This open access book demonstrates the adaptability of the causal-mechanism approach to social policy research. The chapters analyse social policies in different countries in different world regions, from pensions to health care and social assistance and from unemployment to accident insurance. The contributions demonstrate the explanatory power of the causal-mechanism approach for different fields and institutional arrangements within the realm of social policy and welfare state policies. Within this analysis, there is a focus on social insurance as a specific institutional form of social policy. Using the causal-mechanism approach to clarify why social insurances continue to be an important element of the institutional arrangement of welfare states around the world, the chapters show that more than a hundred years after their invention, they are still being newly introduced in some countries, maintained and expanded in others.The work assesses the entire history of social insurance institutions since the 1880s and in countries in the Global South and East that are currently not included in the OECD- and EU-centred work in comparative social policy research in particular. In order to complement this picture, the volume also includes chapters on non-contributory forms of social policy, such as social assistance or public health. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of  social policy, global history and welfare state research from diverse disciplines such as sociology, political science, history, law and economics.weiterlesen