In most of the discussion on poverty and social exclusion in Chapter 4 the unit of analysis was the individual, group or community: it deals with their actual quality of life in terms of material hardship, inability to participate in everyday social, cultural, economic or political life. In part of the discussion of social exclusion, however, the analysis does not refer directly to outcomes as they affect members of society but instead refers to society itself and to the social processes that influence or determine people’s quality of life; those processes which alienate, stigmatise, discriminate against and devalue both individuals and whole groups, categories and communities. This chapter develops this analysis and focuses entirely on quality of life at a collective level, dealing with features of communities and societies which affect the quality of life of their citizens, with both their objective and subjective well-being (Szreter and Woolcock, 2004: 651). These features are social capital and social cohesion which are linked to process-oriented approaches to social exclusion, as can be seen later in the chapter. Broadly speaking, social capital comprises the social resources available within society and how they are distributed and used, and social cohesion refers to the institutions and norms that keep society together.