The worldwide founding of ministries of science and technology, 1950-1990

This article explores the increasing involvement of the state in science, in particular the establishment of a new cabinet-level ministry for science and technology by 146 countries from 1950 to 1990. As confirmatory analyses to test hypotheses. I employ event history techniques-piecewise exponential models with period-specific effects. The results show that although internal, functional conditions exerted a positive influence on the adoption rate of science ministries during the earlier period (1950-70), institutional effects have become more influential over time (1971-90). The increasing institutional effects were supported by three findings. First, the baseline founding rate of science ministries during the later period is significantly higher than that of the earlier period, which indicates that the ministry of science and technology became an expected and legitimated governmental structure since the late 1960s. Second, the amount of global organizational discourse on science and national development has a positive and significant effect on the founding of science ministries throughout the world in the later period. Third, direct linkage to international science organizations and discourse, as measured by the number of memberships of each country in the International Council of Science Unions (ICSU), strongly affects the founding of science ministries during both periods and even more strongly during the latter one.