Is the concept of 'social cohesion' just obfuscation?

The language we use to make sense of social worlds is invariably couched in metaphor. So too are the terms we use to guide our efforts to make better worlds – words such as development, growth and wellbeing. Yet metaphor is rarely innocent and can shroud things in political debate – as does the term ‘social cohesion’.

Both Helen Clark and Christopher Luxon have turned to the metaphor of social cohesion to make different arguments about the state of our nation, the ills that they find within it, and what needs to be done to address them.

But what do they mean by social cohesion? Why are we talking about it? What is revealed or obscured through the use of the concept?

Social cohesion: a convenient metaphor

The concept of social cohesion is framed as a binding glue that ensures social stability and acts as social capital for economic success, a concept evoked to explore how social institutions, group practices and shared values might shape society. It is portrayed as a necessary foundation for a successful society, economy, and collective cultural life.

A core concept of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Third Way politics, social cohesion became not just an ideal for the centrist left of politics, but a pivotal policy goal and measure of policy effectiveness. A ‘good’ society was seen to be one characterised by positivity, trust, and strong bonds among groups.

Helen Clark’s government also adopted the concept. Two decades on it was being measured using a dizzying array of indicators and entangled with technocratic forms of governance. Social cohesion (as a political goal and instrument of governance) reached its zenith with the Living Standards Framework (2021), in which social cohesion was enshrined as a foundational, intergenerational capital asset.

Yet social cohesion is a highly problematic concept. It smooths away social divisions and obscures the frictions and contradictions inherent in all social relationships, including inequalities of economic opportunity.

The risk is fourfold: concern with social dynamics is reduced to social cohesion; social policy is reduced to a technocratic process of target-setting, and evaluating outcomes; the politics of unevenness and injustice is sidelined; and the vitality of diversity is displaced by fictitious national communities of shared values and unified interests.

Which is why critics of the concept of social cohesion see it as a distraction from more material concerns of inequality and its effects, and flawed as an analytical and explanatory concept.

The concept of social cohesion has kept a grip on values-led politics. In New Zealand, think tank Koi Tu led by Sir Peter Gluckman, formerly the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser, used the concept to commend the response of the Jacinda Ardern Government to Covid-19 and its celebration of the national team of five million. It launched a series of commentaries that aim to foster political debates about values, democratic institutions, resilience, growth, and accounts of national social cohesion.

This year the Helen Clark Foundation released a report, Social Cohesion in New Zealand 2026, that analysed what it said was a worrying collapse in the nation’s social cohesion amid a loss of belonging, community, resilience, and trust in institutions. It called for ‘small actions’ to enhance belonging and friendship, diversify access to media, and resource young people, as well as reduce financial stress. On June 18, Clark will join economist and co-author Shamubeel Eaqub to debate the report in an open online session.

The report cites indicators that trust is at a record low, young people feel isolated, and New Zealanders are becoming less hopeful. Although its publicity leads with ‘the fact that over 8 in 10 New Zealanders feel a sense of belonging to the country’ which gives ‘reason to hope’, the report includes several alarming figures. For instance, 25 percent of New Zealanders and 40 percent of under-30s sometimes go without meals because they can’t afford food.

These are appalling figures and should be enough to indict the nation, its economic organisation, and its politicians. Yet they are obfuscated by the framing of poverty, financial stress, and inequality as disruptors of a social cohesion.

Dialling up social cohesion at the Takapuna Yacht Club

The release of the Budget in an election year is a crucial moment in the electoral cycle. Budget and pre-Budget speeches are orchestrated political theatre – every word strategised, focus-grouped, and rehearsed.

In his pre-Budget address to a Business New Zealand audience, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon referred to “multilateral values and institutions” under strain, the need to foster social and economic resilience, and the breakdown of social cohesion and trust. Signalling a tighter approach to immigration, he said: “When faced with a choice between social stability and your bottom line, I will choose the former every single time.”

He was using a language synonymous with the centre-left only days after the release of the Clark report.

It was an emotive appeal to national identity. After widespread questioning of his leadership and with an audience of business owners that reflected the primary constituency of his government, we might have expected a forceful macho-nationalism.

Instead, we got a more subtle, yet divisive, message directed at migration. The message was that white-settler nationhood, prosperity, and the team of five million should not be undermined by businesses relying on cheap migrant labour to stay competitive. In doing so he risked making visible an unpalatable truth, while also dog-whistling to the anti-immigration lobby and community-level racism.

In short, restoring social cohesion is neither a meaningful challenge nor an achievable goal – even before considering its conceptual and political weakness.

When empty metaphors go rogue

This is why I see the term and concept of ‘social cohesion’ as too ripe for political exploitation and obfuscation.

The Helen Clark Foundation hides the real value of its work (those alarming statistics about people not having enough money to eat) behind its analysis of social cohesion, while the current prime minister uses the term to blame its reported deterioration on migration.

There are layers of irony in play here. What the Prime Minister sees as “nation binding” values and alive and well, are at odds with the realities. Poverty, financial stress, and inequality are far more likely rooted in low wages paid by his political constituency and the decline in state investment. Blaming migrants will only inflame social tensions and undermine cherished myths of Kiwi oneness, community, and trust – the values he claims to want to protect and defend.

The aspirations of the foundation (togetherness, fairness, and a cohesive society) are noble goals, but can we achieve them without material justice and equality? Can we really be bound harmoniously without confronting if not overturning the current inequalities, the distribution of wealth, income, and opportunity?

Perhaps we should embrace the politics and abandon the notion of social cohesion (its vagueness, its obtuseness, its emotiveness) for more precise and harder-hitting concepts such as justice, equity, or equality – however ugly the debates might become.