The research aims at explaining contemporary welfare system transformations in emerging market economies during the last four decades, by considering grassroots political factors. Through a comparative and historical analysis of welfare systems in Brazil, South Korea and Turkey, this project will examine to what extent grassroots politics have shaped welfare policies, focusing on government efforts to contain social unrest and mobilize popular support with the use of social welfare provision. There are two specific hypotheses: Despite similar structural transformations, (i) since the 1990s, Brazilian and Turkish governments have prioritized social assistance programs for the poor over social security programs for employees as a political response to a shift in grassroots politics from the formal to the informal proletariat, (ii) In South Korea, social security programs have remained as the central form of welfare provision because the formal proletariat has continued to act as the fundamental grassroots power. The informal proletariat has become the main source of threat and support for governments under the influence of Islamic and Kurdish movements in Turkey and under the influence of drug traffic in Brazil that controls the Afro-Brazilian dominated favelas. In South Korea, the formal proletariat has still been mobilized largely by powerful trade unions in. Thus, Brazilian state has to deal with criminal organizations and Turkish state with radical political organizations that both radicalize the informal proletariat while South Korean State with labour organizations. Welfare provision has been a critical instrument for government efforts in all cases and the type of grassroots political force that states mainly have to deal with has determined the central type of welfare provision.