This book is one of the first to explore contemporary welfare developments in the western world through a conceptual lens that is utilised by Michel Foucault and Foucault-inspired scholars. In the current economic climate in America and Europe as of 2013 for example, welfare is at a crossroads with implications for how service users needs are being met or not, how assessment encroaches on surveillance and the extent to which service users 'voice' is being translated into the welfare practice that helps them facilitate their independence and, crucially, quality of life.