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The question of how to enable disabled and disadvantaged people via information technology (IT) represents one of the challenges facing most developing countries in the coming decade. Examines the feasibility of, and argues for, an approach to health and welfare promotion centred on the enabling potential of IT. Describes the contextual specificity of the Asian (which is a highly differentiated) experience in state welfare and health provision. Based on some comparative findings and projected scenarios in East Asian countries, explores the challenge and opportunity for IT in this enabling process. The IT‐based promotional strategies are outlined and discussed; it is argued that the effectiveness of IT applications in this process is contingent on the variables embedded in the technology‐‐the risks associated with technological development as well as the underlying socio‐political structure. Ends with remarks on the role of IT in global welfare and health promotion in the 1990s.

Examines the relationship between public welfare and the pursuit of happiness via a discussion on the conception on public welfare provision and the way in which it is received as consumption. Introduces concepts on organized welfare and positions individual happiness in the realm of consumption, and argues that state‐organized welfare polity has unintentionally expanded the scope of and expectation of citizens on consumption. Outlines the critics on welfare state provision. Argues for a conceptualization of happiness with reference to the mode of welfare consumption. In spite of problems relating to the welfare state, collective consumption has provided both symbolic and material goods through which a new set of consumption relations is developed. Ends with remarks on the implication of welfare consumerism in creating the social identity of citizen‐consumers and happiness in the coming modernity.