Workers? life assurance: the formation of social insurance logic in Turkey, 1921-1950

This study investigates how new institutional logics emerge by the utilization of some specific institutional mechanisms. Framing is conceptualized as a crucial mechanism among these institutional mechanisms. As such, framing is composed of frame articulation which disclose the relationships between certain social events and frame elaboration which provides a hierarchical structure by emphasizing a set of those social events. However, frame articulation and frame elaboration fall short on explaining how social events are related to broader meaning systems. This study proposes frame enactment, which accommodate the relationships between social events and broader meaning systems, as an important process of framing mechanism.The formation of social insurance logic is examined as a specific type of logic building process in the field of social security. Social insurance logic was formed in Turkey after 1921 and by the help of this logic Workers? Insurance Institution was established in 1946. As Workers? Insurance Institution started to provide certain insurance branches, the first branch to be implemented was Occupational Accident, Vocational Diseases and Maternity Insurance that was legally approved by the parliament in 1945. Following this insurance branch, mainstream insurance branches such as Old Age Insurance in 1949 and Disease and Maternity Insurance in 1950 were introduced. By 1950, social security field in Turkey became institutionalized and 1921 ? 1950 period turned out to be the decisive episode of the formation of social insurance logic.Turkish social security field is basically organized by social insurance system and initial insurance branches were introduced under the authority of Workers? Insurance Institution. Because of its limitations, this study focuses on the formation of social insurance logic and does not cover in detail how social security institutions were advanced after 1950. As such, specific institutional mechanisms which were utilized for the creation of a new institutional logic are examined. Following the clarification of these institutional mechanisms, an in depth investigation of the framing mechanism is carried out which leads to the proposition of a new framing process, namely frame enactment.The empirical context researched in this study is determined as the field of social security because this field is dominated by the social insurance logic. Institutional logics are belief systems that direct social behavior. Various political ideologies may reside under different logics. By the utilization of case study method and content analysis, this study explores how frame enactment is used to build the logic of social insurance and how social insurance is made sense of leaning against the social state ideology. Framing mechanism as frame articulation and frame elaboration comes short on explaining some of the crucial factors in the process when complementary frames and ideologies appear. In this sense, frame enactment is an important part of the framing mechanism for this part enables us to understand how social insurance as an institutional logic complements social state ideology and how societies accept a specific logic that is seen as legitimate in the light of a desirable political ideology.