Welfare ministries are key institutions of modern nation-states. However, we still lack knowledge about when and why national welfare ministries were established. In this paper, we argue that both the First and Second world wars were major driving forces behind the establishment of independent welfare ministries. To test our argument, we introduce a novel dataset on the establishment of welfare-related ministries in 30 countries. Our empirical findings suggest that the establishment of independent welfare ministries was a product of wartime turbulence and the political, economic and social shockwaves set off especially by World War I, which affected many countries at the same time. Considering alternative explanations such as the Spanish Flu, the Bolshevik Revolution or the emergence of new nation-states, we argue that war triggered multiple, interrelated and chronologically staggered transnational events and transformations that had major effects on the social welfare systems of the countries involved. In this light, we conclude that World War I was ultimately the root cause behind the establishment of welfare ministries.

福利部是现代民族国家的重要机构。然而，我们仍然缺乏关于国家福利部何时以及为何设立的了解。在本文中，我们认为第一次和第二次世界大战都是建立独立福利部的主要推动力。为了检验我们的论点，我们引入了一个关于 30 个国家设立福利相关部委的新颖数据集。我们的实证研究结果表明，独立福利部的建立是战时动荡以及特别是第一次世界大战引发的政治、经济和社会冲击波的产物，它同时影响了许多国家。考虑到西班牙流感、布尔什维克革命或新民族国家的出现等其他解释，我们认为战争引发了多种、相互关联、按时间顺序交错发生的跨国事件和变革，对相关国家的社会福利体系产生重大影响。有鉴于此，我们得出结论，第一次世界大战最终是建立福利部的根本原因。