1st Edition
Philippine Politics Possibilities and Problems in a Localist Democracy
1. Local Regimes: An Introduction 2. Malay Foundations and Colonial Semi-Modernizations 3. Clan Feuds Localize Political Violence 4. Entrepreneurs as Politicians 5. Marcos, Failed Centralization, and Land from the Tiller 6. Law of Rule, Power of Separations 7. Populist Rituals and Elite Reformism 8. Voting, Pork, Policy, and Media 9. Corruption 10. PNoy, "Pacquiaos," and Philippine Progress
Biography
Lynn T. White III is Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Scholar in the Woodrow Wilson School, Politics Department, and East Asian Studies Program at Princeton University, USA.
The Philippines is a large country (its population exceeds 100 million) divided into many small parts (over 7,000 islands and 42,000 administrative villages), which are often further split into clans controlled by rival oligarchs—and then fractured yet again by feuds within those clans. Although the country’s national institutions are strong on paper, White finds that the local trumps the national, as clientelism and violence work their way up to the very top of the system. Money, undue influence, and violence permeate the executive branch, Congress, and the judicial system, leading to stagnation and polarization in the country’s economy and politics. An active civil society and occasional eruptions of “people power” have done little to change the Philippine way of politics. White’s analysis of these problems is comprehensive. Writing before the election of Rodrigo Duterte to the presidency last year, White correctly predicted that the modest reforms introduced by the previous president, Benigno Aquino III, were unlikely to last.
Reviewed by Andrew J Nathan, Foreign Affairs
