Using a variety of empirical sources and a specific theoretical framework, this article attempts to assess the combination of actors and moments that triggered a new "constellation of institutions in the legislative, executive and judicial branches" and led to the implementation of a regulatory structure for the tobacco sale and consumption in Portugal, thus changing the discourse on rights and duties of individuals and, ultimately, habits and beliefs rooted in social life. The research was conducted using a variety of legislative and media materials with the focus on the anti-tobacco law in Portugal . The initial question was to assess how the new institutional economics and volitional pragmatism constitute adequate theoretical and methodological tools for the analysis and interpretation of the development and establishment of the anti-tobacco law in Portugal. The new institutionalism, the volitional pragmatism and the epistemology it advocates provide useful conceptual and methodological tools for the analysis of economic phenomena that can not be examined by taking the market or individual's rationality as unique references, in a mechanistic model like the Paretian, which indicates what is "socially preferred", particularly because what is "social" has different meanings and appropriations. In the case of public policy , the anti-tobacco law is a great example, given the swiftness and extent of its application. Making use of and briefly describing the main concepts deriving from a restricted theoretical framework of institutional economics, its applicability to other empirical contexts was sought. This article attributes further consistency to the non-dominant theoretical models based on institutional economics that satisfactorily explain the emergence of anti-tobacco laws and provokes new research leading to the consolidation and validity of a non-dominant theoretical and methodological standpoint. Finally, it is needed to say that such theoretical and methodological models contain explanatory capacity, motivated by its application in another empirical context.
tobacco law; institutional economics; public policy; government; volitional pragmatism