Replication Data for: Benevolent Policies: Bureaucratic Politics and the International Dimensions of Social Policy Expansion

Research on the welfare state has devoted considerable attention to social policy expansion. Strikingly little is known, however, about why governments expand social policies serving groups with low political power, on issues with low visibility. I call these “benevolent policies.” This class of social policies improves welfare but produces minimal political gains for the governments enacting them. Why do governments expand benevolent policies if political incentives for reform are limited? I investigate this question by focusing on government responses to malnutrition. Drawing on nine months of fieldwork, including 71 interviews, I argue that the origins of policy expansion can be found in the government bureaucracy. Bureaucrats with technical expertise – technocrats – play a defining role, deploying international pressure to court executive support and orchestrate policy change. I use this argument to explain the Indonesian government’s unexpected expansion of nutrition policies, which serve low-income women and children, and address micronutrient malnutrition.