing
decisions, they can utilize a multiplicity of codes (e.g. economic, legal, scientic,
etc.) simultaneously (Andersen, 2003). Although a business corporation is mainly
active in the economic system with the goal to generate a prot, it may have its
legal department to work out contracts, its research department to develop prod-
ucts, and its training centre to educate personnel. Similarly, a research institute
Schirmer and Michailakis 51

operates mainly within a scientic context, applying valid and reliable methods and
veried theories in order to gain new knowledge, but it cannot do so without taking
care of funding and legal contracts with its personnel. It is apparent in both
examples that the codes of function systems are subordinated to the rationalities
and purposes of organizations. A business corporation conducts research in order
to improve the competitiveness of its products on the market in serving its main
goal of making a prot. In this regard, it also becomes obvious that organizations
do not represent their function systems. Banks and corporations are not the
economy nor is a national research council science or the Roman Catholic
Church the religion. Organizations follow their own (albeit bounded) rational-
ities, which are not always in line with the normative semantic stock of function
systems. We will see later in the section Inclusion, exclusion, and social work that,
for this reason, function systems and organizations handle inclusion and exclusion
dierently.

Society and the individual

Human beings, psychic systems, and persons
Before we proceed in our elaboration of inclusion and exclusion in modern society,
we must discuss the role human beings are assigned in systems theory. In the
humanist tradition followed by many social and political theories, human beings
are commonly seen as the unit of social processes (the subject, the actor, the
individual). The Luhmannian theory of social systems, however, rejects the idea
that people of esh and blood are the constituent parts of society. With its roots in
general systems theory, this theory distinguishes several types (and emergent levels)
of systems such as machines, living cells, organic systems, neuronal circuits, psychic
systems, and social systems. As noted in the previous section, social systems are
communication systems (Luhmann, 1995). Taking this communication-theoretical
point of departure seriously, there is only the possibility to regard the human
being fully squarely, with body and soul, as part of the environment of society
(Luhmann, 1997, p. 30).2 The human being has no conceptual place in
Luhmanns social theory simply because it cannot be unied in one single system
comprising, among others, a number of chemical molecules, a complex biological
organism, a consciousness and social characteristics (see also Brunczel, 2010,
p. 201). Societys constituent parts are thus not human beings, but communications
and nothing other than communications (Luhmann, 2002, p. 156).
This theoretical manoeuvre has given rise to many misunderstandings and sharp
criticism (with respect to Social Work, see for example Klassen, 2004; Kihlstrom,
2012). A common objection from critics is that society is inconceivable without
human beings.3 However, Luhmann certainly does not claim that a human society
can exist without human beings. On the contrary, without the body and the psychic
system communication is impossible. Yet Luhmann (2002) adds: It is also impos-
sible without carbon, without moderate temperatures, without the earths
52 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

magnetic eld, without the atomic bonding of matter (p. 157). The question which
then arises is: in what ways do people appear in (the context of) society according
to Luhmanns systems theory? There are two ways that need mentioning here; one
is the psychic system and the other is the form of person.

Psychic systems. Psychic system is the term systems theory assigns to human con-
sciousness, that is, a system of perceptions and thoughts (Luhmann, 1995). It is
important to recognize the operational dierence with social systems: a social
system cannot think, a psychic system cannot communicate (Luhmann, 2002,
p. 165). Accordingly, no transfer is possible between a psychic and a social
system and vice versa, i.e. no perceptions can enter communication (Brunczel,
2010, p. 48) [a]nd one must also be aware that the systems are opaque to each
other (Luhmann, 2002, p. 165). Opaqueness implies that [o]ne can neither
conrm nor refute, neither interrogate nor respond to what another has perceived.
It remains locked up in consciousness and nontransparent to the system of
communication as well as to every other consciousness (Luhmann, 2002, p. 158).
Obviously, in social interaction the body and the mind of human beings are
involved. But it should be noted that peoples thoughts and bodies do not become
elements in interaction systems. So if person A perceives something (for example a
slight headache), person B will not know about this unless she tells him about it. If,
however, she does tell him, B can learn about her headache but cannot perceive the
headache himself. Thus, B needs to believe As statement (or look for non-
communicative indicators for verication). Communication develops a momentum
which cannot be predicted or controlled by participating human beings. If B now
replies (truthfully) that he cannot feel the pain himself, A might be emotionally
upset and react by saying Are you doubting my words? B might then wonder
why A is overreacting to Bs seemingly harmless statement but, fearing further
escalation, he simply says No, of course I believe what you say.
Communication can only process a fragment of what is thought by a conscious-
ness. As can be seen in this brief example, social systems and psychic systems
operate as environments to each other, triggering events with potential communi-
cative relevance.

The form of person. There is a correlate in social systems which is complementary to

psychic systems as part of the environment of communication, which is the form of
person. Luhmann (2000a) denes person as follows:

The term person here shall [. . .] describe a unit that can be referred to by commu-
nication, thus something that only exists in communication and only for communi-
cation. Communication can only work if it can distinguish who utters something and
who is involved just passively by understanding. (p. 375)

Communication needs authors and addresses, i.e. senders and receivers of mes-
sages. It is communication, which, during the management of its
Schirmer and Michailakis 53

self-simplication, generates. . .points of attributability, which then appear as acting

(uttering) persons (Fuchs, 1997, p. 60). As Luhmann notes, [p]ersons are identi-
cations that do not refer to any operational mode of their own. They are, thus, not
systems (Luhmann, 2005a, p. 141). Seen from that perspective, the dierence
between persons (as a product of communication) and their psychic systems (as a
precondition for communication) becomes obvious. Persons are the addresses that
specic communications can be attributed to, i.e. this concept enables it to be
determined who said what and allows the attribution of actions to one individual
and not another. The same human being can be addressed as a dierent person in a
dierent setting. For example, somebodys opinion may be considered important
when it comes to cars but not child rearing, so he could be addressed as an expert in
the rst case and as a non-expert in the second. We are clearly speaking about the
same human being, but a dierent person, contingent on the communicative con-
text. The same human being can be addressed as dierent persons, for example a
Wall Street investment banker whose reckless strategy brought enormous prot to
his company at the cost of workers and farmers can be described as a genius, hero,
lucky guy, greedy yuppie, or irresponsible servant of capital: the same human being,
a dierent person, contingent on the observing system. To summarize, through the
concept person Luhmann can do justice to the fact that human beings are any-
thing but irrelevant in his theory, he can do justice to the operative dierence
between social systems and psychic systems, and he can do justice to the socio-
logical fact that the way people appear in social systems is highly variable.
In other words, the form of person is the device by which social systems include
human beings in (and exclude them from) communication processes.

Inclusion, exclusion, and social work

How modern society includes persons
The concept of inclusion is the link between human beings and society in
Luhmanns theory. In line with the starting point of communication theory, inclu-
sion means that human beings are held relevant in communication (Luhmann,
2005c, p. 226), i.e. they are considered as communicative addresses, as persons,
as bearers of roles, as accountable actors (see Nassehi, 2002, p. 127). The way
persons are made relevant (and irrelevant) to communication depends on the struc-
ture of society. Prehistoric segmentary societies as well as ancient and medieval
stratied societies considered human beings wholly as part of segments (a clan,
a tribe) or strata (such as nobles, peasants, or slaves). Membership in families and
clans more or less completely predened the societal place a person belonged to as
well as his/her life opportunities (Braeckman, 2006; Luhmann, 1997). To be
included then meant to be perceived as part of one and only one social system
(i.e. the clan, tribe, family, or stratum).
The transition to modern, functionally dierentiated society has signicantly
changed the relationship between society and individuals. Let us keep in mind
54 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

that functional dierentiation implies that society is the (unity of the) dierence
between many incommensurable function systems, each fullling its own function
and observing with each its own code. Accordingly, their way of addressing human
beings is fundamentally dierent than those of the subsystems of previous societies.
Persons are now included in many dierent function systems, although only in
regard to system-specic operations (Luhmann, 1997, p. 765). This means that
persons do not participate in function systems as a whole but as carriers of func-
tionally relevant roles. There are two types of roles through which people can be
included in function systems: performance roles and layman roles (Stichweh,
1988).4 Performance roles are the roles function systems need to full their societal
functions and their performance for other systems. Examples of performance roles
are entrepreneurs and traders in the economic system, researchers in science, doc-
tors in medicine, politicians in politics, teachers in education, priests in religion,
social workers in the system of social help, journalists in the media, judges and
attorneys in law, etc. On the other hand, there are layman roles, which are asso-
ciated with the performance roles in a complementary way. Laymen are the recei-
vers/recipients of the systems performances carried out by the performance roles.
Examples are buyers/consumers in the economy, patients in medicine, voters/
taxpayers/citizens in politics, pupils in education, believers in religion, clients in
social help, readers/watchers in the media, convicts/witnesses in law, etc. In both
cases, the term role implies that they embrace highly scripted behavioural expect-
ation structures. However, there are obviously enough degrees of freedom in the
way individuals (as persons) can carry out these role scripts (some individuals are
less successful than others and ultimately can become relevant as clients of social
help; see below).
The shift to functional dierentiation implies that inclusion in society and its
subsystems is no longer determined by family membership, i.e. by class or ethnic
background. In modern society, inclusion takes place through a variety of specia-
lized systems, operating according to their specic symbolic codes and programs.
Whether one is considered relevant as a communicative address now depends on
whether one can meet the expectations the various function systems and organiza-
tions have of persons (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b, p. 80). It is obvious that inclusion
via performance roles requires more skills, education, and qualities than via layman
roles. For example, becoming a doctor, judge, or scientist requires the successful
mastery of many years of study. In contrast, layman roles are, in principle, open to
everyone. It is via layman roles that function systems provide a universalism of
inclusion (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b, p. 96) according to which everybody who
fulls the function system-specic requirements is admitted to politics, law, the
economy, science, health or education (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b, p. 96).

No inclusion without exclusion

Up to now, most of the discussion here has dealt with inclusion. However, as
Luhmann notes: It only makes sense to speak of inclusion if there is exclusion
Schirmer and Michailakis 55

(Luhmann, 2005c, p. 226). This is not only a logical necessity but also an empirical
fact. As we said, human beings are not part of society but part of the environment.
In terms of inclusion/exclusion, they are excluded from society, both as organic and
psychic systems. At the same time, they are included in function systems as persons
via specic (performance and layman) roles; they receive their specic social
addresses in function systems. As we also argued, the form of person refers to
dierent aspects of individuals in relation to dierent social contexts. Function
systems can only observe their own specialized image of the individual.
Everything they observe is formed according to function-specic operational
modes. Hence, they do not address the whole individual but only functionally
relevant aspects of the individual (Brunczel, 2010, p. 169; Wirth, 2009, p. 414),
while disregarding, i.e. excluding, the rest of the individual as irrelevant to their
operational mode. Inclusion in one function system (being addressed in one specic
way by that system) means, then, by denition, exclusion of the rest of the
individual at the same time. The included (addressed) aspect of the individual is
relevant while the excluded (non-addressed) parts are irrelevant, as explicated by
Bommes and Scherr (2000b):

By receiving addresses in communication, i.e. by being addressed as children,

youth, parents, experts, scientist, laymen, etc. and thus as persons, their relevance to
an ongoing communicative event in education, science or religion is designated and
concurrently their irrelevance to other things, e.g. the childrens irrelevance to science
or the scientists irrelevance to matters of creed. (p. 77)

In contrast to pre-modern societies, which include human beings comprehensively

and exclusively in one multi-functional social system (such as a family, corporation,
or monastery), inclusion in modern society takes the form of partial multi-
inclusion, i.e. partial inclusion in a number of dierent mono-functional systems
(Braeckman, 2006, p. 70). Individuals are included specically in social systems, in
gurative terms only as slices, but as many dierent slices in many dierent
social contexts (remember Simmels intersection of social circles). An individual
as a whole remains somewhere in the environment of the function systems, i.e.
excluded. In this regard, Luhmann speaks of exclusion individuality (Luhmann,
1989, p. 158; see also Hillebrandt, 1999). Among other things, this concept implies
that individuals have to integrate the great variety of behavioural expectations
outside of society, i.e. in their minds (psychic systems).

Inclusion and exclusion and the role of organizations

While functional systems operate on the basis of universal inclusion (in principle,
any individual can be included in either a performance or complementary role),
organizations operate on the basis of very limited, strictly dened inclusion. As a
rule, hardly anybody is included; the great majority of people are excluded from
most existing organizations (Jonhill, 2012, p. 394). To state this as a formula: while
56 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

function systems are open to everyone, organizations restrict access and are closed
to almost everyone (Nassehi, 2005, p. 189). Organizations include (and exclude)
people on the basis of membership (Luhmann, 2000b). They alone dene the con-
ditions of membership, which not only cover certain formal entry requirements
(such as minimum age, competence, legal track record, and health condition as well
as ascriptive criteria such as gender, ethnic and religious aliation, etc.) but also
behavioural expectations (fullling dened tasks, quality of performance, etiquette,
etc.). Failure of the latter could jeopardize membership.
It is a matter of course that dierent organizations require dierent competences
and behaviour than others depending on whether the organization is a court,
school, business, government, church, social care provider, etc. The same is true
of dierent functional and hierarchical roles; not only does a high-ranked
manager need more leadership competences than an assembly line worker but
also more morally proper behaviour when representing the organization to the
outside world.
As we outlined for function systems, the distinction between performance roles
and layman roles is important for organizations as well. Performance roles almost
always require membership (or they are marked as an explicit exception, for exam-
ple freelancers or consultants). Layman roles sometimes require membership (such
as citizenship, membership in tenant associations, unions, immigrant associations,
sports clubs, country clubs, matriculation in universities); if they do not imply
membership, they at least require fullment of specic conditions (such as nancial
capabilities, religious confession, dress code).
Often these dierences of inclusion levels are symbolized by spatial boundaries,
such as counters in banks and public administrations or personnel only signs in
shops and restaurants. Performance roles sit behind the counter and have access to
the backrooms (representing inside), whereas layman roles (customers, clients, citi-
zens) are allowed to enter the front rooms, which represent a limited form of
inclusion; excluded people are not even allowed to gain entrance (or they might
get the attention of security personnel).
It should be apparent from the preceding paragraphs that inclusion is not to be
confused with equality. Despite the semantics of equality (Reich & Michailakis,
2005), universal inclusion does not mean equal inclusion (Nassehi, 2002).
Especially within organizations, inclusion and inequality do not contradict each
other. The dierence between performance roles and layman roles already indicates
this. There are dierent gradations of inclusion via performance roles in organiza-
tions which are unequal in terms of salary, status, power, inuence, and accumu-
lated knowledge. For instance, nurses, plaintis, and research assistants are
without a doubt also performance roles in their respective systems, but clearly of
lower status than high-ranking professions. As Bora (2002) showed with the exam-
ple of law, there are also many dierent gradations of layman roles in that system:
even if everybody (including children and people with severe cognitive impair-
ments) has a basic legal capacity, not everyone is capable of being guilty or able
to draw up contracts.
Schirmer and Michailakis 57

In this regard, inclusion is not only not the same as equality, but inclusion can
even be the reason for more inequality (Brunczel, 2010, p. 225; Nassehi, 2002). This
is a co-product of the very operational modes of the function systems. The educa-
tional system produces good and bad students (with high and low grades), and only
those with good grades will be eligible for higher education; the economic system
produces rich and poor people, and only those who already have property (and
other nancial assets) will get better interest rates and larger loans. The legal system
produces model citizens and criminals, and those who already have a criminal
record are likely to be convicted again. It is important to see that all these examples
are eects of inclusion, not of exclusion. Inclusion in modern society can lead to
cumulative eects of inequality, which is also indicated by an overlap between the
performance role(s) an individual holds and the quality of his/her layman roles
(Miller, 2001, p. 106). Holders of high-ranking performance roles (chief physician,
CEO, professor, etc.) receive a high income, have high status, and usually have a
high level of education, which then enables them to take on layman roles at higher
levels in terms of price, status, exclusivity, etc. The reverse is true for holders of
low-ranking performance roles (such as cleaner, manual labourer or janitor), whose
inclusion via layman roles in other systems is usually also of lower quality.

Exclusion as a problem
Exclusion individuality is a type of exclusion that is not per se a problem; it is
rather a structural requirement of modern society since function systems can only
operate properly by not including human beings as a whole. Exclusion then refers
not only to a structural precondition but to an empirical consequence of functional
dierentiation (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b, p. 94). Furthermore, nor is exclusion
from organizations a problem per se simply because of the empirical fact that
everyone is excluded from most organizations and included in only a few.
There is, however, another type of exclusion, which is commonly seen to be far
more problematic. If inclusion means that people are considered relevant by social
systems, exclusion means the opposite. Exclusion designates the situation where
people are not considered relevant participants in communication and therefore
are not given a communicative address (Luhmann, 2005c, p. 244). As a result, this
means that such human beings cannot benet from the performances the function
systems oer (such as education, knowledge, wealth, legal protection, medical treat-
ment, etc.) because they are not considered interesting enough for the system (Miller,
2001, p. 92) according to the selection criteria which apply equally to everyone
regardless of class, ethnicity, gender, etc. Exclusion can imply either that their
entry (as performance or layman roles) into a system is not possible or that their
remaining within the system is at stake (Miller, 2001, p. 92). Apparently, exclusion
from some function systems (e.g. the media, arts, religion, or science) is less prob-
lematic in its consequences for the individual involved than exclusion from the econ-
omy, politics, law, medicine or education. Individuals in modern society need
income, the right to vote, the right to defend themselves before a court, access to
58 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

medical service and education, etc. (Luhmann, 1997, p. 744). The key to an adequate
life in modern society is inclusion not only via layman roles, thereby participating in
the performances from function systems, but via (at least one) performance role(s).
Assuming that individuals are rewarded via performance roles for their perform-
ances, performance roles are the way to ensure survival (Miller, 2001, p. 106), not just
in terms of payment but in terms of identity, self-esteem, access to partnership, etc.
With a few exceptions (such as free artists), performance roles of function sys-
tems are associated with organizations, and as noted, people need to full restrict-
ive requirements in order to be considered relevant by organizations, that is,
included as a member in their performing function. People can nd themselves
in precarious situations on the way to exclusion, if the income from one perform-
ance role is not enough to secure economic survival, or if their qualications or
other attributes (such as racial and ethnic identity, gender, age, health, physical
impairments) do not t the ocial or unocial requirements of organizations.
In contrast to function systems, organizations do not need to adhere to seman-
tics of equality or universal inclusion. For them it is not a problem if an individual
is not relevant enough for inclusion as long as there are many other individuals
available to carry out the tasks. It is one eect of modernity that despite the basic
universalism of inclusion not everybody is actually needed. While function sys-
tems are structurally autonomous and thus separately select whether an individual
meets the requirements for inclusion and is given a communicative address, there
are so-called cumulative eects of exclusion. Failure to meet the requirements of
social systems is often empirically interdependent. Exclusion from one system can
seriously hamper the chances of inclusion in other systems. Without citizenship
documents, be it domestic or foreign (exclusion from politics), someone will have
diculty getting a job in the ocial labour market, and therefore diculty getting
a loan, a lease for housing, medical care, etc. (Luhmann, 1997). As a result, people
in such situations run the risk of becoming increasingly irrelevant and tend to fall
o the radar of function systems completely. Terms such as excluded, home-
less, and unemployed refer to the limited relevance of some persons to certain
function systems and organizations (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b, p. 77), which (para-
doxically) make them highly relevant to the system of social help, that is, includable
via its layman role of client.

Social work as exclusion management

The empirical fact that social systems (especially organizations) cannot operate
without excluding persons (due to limited available positions, lack of resources,
insucient skills, etc.) stands in stark contrast to the normative expectation of
universal inclusion at the level of function systems. For the modern welfare
state, being a granter and advocate of inclusion and equality within its territory,
exclusion tendencies create problems of political legitimacy and, ultimately, of
social order. In order to counter this, the welfare state has a wide array of tools
at its disposal (including citizenship rights, social insurance, economic
Schirmer and Michailakis 59

compensation, pensions, and compulsory education). As is apparent in a historical

and regional comparison, Western welfare policy has reduced economic poverty to
a minimum, but it has not been able to eliminate the marginalization of particular
groups in many regards other than poverty; hence these groups have increasingly
been subject to restitution attempts by social work.
The crucial dierence between the welfare state and social work lies, according
to Bommes and Scherr (2000b, p. 75), in the extent of generalizability. Whereas
social security programs apply to anybody in a standardized way (mainly dened
by legally determined claims to benets), social work is a secondary safeguard
(Scherr, 1999, p. 21) which becomes active only for individual cases that fall outside
the regular security mechanisms. These cases cannot be resolved by standardized
measures but require specic, case-sensitive treatment by skilled, competent social
workers.
Accordingly, the task of organized help by social work cannot be feeding the
poor, as was the case with Christian charity, but more specically the manage-
ment of social exclusion (Scherr, 1999, p. 18) in concrete cases. Exclusion man-
agement involves working on the social addresses of individuals with the aim of
improving their attractiveness to other social systems, a (re)orientation towards
being includable (e.g. teaching an illiterate person to read and write, oering med-
iating therapies and consultation to clients). In this context, Peter Fuchs speaks of
social work as re-organizing addressability (Fuchs, 2000, p. 162).
There are three types of exclusion management. First, individuals whose inclu-
sion in (some) social systems is problematic or precarious (e.g. ex-convicts on
probation, undisciplined pupils, undocumented workers) receive exclusion preven-
tion (Bommes & Scherr, 2000a, p. 76; Miller, 2001, p. 108). The second type,
inclusion mediation, focuses on individuals who have (temporarily) lost their
social addresses in some social contexts but who want to and, in principle, can
be prepared for re-inclusion (e.g. cured long-term sick patients, soon to be released
prisoners, clean ex-drug addicts). The third type refers to individuals who, for
whatever reasons, have no prospect of regular inclusion; for these cases, social
work oers exclusion administration (Bommes & Scherr, 2000a, p. 76; Miller,
2001, p. 108), e.g. creating new ways of inclusion beyond societal contexts such
as special housing, special schools, psychiatric wards, and retirement homes.
The latter examples indicate that in modern society exclusion hardly ever means
total exclusion from society. Most exclusions are transformed into (other kinds of)
inclusions. For instance, criminals are excluded from most parts of society but at
the same time included in prisons, corrective educational institutions, or psychiatric
wards. There they do not simply receive an address; on the contrary, they receive a
very clearly dened address with a very specic role.
Generalizing from this particular context, we can speak of exclusion roles. As
roles are typical forms of inclusion, this term seems paradoxical: exclusion as a
specic form of inclusion. However, this form of inclusion is dierent than regular
inclusion in function systems and organizations. Alongside those already mentioned,
there are other examples of exclusion roles such as beggar, homeless person,
60 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

illiterate, illegal immigrant, etc. All of them are excluded from at least one of the vital
social realms (the economy, housing, education, or the political system). In contrast
to being excluded, an exclusion role is not simply the product of exploitation, mar-
ginalization, discrimination, or poverty but should instead be seen as a kind of
regulatory mechanism of modern society, which in most cases gives the person a
special status. It lies in the nature of the specic normative and semantic stock of
social work5 to regard these exclusion roles as candidates for help and support.
Social work transforms problems of inclusion/exclusion into cases of individual
neediness (Bommes & Scherr, 2000a, p. 76), depending on whether they are con-
sidered legitimate recipients for help or not (Baecker, 1994; Luhmann, 2005b).
According to Fuchs, the main communicative operation of social work is to declare
cases (Fuchs, 2000, p. 165), thereby transforming needy individuals into clients.
Client is the exclusion role of an individual included in the context of social work.
The role of the client is in fact the layman role of social help.
This is the very mode by which social work includes persons in its specic way of
operation (declaring cases as clients and treating them by helping). In that way,
social work makes excluded individuals (who lack social addresses in other con-
texts) communicatively relevant by providing them with their own social address.6
Although inclusion in the context of social work may be the better alternative
compared to complete exclusion (and the risk of starvation), it should not be
confused with inclusion in other function systems or organizations. Social work
can manage and restore the addressability of its clients by mediating education,
healthcare, therapy, consultation, etc. In this way, it can help its clients regain
attractiveness and communicative relevance to function systems and organizations,
improving their chance of inclusion. However, social work itself cannot include
clients in these other systems (Fuchs, 2000, p. 161; Wirth, 2009, p. 414); this will be
done by the respective systems themselves or not.
Inclusion in social help via the layman role of client then is a substitutional
inclusion (Baecker, 1994, p. 103; Bommes & Scherr, 2000a, p. 76), substituting for
regular inclusion in function systems and organizations. Social work is successful
at the very moment substitutional inclusion is no longer necessary, that is, when a
client regains his/her addressability for other social systems. This has the paradox-
ical consequence that inclusion as a client (which itself is an exclusion role), in case
of successful intervention, is turned into exclusion work from social help (Fuchs,
2000, p. 165). If, however, the inclusion of an individual remains substitutional,
and as Baecker sharply concludes, inclusion has to be seen as failed. . .the question
then is only to what extent and how long society can bear failed inclusion
(Baecker, 1994, p. 103).

Conclusion
In this article, we presented a theoretization of the distinction between inclusion/
exclusion based on Niklas Luhmanns theory of social systems. The high complex-
ity of Luhmanns theory made it necessary for us to elaborate extensively on the
Schirmer and Michailakis 61

background in the theory of societal dierentiation and communication theory. In

our view, the insights provided by the Luhmannian approach are highly relevant
for social work: neither can one simply assume that exclusion is bad and inclusion
good nor is exclusion per se the problem and inclusion the solution. Sometimes
inclusion itself can be the source of a clients problems and exclusion might indeed
be a (partial) solution. Inclusion and exclusion are operations of social systems that
treat human beings as relevant addresses for communication. In modern, function-
ally dierentiated society, people are included in many dierent social systems but
only partially (while being excluded from the rest). Inclusion, therefore, always
necessitates exclusion; neither is there total inclusion nor exclusion.
Luhmannian systems theory can give a clear and accurate description of what
social work can (and cannot) do in terms of inclusion/exclusion. Social work
becomes active when inclusion in function systems that are vital for social existence
(for the economy, education, health, etc.) fails. The purpose of social work is
addressability management, i.e. to make individuals whose inclusion in function
systems and organizations is at stake relevant as social addresses. Like other sys-
tems, social work has its own mode of inclusion: it holds people relevant to its own
operations as clients. Luhmann scholars in the academic eld of social work speak of
substitutional inclusion because social work substitutes for clients inclusion in other
systems by temporarily including them in the context of social help. If social work
successfully fulls its tasks, clients should regain their addressability and attractive-
ness for function systems and organizations. However, it should be noted that social
work cannot include human beings in any other system. Social workers need to take
into account that the conditions for inclusion are system-specic, i.e. they are dif-
ferent for dierent social systems, and they may lead to dierent outcomes.
Problematic cases of inclusion/exclusion can be analysed with regard to the involved
social systems (function systems and organisations) and their specic conditions for
inclusion/exclusion. Accordingly, successful interventions can be tailored to the
specic constellation of system requirements and clients preconditions.
The purpose of this article was to lay out the theoretical premises of the
Luhmannian approach to inclusion and exclusion and its potential for social
work, both the academic discipline and the practical eld. This was necessarily
on a very general and abstract level covering the unity of the highly dierentiated
eld of social work. Future research has to show what this looks like on more
concrete levels in the various specialties of social work practice.

Funding
This research received no specic grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial,
or not-for-prot sectors.

Acknowledgements
The authors want to thank Lars Sornsen and the anonymous reviewers for helpful com-
ments on a previous version of this article.
62 Journal of Social Work 15(1)

Notes
1. Upper case letters refer to the academic discipline of social work; lower case letters refer
to the practical field of social work.
2. This and the following translations from German are made by the authors.
3. Bardmann and Hermsen (2000, p. 90) comment somewhat ironically: This has not only
been regarded as an unnecessary complication of the theoretical landscape, it has pri-
marily been evaluated as an unforgivable attack on the individuality of the human
subject.
4. Sometimes, the latter are also called audience roles or complementary roles.
5. Up to now, there has been disagreement as to whether social work constitutes a function
system (Baecker, 1994; Fuchs, 2000; Hillebrandt, 2010) or not (Bommes & Scherr, 2000b;
Scherr, 1999). For the present article, this question is of minor importance.
6. This address, however, brings some disadvantages to individuals who carry the label of
neediness since it stigmatizes and (perhaps falsely) indicates future or even permanent
neediness, dependence, etc. which communicates unattractiveness to organizations.

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