Book Chapter
Alternative Approaches to Welfare Policy Analysis

The chapter examines creative attempts to analyse the political and economic realms of a particular country, central on the general and specific regulations and supervising bodies related to social provision. Such activity should add to the understanding of welfare concerns and behavioural patterns, which will eventually aid the formulation of better intervention strategies. Features and other mechanisms of the new institutional economics (NIE), a framework that aims to boost social welfare through adequate and appropriate public policies, are discussed first. Due to the limitations of the NIE (that is, it has no concept of power relations), a more concretely political approach is given. In the rest of the chapter, the importance of political environment, organisational design, demography, and international relations are conversed along with the economic forces in order to come up with a more comprehensive notion and employment of social provision.