Benevolent Policies: The Politics of Welfare State Expansion in Southeast Asia

Why do governments expand social policies? This question is central to our understanding of the welfare state. Conventional scholarship suggests that governments expand policies to placate groups with high political power or garner political support. Left unknown, however, is why governments expand social policies if clear, short-term incentives are absent. I draw attention to a class of social policies which serve groups with low political power and address issues with low visibility. I call these benevolent policies. Governments do not have strong incentives to prioritize, then formulate benevolent policies – yet some have sprung into action, introducing rapid policy change. What explains why governments expand benevolent policies? And why do some governments expand benevolent policies, while others do not? In contrast to the existing literature, which conceptualizes welfare state expansion as a product of conflict amongst societal groups, organized to protect or advance their interests, or of political manipulation and bargaining, I draw attention to the role of policymakers within the bureaucracy. I argue that policymakers are the primary source of policy reform. They mobilize in some governments, but not others, because of variation in bureaucratic capacity. This dissertation highlights the role of international socialization in triggering policymaker mobilization when bureaucratic capacity is high. Policymakers use the leverage provided by international pressure to deploy bureaucratic capacity and push through policy change. When bureaucratic capacity is moderate or low, however, other actors, such as civil society organizations or development partners, mobilize but are not as well positioned to facilitate reform. I develop this argument through a study of nutrition policies in Indonesia and the Philippines, and Laos and Cambodia. Nutrition policies, I contend, are emblematic of benevolent policies. Drawing upon nine months of fieldwork – including observations at a UN agency, 71 in-depth, semi-structured interviews, and observations at three closed-door regional health meetings – this project challenges influential theories of interest group strength, clientelism, and civil society mobilization. Instead, I show that policymakers are the defining agents of change. This dissertation therefore lays the foundation for future research on benevolent policies and invites further exploration of the conditions under which they expand.

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