In the 1930s and 1940s, different social welfare models were at the disposal of policy-makers of non-democratic countries. However, although social security models were being debated and advocated by experts and policy-makers, the non-democratic regimes of Latin America and Southern Europe only set up limited social insurance schemes aimed at protecting particular groups of people, resulting in very fragmented management systems. Neither the welfare state literature, nor the research on non-democratic regimes, have attempted to explain why non-democratic regimes failed to set up comprehensive social security systems. Drawing on so-far unknown primary sources, this thesis examines the development of Social Insurance Schemes in Franco's Spain between 1936 and 1950. It studies the policy processes that led to the passing of each social insurance scheme and the evolution of the institution in charge of the social insurance system, the Instituto Nacional de Prevision (INP). By using a framework for the analysis of the policy-making process in non-democratic regimes, this thesis will show how political institutions of the Francoist regime shaped the resources of those actors (mainly Falangists and Social Catholics) involved in the power struggle for the control of the social insurance system. These institutions were: 1) the ministerial decrees and orders as the methods of passing legislation, 2) the bypassing of the Council of Ministers, 3) the absence of regulations within the Ministry of Labour, 4) the marginalisation of the Council of State and 5) the lack of formal procedures to resolve jurisdictional conflicts, and 6) the possibility ministers had to pass regulations. These permitted Falangist Labour Minister Girón de Velasco to manoeuvre to achieve Falange's goals at the time the party was being put at the service of the state. The National Office of Syndicates competed with the INP for control of the social insurance system. The result was a highly complex and fragmented system of overlapping schemes provided by several organisations rather than a comprehensive social insurance scheme.