Introduction

This chapter discusses, the particular way in which the law works in societies of the Global North turns forms of inclusion into wide mechanisms of naturalization operating through narrow and reified categories of different types. Inclusion (and marginalization, its counterpart) has always represented a key element to think democratic institutions. However, in the second half of the 20th century a great transformation of its political value occurred. Inclusion has come to be seen by many, and by specific schools of thought, as the landmark of democracy. One of the basic assumptions that underlie the connection between democracy and inclusion is that inclusion is bound up with the legitimation of political procedures and of society’s juridico-political structure as a whole, for “political outcomes can only be legitimate if those who must abide by or adjust to them have had a part in their formation”.