Introduction

Since the 1990s more attention has been focused on the ‘participation paradigm’ in the making of social policy (Carr, 2007). In existing research, the participation of people in poverty has been framed as a promising anti-poverty strategy, entailing explicit recognition of the voices and life knowledge of poor people in the realm of social policymaking (Beresford, 2001; Krumer-Nevo, 2005, 2008). It has been argued that ‘they have the capacity to place, and indeed sometimes to force, life knowledge on the political, professional, academic and policy-making agenda’ (Beresford, 2000, p 493). As a radical shift from the prevailing paradigm, in which poor people are predominantly treated as objects, this emphasis on their participation in social policymaking recognises them as subjects shaping their own lives (Lister, 2002). The question remains, however, whether this popular principle of participation has actually produced a democratic shift in power and contributed to a social justice agenda. Here, we accordingly engage in a critical investigation of the complexities at stake in ‘the politics of participation’, as many authors highlight the danger of participation being ‘tokenistic’ (Beresford, 2010), ‘more rhetoric than reality’ (Adams, 2008) or a mere ‘buzzword’ (Cornwall and Brock, 2005).

Our research study concerns two exemplary historical cases: the disabled people's movement in the UK in the 1970s, and the fourth world movement in the 1990s in Belgium. Both zoom in on how the concerned people themselves, in a political dialogue with many other societal stakeholders, challenged the pejorative rhetoric on their impairment or their poverty towards a rhetoric of participation, equality and respect from a human rights perspective.

Case 1: The Fundamental Principles of Disability (1976)

Impacting on social policy by redefining ourselves

This UK case study is about a group – disabled people – predominantly living in poverty, who challenged their cultural and policy conceptualisation and representation and thus had profound effects on public policy, their life chances and ultimately international understandings of them and how they were best able to live their lives to the fullest extent.

Historically, social policy has often been shaped by one group of powerful people – policymakers – determining interventions affecting many others, often including disempowered and devalued groups, like homeless and unemployed people, older, sick and disabled people, at-risk children and young people.