Castilla, E. J. (2009) - The Institutional Production of National Science in The 20th Century. International Sociology, 24 (6), 833-869.

The Institutional Production of
National Science in the 20th Century

Emilio J. Castilla
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
abstract: Science and scientific production have been widely promoted as power-
ful tools for advancing national economic and social development. While much
progress has been made in determining whether this is the case, less understood
are the underlying factors influencing national scientific activity in the first place,
especially during its 20th-century global expansion. In order to advance our
understanding of the development of science and world polity, this study investi-
gates in-depth when and under what functional and institutional conditions
countries chose to join any of the scientific unions comprising the ICSU, the pre-
eminent and oldest international science institution in the world. According to
analyses of historical data for 166 countries from 1919 to 1990, functional argu-
ments are only important predictors of the rate at which nation-states join scien-
tific organizations early in the ‘science diffusion’ process. After 1945, institutional
factors best account for worldwide national scientific activity: The joining rate
increases more quickly during the post-Second World War era with the rise of the
world system. This article also provides evidence of both convergence in the evo-
lution of national scientific activities and of the great invariability in the impact of
functional and institutional factors for core and peripheral countries over time.
The article concludes by discussing the implications of this research for the future
study of national scientific production and development in the world.
keywords: development  institutional theory  modern world polity/society

modernization  national scientific activity  world system
There is a large body of sociological research on the development of mod-

ern nation-state structures and policies since the Second World War (for a
recent review of this work, see Boli, 2005; Drori, 2005; Drori et al., 2003,
2006). One of the most important and striking findings in this work is that
despite substantial cultural, political and historical differences, nation-
state systems have become increasingly alike in their structures and insti-
tutions (consistent with Meyer, 1977a). This is true with respect to a wide
International Sociology ✦ November 2009 ✦ Vol. 24(6): 833–869

© International Sociological Association
SAGE (Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC)
DOI: 10.1177/0268580909343498
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International Sociology Vol. 24 No. 6
range of social sectors and areas such as the economy (Meyer et al., 1975),
education (Drori and Moon, 2006; Frank and Meyer, 2007; McEneaney
and Meyer, 2000; Meyer, 1977b; Meyer et al., 1992; Ramirez, 2006; Ramirez
and Boli, 1987; Schofer and Meyer, 2005), employment law and practices
(Dobbin and Sutton, 1998; Dobbin et al., 1993), health care (Castilla, 2004;
Scott et al., 2000), law (Edelman, 1992; Edelman et al., 1999), human rights
(Boli, 1987; Hafner-Burton and Tsutsui, 2005; Tsutsui, 1999; Tsutsui and
Wotipka, 2004), women’s rights (Berkovitch, 1993; Charles, 1992; Ramirez
and Weiss, 1979), science (Wuthnow, 1980, 1987), the environment (Frank,
1992, 1997; Meyer et al., 1997; Schofer and Hironaka, 2005), welfare mod-
els (Strang and Chang, 1993) and models of management (Guillén, 1994;
Sahlin-Andersson and Engwall, 2002).
However, it has recently been argued that such convergence in national
institutions has tended to be both underestimated and undertheorized in
the social sciences (Drori et al., 2003: ix). Societies supposedly converge
as they selfishly strive for efficiency (as well as economic and political
dominance) and create institutions adapted to industrial modern econo-
mies (Inkeles and Rossi, 1956; Kerr et al., 1960; Rostow, 1960; Tönnies,
1963). However, in reaction to these functionalist lines of thought analyz-
ing nation-states as isolated actors evolving independently of other
nation-states, neoinstitutionalist theorists have continued the conver-
gence debate, arguing for convergence among industrial nations in areas
such as economic life, political systems, education, technology and strati-
fication systems (e.g. Baum, 1974; Drori, 2005; Grew, 1984; Jang, 2000;
Meyer, 1980; Meyer et al., 1975).
Science, scientific production and scientific experts are seen as central
to nation-states in two significant ways. First, their effects on national
economic development have been well supported by empirical research
(see, for example, Schofer et al., 2000). Even if that was not the case, as
some science professionals, nation-states and governmental organizations
believe, several cognitive models and frameworks have connected scien-
tific activity to societal development and progress (Schofer, 1999). Second,
science and scientific production are among the most important means by
which world culture is transmitted to and installed within particular
national societies (Drori et al., 2003). Not surprisingly, the rise of science
associations in the international sphere has had important theoretical and
practical implications for the overall expansion of scientific authority, as
well as for the scientization of many domains of society since the 1870s
(Schofer, 1999).
The purpose of this article is to contribute to this important research
stream by examining the functional and institutional factors influencing
global national scientific activity throughout the 20th century. In order to
do so, I empirically investigate when and under what conditions countries
834
Castilla The Institutional Production of National Science
joined any of the unions comprising the International Council of Scientific

Unions (ICSU). A study such as this is relevant in the literature of national
science production and development for three major reasons. First, the
ICSU is the pre-eminent and oldest organization committed to interna-
tional scientific cooperation. Created in 1931 out of its predecessor, the
International Research Council (1919), the ICSU’s main goal has been to
‘promote international scientific activity in the different branches of sci-
ence and their applications for the benefit of humanity’ (ICSU, 1995: 1).
The ICSU is a non-governmental body with research councils (national),
multidisciplinary bodies (92 national academies of science) and scientific
unions (international, disciplinary organizations – 23 scientific unions in
total). Because the ICSU is in contact, through its membership, with hun-
dreds of thousands of scientists and scientific teams worldwide, it is being
increasingly called upon ‘to act as the spokesman for the world scientific
community and as an adviser in matters ranging from ethics to the envi-
ronment’ (ICSU, 1995: 4).
Second, for the first time in this literature, this article presents cross-
national, cross-time empirical research on the factors influencing national
science activity. Ultimately, the empirical analyses in this study demon-
strate how the spread of science throughout the world has become a defin-
ing rationalizing force on all modern nation-states (consistent with Drori et
al., 2003). In 1931, there were 38 nation members, representing 193 national
memberships to the different ICSU scientific unions. The joining of coun-
tries to the ICSU unions began early in the 1900s, and steadily increased
during the post-Second World War era, illustrating the rise and expansion
of national science production in the 20th century. By 1991, the ICSU was
already comprised of 20 different international scientific unions with 75
national members and 702 ICSU union memberships.
Third, the theoretical institutional factors proposed in this article are
contrasted sharply with most development and modernization argu-
ments about the role of national scientific production in modern society.
It has become common to stress the expansion of science as instrumental
to the self-interest of countries, and as particularly advantageous to spe-
cific goals or interests of certain social groups within countries. However,
this study supports a more institutional account for the process of national
scientific production over time. By using the event history methodology
to analyze repeating national-level joining events (i.e. the hazard rates at
which nation-states join any of the scientific unions of the ICSU), I seek to
isolate and test two major sets of theoretical arguments concerning the
expansion of scientific union memberships over time. I start by testing
variations in the impact of socioeconomic development on joining rates
across time. Then, I continue exploring the role of world system linkages
and discourse in the process of national adherence to the ICSU scientific
835
unions. As part of this argument, I pay attention to the effect of (1) the
degree of economic openness of a country to the world (economic link-
ages) as well as (2) the degree of linkages to the world system, specifically
the expansion of international discourse and the proliferation of a ‘scien-
tific consciousness’ (also known as institutional linkages). In addition, I
control for the effect of previous ICSU union memberships of a country
on its joining rate.
The findings of my dynamic analyses of historical data for 166 countries
between 1919 and 1990 are clear-cut. Institutional factors have the greatest
power to predict the rate at which nation-states join scientific organiza-
tions. The joining rate increases more quickly during the post-Second
World War era with the rise of the world system. Additionally, as the
number of ICSU union memberships of a country increases over time, the
hazard rate increases at a decreasing rate. By contrast, modernization
arguments do not seem to explain the evolution of ICSU membership.
These purely functional arguments are only important early in the ‘sci-
ence diffusion’ process. After 1945, institutional factors better account for
worldwide national scientific activity. Although core countries have
higher joining rates than peripheral countries, I find evidence of conver-
gence in the evolution of national joining rates over time. My longitudinal
results also demonstrate substantial invariability in the impact of func-
tional and institutional factors across countries, regardless of their level of
economic development. I conclude this article by discussing the implica-
tions of my research for the future study of national scientific production
and development in the world.
Key Theoretical Factors behind National

Scientific Production
Important past research, especially research on the national convergence
of national institutions in correspondence to the requirements of the mod-
ern economy, have asserted that industrial countries become increasingly
alike in their institutions and structures, despite major cultural, political
and historical differences. Societies supposedly converge as they strive for
efficiency and create institutions adapted to industrial economies (Inkeles
and Rossi, 1956; Kerr et al., 1960; Rostow, 1960; Tönnies, 1963). An impor-
tant underlying assumption in this literature is that societies with the
same level of economic and social development should behave very
similarly, resulting in the standardization of practices and routines around
the globe. According to these modernization arguments, countries that
have attained a considerable level of development in science and technol-
ogy should continue participating in activities and policies that empha-
size science, particularly in relation to education and future development.
836
Consequently, if these theoretical development propositions are correct,

then more developed nation-states should be more likely to promote
national scientific activities.
In reaction to these functionalist lines of thought analyzing nation-
states as isolated actors evolving independently of other nation-states,
many theorists have continued the convergence debate, arguing both for
and against convergence among industrial nations in areas such as
economic life, political systems and stratification systems (Baum, 1974;
Grew, 1984; Meyer et al., 1975). Among these theorists are neoinstitution-
alists, who argue that nation-states are embedded in an exogenous, and
more or less worldwide, rationalistic culture that defines the nature, pur-
pose, resources, technologies, controls and sovereignty of the ‘proper’
nation-state (Meyer, 1994; for a recent essay on institutional theories, see
Meyer, 2007). Linkages to other nation-states, international organizations
and communities play a vital role in leading general internal characteris-
tics of national systems to converge over time. National trends follow
similar patterns, highly influenced by the ‘wider system’. This world
system produces a great deal of powerful discourse despite its lack of
authority to act.1
As the world system expanded after 1945, these institutional approaches
suggest that nation-states tend to behave isomorphically; that is, they
tend to be influenced by what other nation-states are doing, as well as by
the cultural rules and discourse emerging from governmental and non-
governmental organizations and communities. According to Meyer (1994)
and Thomas et al. (1987), the world society is made up not only of coun-
tries but also of international organizations, particularly in the sciences
and professions, which tell nation-states what to do to become legitimate.
Institutionalists claim that new nation-states are less able to exercise inde-
pendent authority. They need to follow certain international ‘rules of the
game’ to have the ‘approval’ of the world system (i.e. regimes that deter-
mine how international exchange has to take place, adequate forms of
military action and other state obligations). Membership in the global
society means that nation-states both influence and take advantage of
international opinion about what is desirable and undesirable. Ultimately,
countries become more interdependent economically, but also become
more dependent on common organizations and rules for reciprocal legiti-
mization. Following institutional arguments, two main predictions can be
made regarding national scientific production. First, national scientific
production should increase more quickly during the post-Second World
War era as a result of the character of worldwide social change as well as
the development of a worldwide cultural system favorable to scientific
progress. Second, the degree of linkage of a country to the world system
should also have a positive effect on the level of national science activities,
837
this being especially so since these linkages represent key sources of pres-
sures for nation-states (from the world system) to behave ‘properly’ when
it comes to justifying the production of scientific knowledge.
In this line of thought, the central argument of institutionalists is that
the nation-state system is given worldwide support and legitimacy.
Interests and concerns of the state are increasingly determined by the
cultural content of the world polity (i.e. world definitions of the justifica-
tions, perspectives, purposes, aims and policies to be pursued by nation-
states). Thus, since 1945, we have witnessed an increase in the state’s
responsibilities and obligations along with a decrease in internal sover-
eignty. Both processes take place simultaneously. On the one hand, the
world system confers increasing powers on states ‘to control and organize
societies politically around the values established in the world political
culture’ (Meyer, 1980: 110). These powers are ideological, cultural and
political reflections of the logic of the world economy. At the same time,
modern nation-states’ organizations should be studied as similar social
actors under exogenous universal cultural processes. Increasingly, coun-
tries are structurally similar and change isomorphically. As world condi-
tions have changed, states have in many respects tended to become more
similar despite their internal differences (Grew, 1984).2 Thus, nation-states
do many similar things, such as ensuring mass education, respecting
human rights, taking environmental actions, etc. Indeed, states are
expected to be responsible for those actions. Nation-states are driven by
pressures and incentives, as well as changes in the world system. They
expand and become more similar in the functions they perform.
In sum, what all of these structures of the world polity produce is a
great deal of powerful talk rather than binding authoritative action, i.e.
scientific talk, legal talk, non-binding legislation, normative talk, talk
about social problems, suggestions, advice, consulting talk and so on
(Brusson, 1989, cited in Meyer, 1994: 9).3 Then, nation-states are supposed
to put into action the policies proposed in the international talk. Ultimately,
the main theoretical proposition in this article is that the rate at which
countries promote scientific activities should increase over historical time
with the increase in the dimensions of the world system. Here it is also
worth noting the prediction that as more countries, whether hegemonic or
peripheral, engage in the production of science and scientific activities,
other countries would tend to imitate such behavior in order to legitimate
themselves. As a result, national science and national scientific production
are more the result of an exogenous, worldwide, rationalistic culture that
defines ‘proper’ nation-state behavior when it comes to science – rather
than the result of nation-states as isolated actors selfishly evolving indepen-
dently of other nation-states (see Meyer, 2007).
838
Research Setting: The International Council of

Scientific Unions
The ICSU, according to its founding statutes, is an international non-
governmental and non-profit making scientific organization. Four objec-
tives underlie the existence and functioning of the ICSU. First, it initiates,
designs and coordinates major international, interdisciplinary research
programs. Second, the ICSU creates interdisciplinary bodies, which
undertake activities and research programs of interest to members. In
addition to these programs, several bodies set up within the ICSU address
matters of common concern to all scientists, such as capacity building in
science, data, science and technology in developing countries and ethics
and freedom in the conduct of science. Third, the Council also acts as a
focus for the exchange of ideas, the communication of scientific informa-
tion and the development of scientific standards. Finally, the ICSU assists
in the creation of international and regional networks of scientists with
similar interests. Each nation-state member has the obligation to support
the objectives of the ICSU and meet its financial obligations as appropri-
ate.4 Members may belong to the ICSU in one of two categories (what has
been called the ‘principle of dual membership’): (1) as scientific union
members or (2) national scientific members.
In 1993, the ICSU was comprised of 84 national members and 20 inter-
national scientific unions, which allowed it to ‘provide a wide spectrum
of scientific expertise enabling members to address major international,
interdisciplinary issues which none could handle alone’ (ICSU, 1993). The
scientific unions cover a wide range of disciplines, including all four
major branches of basic science: mathematics, physics, chemistry and
biology. In 1931, there were 38 national members and 193 memberships to
the different ICSU scientific unions. Many of the earliest memberships
occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. Roughly 22 percent of these
were created before 1935. Over 75 percent were created after 1945. Figure
1 shows how the cumulative number of ICSU union memberships grew
over the 1919–90 period. The graph clearly illustrates that the joining of
countries to scientific unions began early in the century, and steadily
increased during the post-Second World War era. Thus, in 1991, the ICSU
was comprised of 20 international scientific unions with 75 national mem-
bers, including eight associates (702 ICSU union memberships in total).
Hypotheses
The existence and functioning of the ICSU provides an interesting object
of analysis because the process by which countries join any of its scientific
839
Cumulative number of ICSU union memberships 800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
0
1919 1929 1939 1955 1965 1975 1985
Year
Figure 1 Cumulative Number of ICSU Union Memberships in the World (1919–90)
unions can be used to test several macro-sociological theories on national

scientific production over time. In this particular study, I examine the
propensity of nation-states to join an ICSU scientific union between 1919
and 1990. The event for the purpose of this article is a country’s joining
any of the ICSU unions. This leads to an analysis of repeatable events.
Based on the relevant prior theories and research (reviewed earlier), I test
the two key sets of arguments: (1) development and modernization; and
(2) institutional.
Development and Modernization Arguments

According to modernization arguments (as reviewed earlier), the predic-
tion is that more developed countries, which have already attained a sig-
nificant level of development in science and technology, should be more
likely to participate in activities and policies that emphasize science.
Consequently, if these theoretical propositions are correct, the more devel-
oped nation-states are, the more likely they are to join ICSU scientific
unions, especially at an earlier stage of diffusion. Thus, the following
hypotheses are tested regarding socioeconomic development:
Hypothesis 1a: The level of national development increases the rate at which a
country joins ICSU scientific unions.
840
Hypothesis 1b: The effect of national development on the joining rate of scien-
tific unions should increase over time.
Hypothesis 1c: More developed countries (core countries) are more likely to join
scientific unions than peripheral countries.
Having said that, a certain convergence in the evolution of joining rates
over time should also be expected. So that the difference in the likelihood
at which developed vs developing countries join ICSU scientific unions
should decrease over time.
Institutional Arguments
Following institutional approaches (as reviewed earlier), as the world
system rose and expanded after 1945, nation-states tended to behave iso-
morphically. In 1945, the United Nations was created and was thought to
legitimate nation-states and transmit the international rules and recom-
mendations concerning appropriate state structures and actions. Thus, it
could be predicted that:
Hypothesis 2a: The rate of joining ICSU scientific unions increases more quickly
during the post-Second World War era.
In addition to the historical time component, the linkage to the
expanded world society should also have an influence on national scien-
tific production. The hypothesis is then:
Hypothesis 2b: The degree of linkage of a country to the world system has a
positive effect on the rate at which a country joins a scientific union.
In order to measure the degree of national linkage to the world society,
I use two indicators. The first indicator is the cumulative number of
national memberships in ICSU unions. So that as the number of ICSU
union memberships of a country increases over time, the joining rate also
increases. The second indicator refers to the degree of economic linkages
to the world system as measured by the amount of imports and exports
as a percentage of GNP. Finally, and following the institutional predic-
tions, one should expect an inverted U-shaped relationship between the
rate at which countries enter scientific unions and the cumulative number
of union memberships of a country. Thus, the following is predicted:
Hypothesis 2c: As the number of ICSU scientific union memberships of a coun-
try increases over time, the rate at which a country joins a scientific union
increases at a decreasing rate.
Additionally, what all of these structures of the world polity produce is
some powerful talk. Nation-states are therefore supposed to (even pres-
sured to) put into action the policies proposed in international talks. So
the hypothesis here is the following:
841
Hypothesis 3a: The rate at which a country joins a scientific union increases over
time with the increase in the dimensions of the world system.
In order to measure the dimensions of the world system, I use the num-
ber of international governmental organizations in the world, a standard
useful measure of the expanded world system. The reason for hypothesis
3a is that the international talks on science and development produced by
INGOs and the increasing involvement of nation-states in such talks
should increase the likelihood of a country entering any of the ICSU sci-
entific unions. Another related hypothesis is the following:
Hypothesis 3b: As more countries, whether core or peripheral, join scientific
unions, other countries imitate the behavior in order to become legitimate.5
Description of Data
The purpose of this study is to examine nation-state adherence to any
ICSU scientific union over the 1919–90 period. Specifically, I examine the
effects of both development and institutional processes on the rate at
which a country joins any union by estimating event history models. The
unit of analysis for the study is the nation-state and the event of joining a
union is a recurring event. The dimension of time used in the study is
historical time (i.e. 1919–90). At any given time, a nation may or may not
join any of the ICSU scientific unions.
The unique historical dataset analysed in this article is mainly obtained
from a larger cross-national cross-time dataset. This set provides informa-
tion for the period 1815–1990 by single years and by each country. It con-
tains over 250 variables with data on approximately 173 nation-states and
colonies. Primary sources include Arthur S. Banks’ Cross-National Time
Series Data Archive (Banks, 1986), Gurr’s Polity Persistence and Change Data
(Gurr and Gurr, 1978), The World Bank World Tables (World Bank, 1990), the
World Handbook of Social and Political Indicators (Taylor and Jodice, 1982),
various editions of the Yearbook of International Associations (Union of
International Associations, 1907–90) and several UNESCO Statistical
Yearbooks (UNESCO, 1990).
The sample analysed here includes 166 countries, after deleting cases
with missing information on the dependent variable. The data file con-
tains multiple records for each of the 166 nation-states – specifically, one
for each year. Since the event (i.e. a country’s joining of any ICSU scientific
union) is repeatable over time, information is available for a total of 6729
years of data for 166 countries (each of the countries is taken as multiple
observations over time). The data begin at the date of independence of
each country, or, in the case of old countries, in 1919 when the International
842
Research Council (the predecessor of the ICSU) was created. The data col-
lection ends in 1990, the final point for which data were available. There
are 713 events in total, 222 involving core countries and 491 involving
peripheral countries. The sample includes 21 core countries and 145
peripheral countries.
The variables were selected on the basis of: (1) relevance to the descrip-
tion of the major factors considered in this study; (2) judgment related to
the degree of homogeneity sufficient to allow cross-country comparisons;
and (3) availability of time series observations in most of the countries. A
detailed description of each variable is provided in the next subsection.
Measures and Concepts

For the purpose of this study, I assume that an event occurs when a coun-
try joins one or more ICSU unions in a given year.6 The measure was
obtained from the 1995 edition of the Yearbook of the International Council of
Scientific Unions published by the ICSU Secretariat in Paris. The develop-
ment hypotheses are tested using gross national income per capita (mea-
sured every year). Although this variable is not excessively appropriate
for measuring national socioeconomic development, it was the best avail-
able measure recorded back to 1919 for the majority of countries.7 Two
other indicators of the effects of national development are dummy vari-
ables for core countries and peripheral economies.
Three main indicators are used to operationalize institutional argu-
ments (all measured from 1919 to 1990). The first indicator is the cumula-
tive number of ICSU union memberships in existence in the world
(international-level variable), used to test the extent to which nations are
influenced by other nations’ behavior-relating science (what DiMaggio
and Powell [1983] have called ‘world-wide mimetic behavior’).8 Values of
this first indicator are recorded yearly. Figure 1 displays the cumulative
number of memberships in the world, showing extensive activity well
after 1945. Before the war, the cumulative number of ICSU union mem-
berships was around 180, with core countries holding around 70 percent
of such memberships. By the late 1980s, the number had increased to over
700. The percentage of core countries holding ICSU memberships had
decreased to 57 percent.
The second indicator is the cumulative number of national memberships in
ICSU unions (national-level variable), used to test the degree to which a
nation-state is linked to the world system. Thus, it measures the extent to
which each nation-state adheres to the world-level discourse on science.
Figure 2 shows the evolution of the average number of national ICSU
union memberships per year over the 1919–90 period. As can be seen, the
average number of national ICSU memberships increases from 1.62 in
843
Average number of ICSU union memberships 20
18
16
14
12
10
0
1919 1929 1939 1955 1965 1975 1985
Year
All countries Core countries Peripheral countries
Figure 2 Average Number of ICSU Union Memberships per Country per Year by
Different Categories of Countries (1919–90)
1919 to 6.28 in 1989. By 1990, core countries belong to almost 20 scientific

unions on average; the average number for peripheral countries is 4.4.
This average number of scientific unions per country increases at a rate of
almost three union memberships per country per year.9
The third indicator used to operationalize institutional arguments is the
number of international governmental and non-governmental organizations in
the world (international-level variable), which gives an idea of the dimen-
sions of the world system as well as the impact of its discourse on nation-
state behavior. These variables are obtained from the Yearbook of
International Associations. Values are also recorded yearly. The number of
IGOs increases exponentially over time, ranging from fewer than 30 orga-
nizations in 1919 to over 1500 by 1990. In the case of INGOs, the number
grows enormously from almost 800 in 1920 to over 12,000 by 1990. These
organizations contribute to the creation and maintenance of a world cul-
tural discourse as well as normative pressures in the domains of science
and development (see Thomas et al., 1993).
Economic linkages of countries to the world system are measured by
the amount of imports and exports as a percentage of GNP. Thus, the idea is
that countries with a relatively high level of imports and exports are
844
more connected to the world economy (what economists call economic

openness).
Results
Before proceeding to the multivariate methods of event history analysis,
it is crucial to undertake exploratory analysis of the longitudinal data
(Castilla, 2007). A better understanding of the temporal nature of the data
was obtained by estimating integrated hazard rates and hazard rates at
which countries join scientific unions over time. These functions were
estimated for the full sample of countries over the 1919–90 period. They
were also estimated for two subgroups of countries (i.e. core and periph-
eral) depending on the economic position of a country in the world.
The integrated or cumulative hazard rate indicates whether the hazard
rate varies with time. Thus, if the hazard rate is constant over time, the
integral of this rate over time should yield a straight line. Figure 3 pre
sents the integrated hazard rates for core and peripheral countries. The
non-linear relationship between the Nelson–Aalen estimates of the inte-
grated hazard rate at which nation-states join any of the ICSU scientific
unions and historical time suggests that the hazard rate is time depen-
dent, and therefore a constant (exponential) hazard rate model may not be
appropriate for the purposes of the multivariate analysis. Since the curve
bends upward, then the likelihood of a country joining at least one of the
unions increases over time. As the figure shows, the hazard rate is rela-
tively constant until around 1950. During the postwar era, the hazard rate
varies greatly over time. The plot partially supports hypothesis 2a in the
sense that the joining rate increases more quickly during the postwar era.
This is not surprising given that the UN, created in 1945, is believed to
have legitimated nation-states and transmitted the ‘blueprints’ concern-
ing nation-state action.
The slope of the integrated hazard rate is not constant for either group
of countries; however, it varies much more for core countries than for
peripheral countries. The slope of the integrated hazard rate for periph-
eral countries is approximately linear, especially prior to 1950. Although
the hazard rate for these countries may not be time dependent, the low
level of fluctuation may be in part due to the relatively small number of
peripheral countries joining the ICSU unions, especially prior to 1945. The
plot clearly indicates that the rate of adoption throughout the entire
period is higher for core countries.
More information is gained from examining the hazard rate itself. The
hazard rate is similar to the probability that a nation-state joins any of the
ICSU scientific unions per unit of time. Figure 4 shows the smoothed
Nelson–Aalen estimates of the hazard rates for core and peripheral
845
10
8
6
R(t)
4
2
0
1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Historical year
Peripheral countries Core countries
Figure 3 Estimates of the Integrated Hazard Rate at Which Nation-States Join ICSU
Scientific Unions over Historical Time by Category of Countries (1919–90)
Note: Number of events/countries: 222/21 (core countries); 491/145 (peripheral countries).
countries over the 1919–90 period.10 It confirms that the hazard rate for all
countries changes non-monotonically over time. After smoothing, the
hazard rate remains quite constant until the 1945 period, when it rises
sharply to more than half this rate again over the following 10 years (from
1950–60).11 The post-1960 period is characterized by a slight decline in
the rate; this decline continues after 1970, even when new countries
became independent and when seven new ICSU unions were created
(two in the 1970s, two more in 1982 and three more in 1993).12
Institutional arguments seem to apply on a world level to the joining of
ICSU scientific unions, as theory predicts that the highest rates of joining
will occur with the rise of the world system in the postwar era. Thus, the
formation of the UN in 1945 and the founding of UNESCO soon after
contributed to the sharp rise in the hazard rate after 1950. A possible func-
tional explanation of the burst of activity culminating in 1960 could be
that the immediate postwar period was characterized by economic expan-
sion and growth. The time-variant nature of the gross national income per
capita used in this analysis will help in assessing this suggestion later in
the multivariate analyses.
When examining the differences between the two smoothed hazard rates
for the two different categories of countries, it is clear that their overall
846
.25
.2
Smoothed r(t)
.15
.1
.05
0
1920 1940 1960 1980 2000
Historical year
Peripheral countries Core countries
Figure 4 Smoothed Estimates of the Hazard Rate at Which Nation-States Join ICSU
Scientific Unions over Historical Time by Category of Countries (1919–90)
Note: Number of events/countries: 222/21 (core countries); 491/145 (peripheral countries).
patterns have one similarity, namely that they change non-monotonically

over time. On the one hand, the hazard rate for core countries rises
increasingly until 1960, when it drops steadily over a period of 30 years
(i.e. the hazard rate decreases 1 percent every year over the 1960–90
period). On the other hand, the hazard rate for peripheral countries also
experiences a peak around 1960 – it remains quite constant until 1945,
when it rises sharply to more than half this rate from 1950 to 1960. The
post-1960 period is characterized by a small decline in the rate. This
decline of the rate is less pronounced for peripheral countries due, to
some degree, to the fact that 55 peripheral countries became independent
after 1960. These recently independent nation-states are the ones that con-
tinue entering scientific unions at a higher rate during the later period.13
Furthermore, the plot in Figure 4 indicates that the rate of adoption
throughout the entire period is higher for core countries than for peripheral
countries. In 1989, core countries belong to almost 20 scientific unions on
average. This represents a 65 percent increase in the average number of
memberships by core nations since 1960. Whereas, the average number
of scientific unions to which peripheral countries belong is 4.4 (an increase
of 69 percent since 1960). The pattern of membership growth for core and
peripheral countries differs before 1960. In 1920, the average number of
847
memberships is 3.75 for core countries and 0.4 for peripheral countries. The
average number of memberships increases at a rate of 2.23 per decade in
the case of core countries (vs a rate of 0.6 per decade in the case of periph-
eral countries). Since the curves for the two different categories of countries
are not equally spaced within the 1919–90 observational period, the hazard
rates for core and peripheral countries are not multiples of one another
and, therefore, proportional hazard rate models do not seem appropriate
for modeling the phenomena under study.14 Moreover, the curves for the
two groups differ quite dramatically. The differences are greatest prior to
1960, when the joining activity by peripheral countries is very low. The
lines only seem to approach each other by the end of the period analyzed,
with the rise and expansion of the worldwide polity system.
Choosing among Multivariate Models

Although plots of hazard rates vs time are valuable tools for exploratory
analysis and for making basic non-parametric comparisons, they do not
allow for testing any of the theoretical arguments posed here, nor do they
indicate much about the effects of some variables on the hazard rate when
others are held constant. Both of these goals call for a second stage in the
research: the specification of a parametric model of the rate at which
nation-states join at least one ICSU union. I estimate event history models
(Blossfeld and Rohwer, 1995; Castilla, 2007; Tuma and Hannan, 1979, 1984)
to examine some of the internal and external factors affecting the rate at
which nation-states join an ICSU scientific union over the 1919–90 period.15
In this article, I present several piecewise models that allow intercepts and
effects of covariates to vary across different historical periods.16 All models
are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood. This method is
advantageous because it provides estimates that are asymptotically unbi-
ased and efficient. In addition, this method of estimation allows for testing
nested models using chi-square statistics. The standard errors of parame-
ters are asymptotically normally distributed, which allows testing hypothe
ses about the significance of any given model parameter.17
Table 1 gives the maximum likelihood estimates of three piecewise
models of the hazard rate at which nation-states join at least one ICSU
scientific union in three historical periods (1919–45, 1946–64 and 1965–90).
I begin with the piecewise exponential model (PE; also known as the piece-
wise constant model); results are presented in the first three columns of
Table 1. This model assumes that the effects of the covariates may vary
across different time periods. It expresses the dependence of the hazard
rate on covariates explicitly and, therefore, allows for the testing of
hypotheses about predicted effects and their variation across historical
subperiods. The PE model of the hazard rate takes the following func-
tional form:
848
Table 1 Piecewise Models of the Hazard Rate at Which Nation-States Join ICSI Scientific Unions in Three Historical Periods (1919–45,
1946–64 and 1965–90)
Piecewise proportional Piecewise non-proportional

Piecewise exponential model Gompertz model Gompertz model
Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90
1. Time-independent
vector of covariates (b)
Intercept -1.759**** 0.026 3.538**** -7.409**** -30.250**** -35.450**** -22.900**** -38.210**** -53.640****
Gross national income 0.626* 0.248** 0.016 1.044** 0.267** 0.063**** -1.653* 0.799 -0.686**
per capita (in 000s)
Imports and exports -0.002 -0.001 0.000 -0.002 0.002 0.000 0.000 0.001 0.000
(as % of GNP)
Cumulative number of 0.594**** 0.319**** 0.386**** 0.567**** 0.382**** 0.397**** 0.642**** 0.355**** 0.395****
national memberships
in ICSU scientific
unions
Squared cumulative -0.072**** -0.017**** -0.017**** -0.071**** -0.020**** -0.018**** -0.079**** -0.018**** -0.018****
number of national
memberships in ICSU
scientific unions
Cumulative number of -0.035**** -0.038**** -0.017**** -0.044**** -0.090**** -0.034**** -0.051**** -0.099**** -0.032****
ICSU union
memberships in
existence in the world
Number of INGOs in 0.772*** 0.369**** 0.037**** 3.210**** 0.163**** -0.158* 4.134**** 4.794 **** -0.045*
the world (in 00s)
Core countries (dummy 0.581** -0.082 -0.052 0.582** -0.037** -0.012 0.597 -0.055 0.420
variable)
(Continued)
Table 1 (Continued)
Piecewise proportional Piecewise non-proportional

Piecewise exponential model Gompertz model Gompertz model
Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90
2. Time-dependent vector
of covariates (W)
Intercept -0.371**** 1.346**** 1.157**** 4.739**** 1.598**** 1.497****
Core countries (dummy -0.005 0.006 -0.007
variable)
Gross national income 0.245** -0.013 0.011**
per capita (in 000s)
Number of INGOs in -0.079**** -0.007**** -0.002****
the world (in 000s)
Overall rate per year 0.073 0.325 0.193 0.073 0.325 0.193 0.073 0.325 0.193
Number of events 71 270 372 71 270 372 71 270 372
Chi-square statistic
Relative to the baseline
modela 588**** 1057**** 1210****
Degrees of freedom 21 21 30
Relative to the piecewise
exponential model 470**** 622****
Degrees of freedom 3 12
Relative to the
piecewise proportional 153****
Gompertz model
Degrees of freedom 9
Number of countries = 166
* Significant at the .10 level; ** significant at the .05 level; *** significant at the .01 level; **** significant at the 0.001 level.
a
The model labeled baseline is a model with no covariates (constants only).
r(t) = exp (βp’ X)
where the subscript p denotes a specific subperiod (1919–45, 1946–64, or

1965–90 respectively), X refers to a set of explanatory and control variables
used in the analysis, and βp are the parameters that measure the effects of
X on the hazard rate. The values of all covariates except the dummy vari-
able for core countries (e.g. GNP per capita and the cumulative number of
national memberships in ICSU scientific unions) change over time for a
given country. As can be seen in Table 1, the PE model significantly
improves upon a baseline or null model with no covariates and with
intercepts that vary across the three historical periods; the probability
levels for these tests are well below .001.
One inconvenience of the PE model, often overlooked in cross-national
comparative studies, is that it assumes that the covariates have the same
effects within each period (i.e. r(t) is a step function). Since I am investi-
gating changing trends over time, with the hypothesis of decreasing
positive effects of development factors and increasing effects of the insti-
tutional factors on the hazard rate over historical time, the PE framework
with period-specific effects may not be the most appropriate. Additionally,
the plots of the hazard rates against historical time shown in the explor-
atory section clearly suggest that the hazard rate under study is time
dependent. Such exploratory results indicate that the data do not meet the
assumptions of exponential models because the hazard rates appear to be
time dependent. Consequently, I estimate a piecewise proportional Gompertz
model (PPG) of the hazard rate:
r(t) = exp (βp’ X) exp (μp t) = exp (βp’X + μp t)
where μp is a constant that changes for each specific historical subperiod

p. Note that in addition to the consideration that the covariates can vary
across different time periods, this model assumes that the hazard rate
may also vary over time within each of the subperiods – in particular,
the model assumes that the rate changes exponentially with time. Thus,
the hazard declines, is constant or rises within each subperiod as μp is
less than, equal to or greater than zero. Table 1 (columns 4–6) provides
the estimates of the PPG model modeling the hazard rate at which
nation-states join at least one scientific union in the three time periods
under study.
In the previous proportional hazards version of the PPG model, one is
assuming that the hazard rate depends on a vector of covariates X. The β
vector describes the effects of heterogeneity of populations in the hazard
rate itself. Of course, the β vector is a time-invariant vector within each
851
subperiod p. But since a piecewise version of the Gompertz model is

used, the β vector is a time-variant vector of covariates across different
subperiods. The effects of heterogeneity of populations in the time varia-
tion component of the hazard rate can be controlled directly by specifying
a piecewise non-proportional Gompertz model (PNG). To do so, I retain the
assumption that the β vector is a function of covariates but now I add the
specification of the following equation:
μ = Ω’Z
where Z is a vector of covariates which may or may not overlap with the
vector of covariates X. Essentially, the variation in the hazard rate over
time depends now on the vector of covariates Z. The functional form for
the hazard rate is now:
r(t) = exp (βp’ X + Ωp’ Z t)
Note that the vector Ωp (i.e. the time-dependent vector of covariates)

tells the speed at which the joining rate either falls or rises within
each historical subperiod. This piecewise Gompertz model is now non-
proportional because time variation in the rate depends on the vector
of covariates Z. Columns 7–9 in Table 1 report the estimates of the
PNG model.
Since the three models – the piecewise exponential model (PE), the
piecewise proportional Gompertz model (PPG) and the piecewise non-
proportional Gompertz model (PNG) – are nested and can therefore be
ordered hierarchically, the likelihood ratio chi-square tests for significance
can be computed to compare simpler with more complicated models. For
the analysis of all 166 countries, the PNG model significantly improves
the fit from the previous two models. As can be seen at the bottom of
Table 1, both the PPG and the PNG models significantly improve upon
the PE model, whose specification does not allow for changes of the haz-
ard rate over time within each period.18 The probability levels of the chi-
square statistics are well below .001. Thus, a Gompertz model is more
appropriate than a constant rate model for this longitudinal analysis.19
In addition, the likelihood test comparing the PPG model against the
PNG model is 153 with 9 degrees of freedom, which also has a p-level well
below .001. Thus, I can reject with considerable confidence the propor-
tional version of the piecewise Gompertz model of the rate at which coun-
tries enter scientific unions. In substantive terms, the results obtained here
suggest two key points. First, the effects of internal and external factors on
the ICSU joining rate greatly vary across time periods. Second, such a
hazard rate is time dependent and, therefore, it changes over time within
852
Table 2 Piecewise Gompertz Model of the Hazard Rate at Which Core Countries Join
ICSU Scientific Unions in Three Historical Periods (1919–45, 1946–64 and
1965–90)
Core countries
Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90
1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)

Intercept -25.740*** -43.650*** -83.920***
Gross national income per capita (in 000s) -1.817 -0.805 -0.129
Imports and exports (as % of GNP) 0.001 0.001 0.005
Cumulative number of national
memberships in ICSU scientific unions 0.459* 0.206* 0.823***
Squared cumulative number of national
memberships in ICSU scientific unions -0.038 -0.010 -0.036***
Cumulative number of ICSU union
memberships in existence in the world -0.079*** -0.121*** -0.058***
Number of INGOs in the world (in 00s) 4.540*** 0.894*** -0.316***
2. Time-dependent vector of covariates (W)
Intercept 6.353*** 1.813*** 2.514***
Gross national income per capita (in 000s) 0.171* 0.026 0.004
Number of INGOs in the world (in 00s) -1.020*** -0.013*** -0.001
Overall rate per year 0.131 0.488 0.293
Number of events 42 100 77
Non-proportional Gompertz vs baseline
modela 496***
Non-proportional Gompertz vs
proportional Gompertz model 91***
Number of core countries = 21
* Significant at the .10 level; ** significant at the .05 level; *** significant at the .01 level.
a
a historical subperiod in a non-proportional way.20 This means that certain

covariates (in particular, GNP per capita and the number of INGOs in the
world) have a significant effect on the speed of change in the hazard rate
within each subperiod.
The results summarized in Table 1 led me to prefer the piecewise non-
proportional Gompertz form to model the ICSU joining rate because it fits
853
Table 3 Piecewise Gompertz Model of the Hazard Rate at Which Peripheral Countries
Join ICSU Scientific Unions in Three Historical Periods (1919–45, 1946–64
and 1965–90)
Peripheral countries
Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90
1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)

Intercept -20.170*** -34.670*** -49.080***
Gross national income per capita (in 000s) -2.319 3.344* -0.605
Imports and exports (as % of GNP) -0.002 -0.004 0.000
Cumulative number of national
memberships in ICSU scientific unions 0.847*** 0.363*** 0.379***
Squared cumulative number of national
memberships in ICSU scientific unions -0.133*** -0.019*** -0.017***
Cumulative number of ICSU union
memberships in existence in the world -0.035*** -0.083*** -0.027***
Number of INGOs in the world (in 00s) 3.775*** -0.055*** -0.023
2. Time-dependent vector of covariates (W)
Intercept 3.578*** 1.645*** 1.340***
Gross national income per capita (in 000s) 0.377* -0.070 0.010*
Number of INGOs in the world (in 00s) -0.624*** 0.009*** -0.002***
Overall rate per year 0.004 0.272 0.176
Number of events 29 170 284
Non-proportional Gompertz vs baseline
modela 751***
Non-proportional Gompertz vs
proportional Gompertz model 71***
Number of peripheral countries = 145
* Significant at the .10 level; ** significant at the .05 level; *** significant at the .01 level.
a
the data significantly better than the other two. In order to further exam-
ine whether the effects of the covariates differ by category of country,
I also estimate two piecewise non-proportional models for core and peri
pheral countries (reported in Tables 2 and 3). Results are discussed in the
following section.
854
Discussion of Results
Table 1 presents several piecewise hazard rate models estimated for all
countries in three historical periods from 1919 until 1990. Columns 7–9
report the maximum likelihood estimates of the coefficients for the piece-
wise non-proportional Gompertz model of the hazard rate at which coun-
tries join at least one of the ICSU unions.21 The model does not provide
support for hypothesis 1a that socioeconomic development has a strong,
positive effect on the ICSU union joining rate. On the contrary, the sign of
the coefficients related to the GNP per capita measure is negative in the
1919–45 and the 1965–90 periods (only significant at the .05 level in the
latter period). This suggests that the relationship between development
and joining rates should not be hypothesized in purely internal functional
terms. In addition, the effect of GNP per capita appears to have an insig-
nificant positive effect (p < .05) on the rate during the 1946–64 period.
Nevertheless, by looking at the effects of GNP on the hazard rate as
estimated by the piecewise proportional Gompertz model, one can see
that socioeconomic development has a strong positive effect on the rate at
which countries join scientific unions early in the period of analysis. Thus,
a US$1000 increase in GNP per capita increases the joining rate by 184
percent during 1919–45 (p < .05), ceteris paribus.22 The same GNP increase
is estimated to increase the rate by 30 percent in the following period
(p < .05). During the 1965–90 period, a US$1000 increase in GNP per capita
increases the hazard rate by 6 percent (p < .001). These results do not sup-
port hypothesis 1b in the sense that the effect of socioeconomic develop-
ment on the joining rate is not found to increase during the three historical
subperiods. Instead, the results suggest the opposite trend. Thus, devel-
opment arguments might predict the national process of joining any sci-
entific union early in the ‘science diffusion’ process but not after the
process is well under way (consistent with Tolbert and Zucker, 1983).
More remarkable results are found to support institutional arguments
in this study. The cumulative number of national memberships in ICSU
scientific unions, which reflects the extent to which a nation-state is linked
to the world system and its discourse on science, has a strong significant
positive effect on the hazard rate at which nation-states join ICSU unions
(p < .001). Thus, in the 1965–90 period, having one more membership in
any of the scientific unions increases the joining rate by almost 50 percent.
Moreover, this degree of national linkage of a country to the world-scien-
tific system increases the hazard rate at a decreasing rate. This is shown
by the negative sign associated with the squared cumulative number of
national memberships in scientific unions.23 In sum, there is evidence to
support hypotheses 2b and 2c in the sense that there is an inverted
U-shaped relationship between the rate at which countries join ICSU
855
scientific unions and the cumulative number of unions’ membership of a

country. The nature of this association holds consistently throughout the
three time subperiods.
The number of international governmental organizations in the world,
giving an idea of the dimensions of the world system as well as the impact
of its discourse on nation-state behavior, also has a strong positive effect at
the .001 significance level. This supports hypothesis 3a. Looking at the PNG
model (columns 7–9 in Table 1), an additional 100 INGOs increase the haz-
ard rate by a factor of 62 in the earlier period, and by 121 after 1945 (in the
1946–65 period), net of other effects.24 The negative sign of the same effect
in the later period suggests that there might be a ceiling in the capacity of
additional INGOs to affect nation-state behavior. So after 1965, an addi-
tional 100 INGOs does not seem to have much effect on the hazard rate.
The number of INGOs in the world was also added to the time-
dependent vector of covariates (Ω) in the PNG model. Surprisingly, the
effect of the number of INGOs appears to have a very weak and signifi-
cant negative effect (p < .001) on the speed at which the ICSU joining rate
changes within each historical subperiod. In other words, the strong
positive effect of the number of INGOs on the rate slightly decreases over
time within each subperiod. For example, in the 1946–64 period, the rate
slightly decreases every year by 0.7 percent for each additional 100 INGOs
(p < .0001). The decrease in the effects of the dimensions of the world
system as well as the impact of its discourse on nation-state behavior is
inappreciable within the last period of study.
Contrary to hypothesis 3b, the rate does not increase with the rise in the
cumulative number of ICSU scientific union memberships in existence in
the world over the 1919–90 period. According to new institutionalists,
mimetic pressures should increase the rate at which countries join ICSU
unions; in other words, as more states, whether hegemonic or peripheral,
join ICSU scientific unions, other nation-states will tend to imitate such
behavior in order to legitimate themselves (DiMaggio and Power, 1983).
My analyses do not give support to that argument.
Results in Table 1 (columns 7–9) also indicate that the dummy variable
for core countries has no significant effect on the hazard rate. This dummy
variable most likely does not work because it is highly collinear with
other covariates included in the models (i.e. GNP). As the overall annual
rates at which core and peripheral states join any of the ICSU unions
clearly indicate, rates not only vary across time but also by category of
country. Not surprisingly, the overall rate per year is higher for core coun-
tries than for peripheral countries. Thus, the overall rate for core countries
is 0.29 in the 1965–90 period, while the overall rate per year for peripheral
countries is 0.18 – with rates much higher in the 1945–65 than in the
1966–90 period (as shown in Tables 2 and 3).
856
Estimates of a simple piecewise proportional Gompertz model for all

countries where I only add the dummy variable for core countries (avail-
able on request) confirm that core countries have significantly higher haz-
ard rates than peripheral countries.25 The model also shows certain
convergence in the evolution of joining rates. In other words, the difference
in the likelihood at which developed vs developing countries join scientific
unions seems to have decreased slowly over time. Thus, being a core coun-
try increases the rate of joining scientific unions by a factor of almost 3 in
the 1919–45 period, 2 in the 1946–65 period and 1.7 in 1965–90 (p < .001).
This trend is not extremely strong but it is in the direction of convergence
as hypothesized by developmental theorists (hypothesis 1c).
In order to explore the differences in the effects of covariates for core and
peripheral countries, I also estimate the piecewise non-proportional
Gompertz model separately for each of the two subpopulations of countries
in the three historical subperiods.26 Table 2 reports the maximum likelihood
estimates of the coefficients for the PNG model of the hazard rate at which
core countries join at least one of the ICSU unions. Table 3 presents the
estimates of the PNG model for peripheral countries.27 In comparison with
the results obtained for all countries, there are no changes in the signs of the
most significant effects. Only some minor changes occur in the magnitude
of such effects. Development arguments as operationalized by the GNP per
capita continue to have a poor explanatory power of the ICSU union joining
process for both core and peripheral countries. Only in the case of periph-
eral countries during the 1946–65 period did GNP per capita appear to have
a barely significant positive effect on the ICSU joining rate. When GNP per
capita is added to the time-dependent vector of covariates (Ω), it only
appears to have a significant positive effect (p < .1) on the speed at which
the rate changes within the 1919–45 subperiod. Thus, a one-unit increase in
the national income per capita raises the hazard rate of core countries by a
factor of 1.19 per year within the 1919–45 subperiod (or 1.46 for peripheral
countries) (p < .1).28 The quite insignificant effect of GNP on the rate after
1945 for both core and peripheral countries once again suggests that devel-
opment conditions predict the joining of ICSU scientific unions at the
beginning of the diffusion of science, but not later.
Adding institutional covariates increases the significance of the models
under study. As the number of ICSU union memberships for both core
and peripheral countries increases over time, the hazard rate increases at
a decreasing rate. In the case of external institutional factors, the number
of INGOs in the world has a significant positive effect on the rate of core
countries up until 1964. After 1964, the number of INGOs has a significant
but weak negative effect on the rate. The effect of INGOs is even weaker
in the case of peripheral countries. In substantive terms, core countries are
responsible for founding unions early in the period. Therefore, they are
857
the first to join. Once the majority of core countries have joined the exist-
ing scientific unions by 1965, peripheral countries follow and copy previ-
ous core-nation scientific behavior.
Conclusion
In the literature on the development of science and world polity, signifi-
cant progress has been made in demonstrating the conditions under
which national science and scientific production promote economic and
social development. However, less understood are the underlying factors
that have influenced the emergence of national scientific activity around
the world, especially during the 20th century. For the first time in this
literature, this article presents unique cross-national, cross-time empirical
research on the factors influencing national scientific activity. In particu-
lar, I examine in-depth the key factors affecting the rate at which countries
join any of the unions comprising the ICSU, the pre-eminent and oldest
international science institution in the world, over the 1919–90 period.
According to the theoretical framework proposed here, institutional
theories have greater power to predict the rate at which nation-states join
scientific unions over time. Thus, the joining rate increases more quickly
with the rise of the world system during the post-Second World War era.
In addition, the findings in this study suggest that as a country’s ICSU
union memberships increase over time, the hazard rate at which a nation-
state joins an additional ICSU union increases at a decreasing rate. This
inverted U-shaped relationship between the rate and the cumulative
number of a country’s union memberships holds for both core and
peripheral countries. Furthermore, the increasing dimensions of the
world system as well as the impact of its discourse on nation-state behav-
ior are also proven to have a strong positive effect on the hazard rate for
both core and peripheral countries.
Development and modernization arguments do not seem to offer sig-
nificant explanations for the ICSU joining hazard rate over time. The
results have shown that more developed countries are more likely to join
ICSU unions than peripheral ones. However, the estimated longitudinal
models do not provide support for the hypothesis that socioeconomic
development has a strong positive effect on the rate at which countries
join ICSU scientific unions. Instead, they prove that development argu-
ments explaining the national process of joining any ICSU union might
predict joining early in the ‘science diffusion’ process (before 1965). After
1945, institutional factors better account for the nature and change of a
nation’s rate of joining ICSU scientific unions, as predicted by the neo
institutional theoretical arguments.
858
Finally, the results confirm that core countries have significantly higher
hazard rates than peripheral countries. There is also evidence of conver-
gence in the evolution of joining rates over time. Thus, the difference in
the likelihood at which developed vs developing countries join ICSU
unions seems to have decreased slowly over time. The results in this
article demonstrate that there is no substantial variability in the effects of
the different development and institutional covariates for core and
peripheral countries. This finding confirms that any country in the world
today (regardless of its welfare, culture or history) can experience the
institutional pressures to act rationally and reasonably in the interest of
activities meant to develop science and increase scientific production.
The findings of this study have important implications for the future
study of national scientific activity and development in the world. First,
my cross-national, cross-time empirical research on the factors influenc-
ing national scientific activity confirms that scientific activities have
become a defining rationalizing force in any national modern system
(consistent with Drori et al., 2003). In 1931, 38 nation members had 193
different memberships in the different ICSU scientific unions; the joining
of countries to ICSU unions began early in the century, and steadily
increased during the postwar era (see Figure 1). Second, my study sup-
ports a more institutional account for the process of national scientific
production over time. It has been quite common to stress the expansion of
science as instrumental to the self-interest of countries, particularly to the
specific goals of certain social groups. However, by applying the event
history methodology to analyze repeating national-level joining events
since 1919, I show that institutional arguments better account for the
expansion of national scientific memberships as well as other scientific
activities; this is so even after controlling for key modernization argu-
ments in the analyses. Last but not least, this article expands the scope of
previous empirical studies by analyzing unique data on how and when
countries join any of the scientific unions of the ICSU.
As with the results of any study based on one sample drawn from a
single international science organization, caution needs to be exercised
when generalizing the results of this study. Thus, I believe that this
research can be extended in several interesting theoretical and empirical
directions. The first and most obvious area to be explored involves devel-
oping studies to continue testing the institutional aspects of national sci-
entific activities as well as science production in more comprehensive and
detailed ways. I have explored when and under what conditions coun-
tries join any of the scientific bodies comprising the ICSU. I focus on ICSU
unions as a matter of necessity. In particular, one can believe in the insti-
tutional aspects of national scientific production without believing that it
859
has to come through joining ICSU unions. After all, once a country has
joined any of the ICSU unions as well as many other international organi-
zations, other institutional pressures may exist to develop scientific pro-
duction at the national level. Studies need to look at the institutional
arguments presented here by including dynamic information about coun-
tries’ multiple scientific activities and enterprises before and after they
join any international scientific organization. It is also important to collect
detailed information about a greater range of national-level scientific
actions over time. Additional research dealing with multiple scientific ties
to other scientific institutions (and their effect on national development)
is much needed.
The second extension is closely related to the first. Although previous
studies have documented relevant institutional similarities in a wide vari-
ety of national-level structures and institutions, most of them exclusively
focus on very specific national measures of activities and outcomes. In my
current study, I only look at how the degree of linkage of a country to the
world system affects its joining rates of ICSU scientific unions. One point
often emphasized in the neoinstitutional literature, however, is that the
institutional factors that affect national-level processes and outcomes are
decidedly much more complex than the available measurement proxies
used to account for their influence at the national level of analysis. In this
regard, more research is required to understand how other sources of
influence, such as expansion of universities and their enrollment, govern-
mental economic institutions, private sector enterprises, as well as the
globalization of practices and routines may affect the expansion of science
at the national level. More studies are also needed not only on how these
factors influence scientific production but also how they ultimately pro-
mote countries’ economic and social development. Without such compre-
hensive studies that collect and analyze data on more fine-grained
national-level measurements of scientific activities, science production
and linkage to the world community, many of the intervening mecha-
nisms are still left open to speculation.
In sum, my examination of the evolution of the ICSU scientific member-
ship suggests the necessity of cross-national comparative research for a
more comprehensive and thorough empirical evaluation of national insti-
tutions and scientific production over time. Social scientists interested in
comparative analyses on national scientific production need more and
better data on national structures and institutions that could account for
differences across countries. Science and scientific production should no
longer be reduced to the interaction of economic and modernization fac-
tors; they should be regarded as sociological processes of interest to those
curious about the impact of science on national development around the
world. In particular, nation-states are influenced (even constructed) by a
860
wider world society and environment, and such influences need to be

understood. Consequently, generating better models that account for
these crucial sociological factors affecting national-level scientific produc-
tion and development first requires that we understand how these
national scientific activities are shaped (and reshaped in turn) by institu-
tional forces emerging from the world society.
In this sense, national scientific production may rely more on the struc-
ture of the world system since it ultimately influences the pattern of eco-
nomic and organizational practices as well as the institutional infrastructure
of nation-states. A theoretical institutional perspective can help us under-
stand what drives both national-level activities as well as ultimate
national development. Such a perspective operates under four basic theo-
retical propositions (following Meyer’s [2007] reflections on institutional
theories): (1) the rapid construction of national-level organizational mod-
els out of cultural processes transcending the power of self-interested
nation-states; (2) the impact of such models on the construction of organi-
zations, structures and institutions beyond mechanisms of national-level
power and interest; (3) the loose coupling of national-level organizational
forms and practices with social practice; and (4) the widespread impact of
prevailing models and frameworks, independent of national-level poli-
cies, adoptions and decisions. These four theoretical premises also consti-
tute key steps to follow when trying to understand the processes and
activities countries are involved in, as they emphasize the dependence of
modern nation-states on their world environment and the embeddedness
of nation-states in broad cultural and structural contexts. In this article, I
have attempted to demonstrate the most institutional aspects behind
national scientific activities during the 20th century. Future analyses
should extend recent developments in institutional theories to other sec-
tors and institutions beyond the national production of science.
This study also has major implications for practice and policy-making.
It teaches a simple lesson about the importance of understanding the
sociological factors behind any national effort to become involved in
scientific activities and produce scientific knowledge. By examining the
institutional factors influencing national scientific activity during the 20th
century, this article aims to show professionals and policy-makers that
national scientific goals and activities are indeed embedded in a global
system. Consequently, national scientific efforts and intentions are more
complex to manage than they first appear. Further research should con-
tinue identifying and empirically testing other theoretical insights as to
how national scientific activity evolves at the national level. The institu-
tional approach (like the one identified and tested here) can help research-
ers and policy-makers to continue clarifying the nature of the relationship
between institutional factors and science development at the national
861
level. Such analyses are indispensable tools for understanding the circum-
stances and institutional factors that promote successful economic and
social development outcomes.
Notes
An earlier version of this article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the
American Sociological Association and in Castilla (2007). I am indebted to John W.
Meyer and Mark Granovetter for their guidance and support. I have benefited
greatly from the comments and suggestions of Hokyu Hwang, Francisco Ramirez,
Evan Schofer, Nancy B. Tuma, Kiyoteru Tsutsui and the three International Sociology
anonymous reviewers. I also wish to thank the members of the Stanford Comparative
Workshop for their helpful advice and comments on earlier drafts of this article.
1. Once again, several studies analyze the impact of world institutional models
on national systems in a variety of domains (see the examples listed at the
end of the first paragraph in this article).
2. Activities and operations undertaken by certain leading economies are pro-
gressively copied and mastered by other economies. Thus, the US, Canada
and Japan have provided models to be copied by other countries throughout
the century. However, in the modern period, Strang and Meyer (1993) claim
that countries are less likely to copy successes directly than to copy them as
institutionalized and interpreted by the world system.
3. An example are the world’s scientific communities, which produce a power-
ful talk about environmental regulations, about failures and requirements in
national development policies and about the protection of human rights.
4. According to its statutes, the principal objectives of the ICSU are: (1) to
encourage and promote international scientific and technological activity for
the benefit and well-being of humanity; (2) to facilitate coordination of the
activities of the scientific union members (see statute 7); (3) to facilitate coor-
dination of the international scientific activities of its national scientific mem-
bers (see statute 8); (4) to stimulate, design, coordinate and participate in the
implementation of international interdisciplinary scientific programs; (5) to
act as a consultative body on scientific issues that have an international
dimension; and (6) to engage in any related activities.
5. In other words, the rate at which countries become members of ICSU scien-
tific unions should increase with the rise in the cumulative number of ICSU
scientific union memberships in existence in the world over time.
6. Data were available on the year when a country joined an ICSU union. It was
impossible to know the exact date when the event took place though (i.e.
month and day). Additionally, the fact that a country may join one or more
unions in a given year should not be seen as different unrelated events.
Instead they could be taken as one single event. This is because it is hard to
believe that the processes of a country joining one or more scientific unions
in a given year are completely independent from each other, and therefore the
862
same explanatory factors may account for the ‘effort’ of joining one, two or
more unions in a given year. Nevertheless, I control for the number of ICSU
memberships of a given country as an independent variable in the analyses.
7. Less than 1 percent of the earlier values of GNP are extrapolated using the
linear extrapolation facility available in SPSS for Windows (i.e. I use the method
of imputing the missing values with estimated values using regression meth-
ods). The same results are obtained when using other standard measures of
development (e.g. the iron/steel production for the early period).
8. The ICSU, as the primary international scientific institution, has been argued
to contribute to the creation and maintenance of a worldwide discourse and
normative pressure to promote science (see Thomas et al., 1993).
9. The pattern of membership growth for core and peripheral countries was the
opposite before 1960. Thus, in 1920 the average number of memberships was
3.75 for core countries (20 core countries) and 0.4 for peripheral countries (36
peripheral countries). The average number of memberships increases at a rate
of two additional memberships per year in the case of core countries vs a rate
of almost six in the case of peripheral countries. There is also a trend toward
convergence in the average number of national memberships per country.
10. I also estimated the unsmoothed Nelson–Aalen estimates of the hazard rate
at which countries join any of the ICSU scientific unions for the full sample of
countries (available upon request). Spurts of joining appeared between 1925
and 1930, later between 1950 and 1977, and finally after 1982. The rate peaks
around 1950, when about 51 percent of all the nation-states at risk (39 out of
76 countries) joined at least one ICSU union. The hazard rate for the second
highest peak occurs in 1962 (50 percent of all 111 countries at risk joined at
least one scientific union). Finally, the third highest peak occurs in 1975, when
about 40 percent of the nation-states at risk (61 out of 142 countries) adhere to
at least one union.
11. The smoothed hazard rates are considerably smaller than the unsmoothed
hazard rates at corresponding historical times, as smoothing levels out the
‘erratic’ tendencies of the hazard rate.
12. In 1993, three new ICSU unions were created: the International Society of Soil
Science (ISSS), the International Brain Research Organization (IBRO) and the
International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES).
Since this study only covers the 1919–90 period, these three unions are
excluded from the analyses. So the maximum number of scientific unions
analysed here is 21.
13. Before 1960, 225 events take place. Forty-eight percent of those events take
place in core countries (21 core countries) and the rest take place in 43 differ-
ent peripheral countries (115 events). The opposite occurs during the post-
1960 period. Thus, after 1960, 488 events took place. Seventy-seven percent of
those events occur in 91 peripheral countries. Eighty-two percent of those
events are joinings by peripheral countries which became independent before
1960 (59 countries). Thirty countries that became independent after 1960 only
account for 69 events in the 1960–90 period.
14. For more information, see Castilla (2007) and Tuma and Hannan (1984).
863
15. An important advantage of event history analysis is that information on

national characteristics and on time-varying covariates can be incorporated in
analyses of the time-dependent rate of occurrence of national events.
16. Preliminary exploratory results (available upon request) and the theoretical
arguments proposed here suggested that estimating the hazard rate in three
periods divided at 1945 and 1965 would allow evaluation of hypotheses in a
satisfactory way. Having said that, in preliminary multivariate analyses, I
also estimated several hazard rate models without distinguishing among the
three historical periods and I always found results very consistent to the ones
I report in this article (these analyses are available upon request).
17. The models (particularly the non-proportional hazard rate models) are imple-
mented using Tuma’s computer program RATE for analyzing event history
data. For more details about the advantages of event history method for
the study of social change, see Blossfeld and Rohwer (1995) and Tuma and
Hannan (1984).
18. Table 1 shows the chi-square tests and degrees of freedom for each of the
three piecewise models compared to a constant rate/exponential model with
no exogenous covariates (baseline model). For the piecewise non-proportional
Gompertz model, since a chi-square value of 622 with 12 degrees of freedom
is significant (p < .0001), the inclusion of time-dependent covariates improves
the model significantly.
19. This was previously noted in the exploratory section of this article, when the
non-linear relationship between the integrated hazard rate and historical time
suggested that the hazard rate is time dependent, and therefore, a constant
rate model does not seem to be appropriate for the purpose of this analysis
(see Figure 3). Since I am using a relatively large sample of events (i.e. 713),
this made it possible to obtain estimates for the PPG and PNG models. I am
aware that in other studies, a relatively small sample of events may make it
difficult to estimate the parameters of non-proportional models under a rea-
sonable number of iterations.
20. This was also suggested in the preliminary exploratory analysis (see Figure 4).
Since the hazard rate curves for the two categories of countries appeared not
to be equally spaced within the 1919–90 period, proportional models do not
seem to be appropriate for modeling the phenomena under study. The plots
also suggest that the effects of some covariates may change over time.
However, it could also be that the variation over time in the hazard rates is
due to the variation over time of covariate effects.
21. Once again, both my exploratory and explanatory analyses led me to prefer
the piecewise non-proportional form to model the ICSU joining rate (since
such functional form fits the data significantly better than any other forms).
Note once again that I am estimating hazard rate models accounting for
recurring events (i.e. the fact that countries do not leave the risk set after the
country has entered one of the unions). I included the total number of scien-
tific unions in existence as an important control variable in the models.
Additionally, in preliminary analyses, I estimated the same set of models for
the first nation-state joining of a scientific union (when only one scientific
union existed) and the results did not change at all.
864
22. The percentage change in the hazard rate associated with a unit change in
GNP per capita is 184.06 percent = (exp(1.044) − 1) × 100, ceteris paribus.
23. To test hypotheses 2b and 2c, I include the cumulative number of national
memberships in ICSU scientific unions both in linear and quadratic form
in the models. Hypothesis 2b is not supported when I use the degree of
economic linkages to the world system indicator. Thus, the amount of
imports and exports as a percentage of GNP has neither a significant
impact nor the predicted positive effect on the hazard rate of joining any
scientific union.
24. 62.42 = exp(4.134) and 120.78 = exp(4.794).
25. For purposes of simplicity, these particular results are not presented here, but
they are available upon request.
26. I was able to take this approach because I have a relatively large sample
of events for core and peripheral countries (number of events/countries):
222/21 (core countries) and 491/145 (peripheral countries). Event datasets
on countries are not typically large enough to support extensive analysis of
this type.
27. In preliminary analyses, I estimated a set of hazard rate models with interac-
tion effects between all the model covariates and the dummy variable for
category of country (i.e. core vs peripheral country); I always found results
similar to the ones I report in this article. These analyses are available upon
request.
28. 1.19 = exp(0.171) and 1.46 = exp(0.377).
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Biographical Note: Emilio J. Castilla is an Associate Professor of Management at

the MIT Sloan School of Management. He joined MIT after being a faculty mem-
ber in the Management Department at the Wharton School of the University of
Pennsylvania (with a secondary appointment in the Sociology Department). He
is a member of the Institute for Work and Employment Research at MIT and a
research fellow at both the Wharton Financial Institutions Center and at the
Center for Human Resources at Wharton. His research interests include eco-
nomic sociology and sociology of organizations, with special interests in the
sociological aspects of work and employment. He has published chapters in
several books as well as articles in a number of scholarly journals. In 2001, he
was awarded the W. Richard Scott Award for Distinguished Scholarship. Other
awards include the Leila Arthur Cilker Award for Excellence in Teaching (1999),
the Stanford Centennial Teaching Award (1998) and the Clifford C. Clogg
Methodology Award/Fellowship (American Sociological Association/
Methodology Section, 1998). He has recently published the book Dynamic
Analysis in the Social Sciences (Elsevier/Academic Press, 2007).
Address: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 50
Memorial Drive, Room E52–568, Cambridge, MA 02142, USA. [email: ecastilla@
mit.edu]
869

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The Institutional Production of

National Science in the 20th Century

keywords: development  institutional theory  modern world polity/society

There is a large body of sociological research on the development of mod-

International Sociology ✦ November 2009 ✦ Vol. 24(6): 833–869

joined any of the unions comprising the International Council of Scientific

Key Theoretical Factors behind National

Consequently, if these theoretical development propositions are correct,

Research Setting: The International Council of

Cumulative number of ICSU union memberships 800

Figure 1 Cumulative Number of ICSU Union Memberships in the World (1919–90)

unions can be used to test several macro-sociological theories on national

Development and Modernization Arguments

Measures and Concepts

Average number of ICSU union memberships 20

All countries Core countries Peripheral countries

1919 to 6.28 in 1989. By 1990, core countries belong to almost 20 scientific

more connected to the world economy (what economists call economic

1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Peripheral countries Core countries

1920 1940 1960 1980 2000

Peripheral countries Core countries

patterns have one similarity, namely that they change non-monotonically

Choosing among Multivariate Models

Piecewise proportional Piecewise non-proportional

Piecewise proportional Piecewise non-proportional

r(t) = exp (βp’ X)

where the subscript p denotes a specific subperiod (1919–45, 1946–64, or

r(t) = exp (βp’ X) exp (μp t) = exp (βp’X + μp t)

where μp is a constant that changes for each specific historical subperiod

subperiod p. But since a piecewise version of the Gompertz model is

r(t) = exp (βp’ X + Ωp’ Z t)

Note that the vector Ωp (i.e. the time-dependent vector of covariates)

Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90

1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)

a historical subperiod in a non-proportional way.20 This means that certain

Covariates 1919–45 1946–64 1965–90

1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)

scientific unions and the cumulative number of unions’ membership of a

Estimates of a simple piecewise proportional Gompertz model for all

wider world society and environment, and such influences need to be

15. An important advantage of event history analysis is that information on

DiMaggio, P. and Powell, W. (1983) ‘The Iron Cage Revisited: Institutional

Jang, Y. S. (2000) ‘The Worldwide Founding of Ministries of Science and

Schofer, E. F. and Meyer, J. W. (2005) ‘The Worldwide Expansion of Higher

Biographical Note: Emilio J. Castilla is an Associate Professor of Management at

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1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)

1. Time-independent vector of covariates (b)