Prerequisites Versus Diffusion: Testing Alternative Explanations of Social Security Adoption

Abstract

Social security is one of the most important means by which modern nations protect the welfare of their citizens. Through programs that deal with the hardships of workers' injury, illness, old age, unemployment, and low income, social security attempts to set a minimum standard of living for the sectors of society covered by the programs. In countries with fully developed programs, social security now protects nearly all members of society.Given the importance of social security, it is hardly surprising that scholars have shown considerable interest in analyzing its evolution. Among the many aspects of social security development, the timing of the first adoption of social security merits particular attention. The circumstances of the first appearance of any policy are inherently interesting, and the first appearance of social security is particularly important because it has represented in many nations a major break with the antiwelfare doctrine of traditional liberalism.The timing of first adoption has received considerable attention in comparative research on social security.' However, this research has gen- nations of many aspects of political life-but also on methodological grounds. This is due to Galton's problem, the problem that the findings based on the analysis of causal relations within nations (or other units of analysis) may be distorted by the effect of diffusion.6 This occurs when the joint diffusion of two or more societal characteristics produces high correlations between them which lead researchers to infer incorrectly that they are causally related. Incorporating hypotheses about diffusion into the analysis in effect turns this problem into an opportunity to consider a type of explanation that has previously received limited attention in political research. We recognize that it may be impossible to test definitively the relative importance of causation within units of analysis, as opposed to diffusion.7 The present research has the more modest goal of attempting through a combination of simple tests and the presentation of qualitative evidence to reach tentative conclusions about the relative importance of diffusion as opposed to prerequisites explanations.It is also hoped that this research will add to the variety of types of diffusion that are considered in diffusion analysis. Some writers have argued that the diffusion approach to the study of modernization has placed excessive emphasis on the spread of innovations from advanced centers to back-

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