Networks and Geographies of Global Social Policy Diffusion

Abstract

This volume presents a wide-ranging analysis of the emergence and worldwide diffusion of social policies. Social policy diffusion is analyzed in varying fields—affecting all aspects of life—namely, old age and survivor pensions, labor and labor markets, health and long-term care, education and training, and family and gender policy. Based on policy field-specific theoretical approaches, the authors of this volume investigate how the global diffusion of social policy occurs through different network dimensions. In this perspective, networks of global trade, colonial history, similarity in culture, and spatial proximity are regarded as “pipe structures,” or structural backbones, of the diffusion process. It is the first volume that explicitly follows this macro-quantitative perspective on network diffusion of different social policies on a global scale and over a long historical period, beginning in 1880. Each study applies the same method of network-diffusion event history analysis and predicts the diffusion process for the same set of networks in order to make these processes comparable. Moreover, diffusion of each policy is highlighted by its spatial–temporal patterns in global maps. This volume therefore provides a comprehensive overview of the development of modern social policies.