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The Effect of Political Dynasties on Effective Democratic Governance: Evidence From the Philippines

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Abstract

What is the effect of political dynasties on effective governance? To determine whether dynastic presence has a positive or detrimental effect on good governance, we examined the Philippine House of Representatives, an institution where more than 60% of its members have been dominated by such clans since the restoration of democracy in 1987. Specifically, we test whether provinces dominated by such established families are more likely to bring higher levels of pork barrel allocations to their provinces. The findings show how provinces dominated by family clans are less likely to experience good governance in terms of (a) infrastructure development, (b) spending on health, (c) the prevalence of criminality, (d) full employment, and (e) the overall quality of government. The implications of the empirical analyses convey that political dynasties have deleterious effects in terms of the allocation of public goods, even if their presence induces higher levels of congressional earmarks.

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... Political dynasties are conventionally viewed as inimical to economic progress and national development exemplified through the entrenchment of kinship ties at the local level (Anderson, 1988;Asako, Iisa, Matsubayashi, & Ueda, 2015;Aspinall & As'ad, 2016;Coronel, Chua, Rimban, & Cruz, 2004;De Dios, 2007;Encarnacion Tadem & Tadem, 2016;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2012;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2016;Rivera, 2011;Rossi, 2014;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013). As dynastic clans have gradually diversified their control and influence through expanding political power to different economic and business ventures engendering state capture, political families effectively managed to consolidate networks and 1 Isaac Jeoffrey J. Serrano is a graduate student of the Department of Political Science in the University of the Philippines Diliman. ...
... Disincentivizing potential challengers from contesting electoral races, political dynasties can spur local development and promote public welfare as the absence of legitimate threats on electoral supremacy and economic dominance motivates political families to secure resources and goods that can adequately respond to the particularistic demands and interests of the constituents (Capuno & Panganiban, 2012;Capuno, Quimbo, Kraft, Tan, & Fabella, 2012;Olsson, 1993;Solon, Fabella, & Capuno, 2009). Nevertheless, perpetual kinship rule can still produce detrimental outcomes in the localities exemplified through the monopoly on the control and delivery of goods and services (Acemoglu & Robinson, 2008;Cruz, Labonne, & Querubin, 2017;De Dios, 2007;Gutierrez, 1994;McCoy, 1994;Rocamora, 1995;Sidel, 1997;Simbulan, 2005;Winters, 2011) and the decline of government performance and output (Asako, Iida, Matsubayashi, & Ueda, 2015;Aspinall & As'ad, 2016;Capuno, 2007;Encarnacion Tadem & Tadem, 2016;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2012;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2016;Rossi, 2014;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013). While dynastic entrenchment can initially stimulate actual progress and growth in the communities through the delivery of programs and projects that can improve the plight and welfare of the constituents, the perpetuation of kinship networks in the constituencies can gradually engender predatory relationships between politicians and voters where ruling families deliberately engage in widespread rent-seeking activities that can secure economic gains and maintain political authority engendering state capture at the local level. ...
... Hence, political clans appropriate more programs and projects in curbing electoral competition that can engender perennial kinship rule. Although diminishing competition can encourage political dynasties to behave like stationary bandits exemplified through generating programs and projects and delivering goods and services that can adequately cater to the needs and welfare of their constituents, dynastic entrenchment can become detrimental in stimulating and accelerating local development since perennial kinship succession in the long-run can perpetuate rent-seeking activities and exacerbate clientelistic networks as ruling families secure particularistic interests (Aspinall & As'ad, 2016;Encarnacion Tadem & Tadem, 2016;Hutchcroft, 1998;Laband & Lentz, 1985;McCoy, 1994;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2012;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2016;Olsson, 1993;Panao, 2016;Rivera, 1994;Rossi, 2014;Solon, Fabella, & Capuno, 2009;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013;Winters, 2011) . ...
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Do kinship networks make politicians more effective at securing particularistic benefits for their constituencies? In the Philippines, kinship networks are believed to give politicians a distinct electoral advantage especially in local politics. However, the conventional notion almost always treats such leverage as detrimental to local development, as if all dynastic politicians behave homogenously and as if dynastic entrenchment would always disadvantage voters. This paper argues that certain types of kinship ties between local politicians create reciprocal utilities, benefiting politicians by securing votes, but also benefiting voters by efficiently channeling the allocation of constituency-oriented public earmarks in the absence of strong party machines. Examining local infrastructure earmarks for all municipalities and cities between 2016 and 2019, we find that various infrastructure and local projects (VILP) allocations are more likely in localities where the mayor and, either the governor or the representative, belong to the same political family, suggesting that dynastic ties facilitate the appropriation of infrastructure programs and projects at the local level. Interestingly, when all three local chief executives belong to the same family, we observe that infrastructure earmarks tend to be lower, and the quality of public goods delivery exhibits the well-known assumptions about dynasty-dominated localities. The findings suggest that the allocation of particularistic resources is more efficient if and only if two local chief executives share political ties, but not when a locality is completely dominated by a political family. The results are robust even when accounting for relevant political and socioeconomic variables. The findings 1 Isaac Jeoffrey J. Serrano is a graduate student of the Department of Political Science in the University of the Philippines Diliman. 2 give a nuanced perspective of local dynastic politics and show that, regardless of motivation, dynastic ties can be short-term welfare-enhancing in polities where formal institutions fail.
... As mentioned above there are numerous studies carried in the context of dynastic politics worldwide. A study was carried in Philippines that sought to assess the effect of political dynasties on effective democratic governance (Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre 2013). Similarly Daniel Markham Smith in his thesis titled as 'Succeeding in Politics: Dynasties in Democracies' has discussed dynastic politics by examining the causes and electoral consequences of political dynasties in developed world (Smith 2012). ...
... As discussed above in the democracies around the world dynastic politics has been an inevitable reality and dynasts could be found to be part of politics around the globe. However in some countries like Philippines the percentage is very high; while as in countries like Canada and Germany it is very low and in some a midway around (Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre 2013). India' rank lies in the middle path. ...
... Studies of political dynasties in the Philippines provide evidence not only on how political dynasties self-perpetuate and undermine the quality of democracy but also on how persistence could be linked to deeper poverty and underdevelopment (Mendoza et al., 2016;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013). Lifting term limits with dynasties in power will be tantamount to giving them even more control of their positions over longer periods of time. ...
... A previous study by Labonne et al. (2019) described how political clans manage to prolong their political influence by deploying women members of the family into public office to keep the power within the clan. Meanwhile, Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre (2013) found that Philippine provinces that are dominated by political clans are linked to poorer development outcomes, such as a lower number of barangay health stations, less newly asphalted roads, more crime, less full employment, and a lower Good Governance Index. Intuitively, these suggest that leadership under political dynasties that circumvent term limits by passing on positions to family members while growing in number as time goes by generally fails to reduce poverty and development outcomes as effectively if otherwise. ...
... Quality of governance suffers as members of a political clan are elected based not on merit or performance but rather on familiarity or gratitude attached to one's family name. In the Philippines, dynastic persistence in provinces is empirically linked with lower public goods provision (Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre 2013) and higher poverty (George and Ponattu 2018;Mendoza et al. 2016). ...
... Weak provision of public goods and highly personalistic policies, a direct outcome of dynastic rule in Philippine provinces (Mendoza et al. 2016;Querubin 2011;Ravanilla 2017;Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre 2013), compromise large sectors in exchange for a particular network of supporters. This likely cultivates grievances among the many that have been excluded, and can increase support for political violence. ...
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Political inequality may cultivate grievances against the government and eventually provoke conflict. In the Philippines, this is reflected in the prevalence of political dynasties. Often these dynasties face deep conflicts of interest as they prioritize clientelist ties over the public good, and act as bosses in their local constituencies. Through regression analysis, this paper finds robust statistical evidence that two out of three measures of political dynasty persistence are positively associated with political violence. Results suggest that a concentration of power leads to weaker governance and worse development outcomes, excludes critical sectors, and ultimately provokes political violence. The study emphasizes the importance of promoting checks and balances for more inclusive and peaceful development in emerging democracies such as the Philippines.
... The study contributes to growing literature on dynasties in the Philippines by proposing a more nuanced dynastic indicator as well as to current policy discussions on encouraging inclusive development across regions. We diverge from previous empirical work on Philippine political dynasties which focus on clan members occupying one position across multiple electoral cycles (Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013;Mendoza et al., 2016). Instead, we focus on cases where members of the same family occupy key government positions that have discretion over local resource allocation. ...
... With political competition compromised, there is little incentive for dynastic politicians to perform well thus lowering legislative productivity (Rossi, 2014;Panao, 2016). The accumulation of power by political dynasties in local governments can also reduce local economic growth as well as deter public goods provision and good governance (Ali, 2016;Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013). Interestingly, poor economic governance still prevails despite the ability of political dynasties to 'bring home the bacon.' ...
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Despite studies finding a link between political dynasty prevalence and poverty, empirical evidence in the Philippines shows that the relationship between dynastic concentration and underdevelopment is not the same across regions. We argue that an independent economic elite and high levels of economic activity, typically found in Luzon, affect the poverty and development impact of political dynasties. Local socioeconomic contexts shape the opportunities for predatory behavior among politicians and their relationships with economic elites. Using novel survey data on business-government linkages as well as an extensive dataset on local government leadership in the Philippines spanning 2004 to 2016, we find that political dynasties exacerbate poverty in the resource-rich non-Luzon provinces but not in Luzon where there is a competitive business environment.
... Focusing their study on members of the Philippine House of Representatives from 2001 to 2006, meanwhile, Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre (2013) found that representatives who belong to political dynasties substantially degrade the quality of local governance. The study, however, overstates the role of district representatives in public goods provisions despite the fact that by law and by definition legislators are not responsible for the day-to-day management of local governments. ...
... At first glance the aforementioned studies point to the rather limited importance of legislation in the workings of a body whose seeming primary preoccupation is to protect and promote private, particularistic, or parochial interests. 3 Empirical studies, nevertheless, have shown that legislative policymaking remain to be an important mechanism for allocating public goods (Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013) and in coordinating programs where political parties are less cohesive and incapable of interest aggregation (Kawanaka, 2010; see also Falguera, 2004;Panao, 2014). ...
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Examining the determinants of legislative success at the Philippine House of Representatives, this study shows empirically why continuous entrenchment by political families can be detrimental to political institutions. Using count regression models, the study analyzes the patterns of law production in the Philippine Lower House beginning from the opening of the first post-Marcos Congress (8th Congress) in 1987 to the adjournment of the 15th Congress in 2013. The study finds that successive terms in office facilitate the ability of legislators to engage in legislative activities but only up to a point. Neophyte legislators who have yet to gain a foothold in their districts appear to be more proactive in concretizing proposals into actual legislation, at least initially. Over time, when legislative districts have become family turfs, incumbents cease to invest in vote courting activities such as legislation, lending credence to the unhealthy effect of political persistence on accountability.
... In recent years, a substantial amount of scholarly literature has surfaced, exploring democratic governance through a multitude of theoretical and methodological lenses. Numerous studies have investigated the relationship between democratic governance and different political concepts, such as the state, organisations, regimes, elections, and democracy (Petracca, 1989;Cohen & Rogers, 1992;Bohman, 1999;Pottie, 2001;Bevir, 2006;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013;Aliye, 2020). The technical implications of information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, big data, and geographic information systems in relation to democratic governance have been emphasised by scholars such as Haque (2001), Kakabadse et al. (2003), Falch (2006), Flyverbom et al. (2019), and Clarke & Dubois (2020). ...
Article
The objective of this research is to examine the 21st Century of Democratic Practice in Africa: Challenges and Solutions. The paper addressed three basic concerns: the 21st century of democratic practice in Africa, the challenges of democratic practice in Africa, and the solutions to the challenges of democratic practice in Africa. The researcher adopted the secondary method of data collection via books, journals, articles, and newspapers in order to understand the 21 century of democratic practice in Africa and the challenges and solutions. The study findings on the challenges of 21st century democratic practice in Africa, including digital authoritarianism, third-termism, electoral violence, corruption, and power abuse. To address these issues, African leaders should adopt exemplary practices, uphold the rule of law, hold free, fair elections, and enhance state institutions. They should focus on removing cronyism and following the constitutional term limit culture. Instead of limiting competition, encourage diverse opinions and tolerance, allowing residents to actively engage in decision-making. Free online and offline speech is essential for this. Digital resource recognition and protection are crucial for civic engagement and capacity development. Leaders should be held accountable and eliminate corruption and power abuse. The African Union must condemn military coups and establish institutions to extend democracy and prosperity across the continent. Democracy will prosper in Africa if Africans learn to reject politicians who think voters can be deceived into giving up their rights and votes.
... The facts above show that local elites have used the legalization of political dynasties through the Constitutional Court's decision. Tusalem (2013) argues that provinces dominated by family clans tend to experience poor governance in terms of infrastructure development, spending on health, the prevalence of crime, full employment opportunities, and overall quality of governance. The implications of this empirical analysis suggest that political dynasties have a deleterious effect on the allocation of public goods, even if their presence leads to higher congressional allocations. ...
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The transition of the Indonesian government from a centralized to a decentralized one, marked by the granting of autonomy to the regions to manage their regions, raises political problems. One of the political problems is the emergence of political dynasties at the sub-national level. The emergence of political dynasties in regional elections at the sub-national level in Indonesia has experienced a significant increase. For this reason, this article will research the emergence of political dynasties in regional elections at the sub-national level in Indonesia. The method used in this research is the literature study method. A literature study is related to data collection methods that involve reviewing literature, reading and taking notes, and processing research materials. The results of this study indicate that, apart from weak regulations, another aspect that causes the emergence of political dynasties is the process of political recruitment by political parties that nominate candidates based on the capacity of candidates as regional heads. Nominations for regional heads by political parties are based on the local community's political culture, which wants to maintain the status quo. Political parties carry out unfair political recruitment to nominate candidates for regional heads so that they nominate candidates from political dynasties by using the image of their predecessors, which makes the emergence of political dynasties more and more common in Indonesia, especially at the sub-national level. Therefore, the recruitment of political parties to elect regional head candidates is highly dependent on the political culture of the local community. The link between society's political culture and political recruitment has led to the emergence of political dynasties at the sub-national level in Indonesia.
... It thrives under very different political and historical experiences and can be found in many democracies. Examples range from Brazil, Mexico and the USA in the Americas; Italy, Greece, Belgium and even Scandinavia in Europe; to Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines in Asia (Camp 1982;Dal Bó, Bó, and Snyder 2009;Laband and Lentz 1985;Mendoza et al. 2012;Muraoka 2018;Patrikios and Chatzikonstantinou 2015;Querubin 2010;Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre 2013;and Sjögren 2018). These examples display many differences, in particular in degrees of persuasiveness and in terms of how important individual dynasties are in their country's political web. ...
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This article contributes to the growing literature on political dynasticism in contemporary South Asia and shifts the focus from the much-debated national level dynasties to the usually ignored dynasties operating at subnational and regional levels. Analytically, it investigates the 'moment' of succession, conceptualised as the period when new heirs are actively enrolled in a dynastic formation. Such moments of succession can be perilous moments for dynastic formations, potentially disrupting its routine functioning style. And yet, these moments allow a clear identification and opportunity for analysis of the specific dilemma that all political dynasties have to negotiate. This dilemma can be described as follows: how to reconcile (1) the need to project emerging dynastic heirs as extraordinary beings embodying the special qualities of the original dynast, with (2) the equally pressing need to downplay inherited dynastic privilege-conceptualised here using Louis Dumont's idea of 'shamefacedness'-often portrayed as an illegitimate source of power and influence in postcolonial South Asia. A successful succession, as this article argues, relies on the ability to negotiate this dilemma. To demonstrate this negotiation in practice, the article analyses two cases of dynastic succession: Abhishek Banerjee in West Bengal, India and Serniabat Sadiq Abdullah in Barishal, Bangladesh.
... However, our empirical data and the existing literature (e.g. Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013) demonstrate the harmfulness of such monolithic, political domination to the health system, as unchallenged politicians find less incentive to invest in public health. Although 'kontra-partido' politics can prompt politicians to invest in health care in order to garner public support (see Solon et al., 2009), it also engenders relational conflicts within government, inevitably leads to a one-sided concentration of political power, enables corruption and ultimately worsens health outcomes. ...
Article
A long-recognized problem of health care devolution in many developing countries is its inextricability from the influences of local politics. This has been particularly self-evident in the Philippines, where, since the adoption of the Local Government Code of 1991, the devolution of health governance, planning, administration, and service delivery has placed the health system largely under the control of individual provinces, cities, municipalities, and villages or barangays. In this article, we utilize the notion of 'kontra-partido' (the Filipino term connoting 'oppositional politics') to concretize local, oppositional politics as a lived experience of health workers, government officials, and ordinary citizens in in the country. Through multi-sited qualitative fieldwork, we demonstrate how 'kontra-partido' politics ultimately worsens health outcomes in any locality. We show how such politics figures in the relational dynamics of health governance, often resulting in petty infighting and strained relationships among local health authorities; how it leads to the politicization of appointments and prevents the local workforce, especially those at the grassroots, from doing their jobs efficiently amid environments rife with hostile patronage; and how it impedes service delivery as politicians prioritize 'visible' projects (over sustainable ones) and selectively deliver health care to their known supporters. In turn, health workers and ordinary citizens alike have been actively negotiating their roles within this political milieu, either by joining the so-called political frontlines or engaging in the transactional relationships that develop between politicians and their constituents during perennial election seasons. We conclude with a reflection on the vulnerability of health to politicization and the visceral consequences of 'kontra-partido' politics to health workers, as well as an identification of possible areas of intervention for future policy reform, given the deepening political polarization in the country and the upcoming implementation of the recently passed Universal Health Care Law.
... There have been remarkable developments in the literature that address democratic governance from multiple perspectives. For example, from a political perspective, scholars discussed the relationship between democratic governance and the state, organizations, regimes, elections and democracy (Petracca, 1989;Cohen & Rogers, 1992;Bohman, 1999;Pottie, 2001;Bevir, 2006;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013;Aliye, 2020). Others identified ICTs, geographic information systems, big data and artificial intelligence concerning democratic governance from technological perspectives (A. ...
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Full-text available
Democratic governance has become a popular term to influence public sector reform in many countries. As a new governance theory, democratic governance has also gained significant interest from scholarly circles. Scholars had different perspectives when discussing the topic of democratic governance. Political perspectives examined democratic governance, especially in terms of states, regime, election and democracy. Technological perspective saw the importance of ICTs, social media, artificial intelligence and big data. The public administration perspective studied the importance of public policy, public management and local government institutions. There were rarely scholars who mapped the ideas about democratic governance. The study tries to fill this gap in thinking about democratic governance by reviewing the journal articles on democratic governance published in Scopus data based. Via NVivo analysis tools, this study showed five pivotal issues, including “government,” “public,” “policy,” “political,’ and ‘institutional.’ Besides, this study revealed some important sub-issues of the pivotal issues, covered ‘responsible government,” “representative government,” “government policy,” “public participation,” “public affairs,” “public interest,” “public policy,” “policy formulation,” “policy implementation,” “political participation,” “political actors,” “political authority,” “institutional change,” “institutional capacity,” “state institutions.’ This study also developed propositions from the pivotal issues and sub-issues. Furthermore, this study proposed a new theoretical model based on the propositions. Finally, this study acknowledges the weaknesses and suggests future research.
... Based on Brazilian municipal data, Bragança et al (2015) show that dynastic local political economies tend to spend more resources in public investment with no impact on public good quality and subsequent growth. Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre (2015) and Eapen Gearges and Ponattu (2018) provide evidence in the Philippines and in India that the provinces or municipalities dominated by political dynasties tend to record poorer performance in terms of economic governance and investment in local public goods. ...
Article
The present paper assesses the impact of the size of the municipal public sector on local economic growth and the extent to which it is conditioned by different forms of political turnover. By relying on small but original dataset on municipalities of the Brazilian state of Ceará over the period 2000–2012 and by addressing both endogeneity and spatial correlation issues, we find evidence of an adverse effect of the size of public employment on local economic growth, which is moderated by higher political stability when taking the form of dynastic control. We also find that the size of public employment crowds in public investment in our sample, with this positive pattern being amplified in municipalities controlled by political dynasties where policy’s continuity is higher. Our findings therefore reject the assumption of a crowding-out effect of redistributive politics on public investment for the municipalities of Ceará. Our medium-run framework therefore suggests that political dynasties can be advantageous for local economic growth in our limited sample of municipalities. Yet, in the longer-run, the balance between the positive stabilization effects and the possible adverse effects related to corruption should be investigated by future research.
... Our work builds on Querubin (2016), who provides evidence for the dynastic incumbency advantage-individuals who barely win political o ce are much more likely to have future relatives in o ce. We also provide supporting evidence for empirical work that has linked dynasties to negative development outcomes in the Philippines (Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013;Mendoza et al., 2016). Finally, we build on a series of papers (Cruz et al., , 2020Cruz, 2019) that show that a variety of political networks (networks among voters and politicians' extended families for example) facilitate strategies that lead to electoral success. ...
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Political dynasties exist in practically every variant of democracy, but take different forms in different places. Yet the types of dynastic structures have remained unexplored. We argue that horizontal dynasties-multiple members from the same political family holding different political offices concurrently-affect policymaking by replacing potential political rivals, who may oppose an incumbent's policy choices, with a member of the family. But in developing countries, the policy change that accrues from dynastic status may not lead to higher levels of economic development. We test this argument's implications in the Philippines. Employing a close elections regression discontinuity design on a sample of mayors, we show that (i) horizontally dynastic mayors have higher levels of government spending, (ii) direct institutional constraints are the mechanism that drives this core result, and (iii) horizontally dynastic mayors do not lead to economic growth or lower poverty.
... Despite the gains of People Power-seen as a global symbol for a peaceful transition of political power from authoritarianism to democracy-it has been halted by perennial problems of corruption, social unrest, presidential patronage, elite democracy, anti-developmental policies, and even human rights violations reminiscent of Marcos' time (Abinales, 2011;Bello et al., 2005;Hedman, 2001Hedman, , 2006Pinches, 1997;Quimpo, 2009;Thompson, 1995). In addition, failure to broaden the field for political competition not only inhibits economic growth and adversely affects governance and delivery of public goods (Balisacan and Fuwa, 2004;Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013), but it has also rendered the Philippines in a perpetual state of anti-development, contradictory economic policies, and entrenched poverty (Abinales, 2011;Balisacan and Hill, 2003;Bello et al., 2005;Mendoza et al., 2016;Nye, 2011;Ringuet and Estrada, 2003). Thus, the country's core political institutions seem to be distrusted. ...
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Studies on authoritarian values, which have mostly focused on authoritarian regimes and on democracies with spells of authoritarianism, suggest trust in public institutions. However, limited empirical evidence has been carried out in the Philippines where cycles of regime change and authoritarian leadership have characterized its post-authoritarian landscape. Examining multiple public opinion data from the Asian Barometer Survey, this study found that regardless of the political leadership across different regimes, Filipino citizens expressed attitudinal dispositions, i.e. conforming, anti-political pluralism, and support for strong leaders, that constitute authoritarian political values. But instead of a destabilizing effect, estimates from ordinary least squares indicate that Filipino citizens’ authoritarian tendencies enhance institutional trust—seen as an indicator of support for the political system. The findings of this study empirically challenge the view of democratization in the Philippines by foregrounding its ‘populist-authoritarian’ dimension. In addition, they provide evidence of a growing scholarship in comparative political studies that claims that courting confidence for political institutions and regime support does not necessitate a ‘liberal-democratic’ model.
... This is because the Philippines is classified as a delegative democracy with a super-presidential system where both the national budget for peripheral development and pork money allocation to members of Congress are mostly governed by a top-down process and where client-patronage between the president and members of the Philippine legislature are common-place (Montinolla 1999;Hutchcroft andRocamora 2003, Croissant 2003). Studies also find that the Philippines has wide variations on good governance and public goods provision at the provincial level including the quality of policing and crime prevention programs (Tusalem 2018, Tusalem andPe-Aguirre 2013). Given this local dynamic of centralizing power with the new realities of increasing decentralization, the Philippines is an excellent case study that can illustrate how executive level politics, demography, economics, internal conflict, and state capacity within the provinces (subnational units) influence the uneven distribution of state repression. ...
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Since the election of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte in 2016, extra-judicial killings (EJKs, hereafter) have become commonplace as a result of his administration’s declaration of war on drugs. Empirical cross-national work on examining determinants behind state repression remains scant especially in understanding the phenomenon at the sub-national level. This study investigates what accounts for variations on EJKs at the level of Philippine provinces. Using monthly panel-data for 62 provinces and employing various count-model regressions, the findings indicate that Philippine provinces which have large populations, stronger state capacity, and are more affluent in terms of the human development index are more likely to exhibit higher rates of EJKs. Furthermore, the vote share of the President in the 2016 elections and presidential visits to specific provinces are correlated with higher incidences of EJKs—corroborating theories on delegative democracies and penal populism. Lastly, it is found that drug-prone provinces are more likely to experience a higher share of human rights violations in terms of EJKs, compared to provinces that have lower affectation rates. The implications suggest that the Philippine war on drugs seem to promote vertical accountability as international criticism and domestic opposition mounts.
... More to the point, political dynasties can be found in many democracies. 3 Examples range from Brazil, Mexico and the USA in the Americas; Italy, Greece, Belgium and even Norway in Europe; to Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines in Asia (Camp, 1982;Dal Bó, Dal Bó, & Snyder, 2009;Laband & Lentz, 1985;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2012;Patrikios & Chatzikonstantinou, 2014;Querubin, 2010;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013). There are many differences, in particular in degrees of persuasiveness. ...
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Political dynasticism is a persuasive phenomenon in South Asia. Yet, while political dynasticism has received ample attention at the national level, it has been almost systematically overlooked at the regional and local levels. In this article, we argue that political dynasticism at the local level is driven by conditions that are in crucial ways different from those that animate national politics. We use case studies and insights from the available literature both within and beyond South Asia to argue that, in a comparative light, three main elements stand out: reciprocity, trust, and failure. By zooming in on these elements we seek to explain political dynasticism as a political phenomenon that is enabled by particular conditions in the polity, and especially the nature of the state. These, we argue, help foment a dynamic within which political dynasticism is an understandable outcome.
... More to the point, political dynasties can be found in many democracies. 3 Examples range from Brazil, Mexico and the USA in the Americas; Italy, Greece, Belgium and even Norway in Europe; to Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and the Philippines in Asia (Camp, 1982;Dal Bó, Dal Bó, & Snyder, 2009;Laband & Lentz, 1985;Mendoza, Beja, Venida, & Yap, 2012;Patrikios & Chatzikonstantinou, 2014;Querubin, 2010;Tusalem & Pe-Aguirre, 2013). There are many differences, in particular in degrees of persuasiveness. ...
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The Osman Dynasty in Bangladesh is several generations deep and combines legitimate mobilization politics with money-making businesses and ‘godfather’ tactics. This article focuses on two aspects of dynasty formation: its relationship to the wider political context and the issue of dynastic succession. The brittle nature of the national sovereignty in a traumatized postcolonial and post-war society of 1970s and 1980s constituted an environment in which local powerfuls could establish themselves through a combination of legitimate political activism and muscle politics. And yet there were rivals and challenges and succession was not assured. The reasons for the dynasty now seemingly unable to able to pass the torch to a fourth generation, underscore the changed circumstances. This article will thus argue that local dynasty formation constitutes a historically specific phenomenon.
... Policies then may be created and implemented to protect only certain powerful groups. Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre (2013) had found that Philippine provinces dominated by political clans have a lower quality of governance based on infrastructure, crime rate, employment, and health spending. 5 Running head: POLITICAL DYNASTY AND GENDER ON VOTER PREFERENCE In a study of Chinese voters, one factor that was considered in selecting the leading body of China was candidates from a powerful family background called princelings (Zeng, 2013). ...
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Studies on political dynasties have been conducted in order to determine why people vote for them, despite results showing that it is correlated to low governance, and more social inequality in an area dominate by a political dynasty. Additionally, the definition of political dynasty has yet to be established to determine how a political clan could be considered as part of a political dynasty. Conflicting results are noticeable on gender studies pertaining to male candidates being more preferred to win a seat in public office than female candidates. Furthermore, studies on voter preference have shown that various elements could account for the increase or decrease of a candidate’s voter preference. Using a two by two factorial design, participants (N = 122) were asked to rate a candidate’s voter likelihood after reading the candidate’s profile. Our study reveal no significant main and interaction effects between variables. However, we believe that our study has several implications on voting behavior in the Philippine context.
... The effects of political dynasties in the Philippines are already been underscored by Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre by examining the country"s House of Representatives [8]. It is found out that such provinces with dominant political families are more or less capable of being good leaders specifically in areas such as infrastructure developments, health expenditure, criminality issues, employment, and other government services. ...
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This is a qualitative study which described the existence of political dynasties in Cebu, Philippines. The prevailing issues on political equality and perennial rule of political families were also investigated unfolding the Cebuanos’ perceptions of political dynasty and its impact on Cebuano bureaucracy. The method of data analysis used in the study was narrative inquiry where storytelling among the selected key informants served as data collection technique. Purposive sampling was used in the selection of key informant politicians while random sampling for key informant voters was determined. The instruments used in data gathering were interviews and observations. The study revealed the true meaning of political dynasty, its advantages and drawbacks to its constituents. Varied rejoinders and call for democracy motivated the selected key informant politicians to continue serving the citizenry. This study recommends that an anti-individualistic voting preferences campaign be promoted by the government, education and youth sectors in transforming intelligent Filipino voters.
... Also, almost half of the provincial governors and congressman are related (Querubin, 2011). According to several studies, patronage and personalized style of politics undermines the creation of a strong state apparatus capable of adopting country-wide policies (Hedman and Sidel, 2000;Coronel at al., 2007;Tusalem and Pe-Aguirre, 2013). ...
Conference Paper
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This paper explores the case of the Philippines in light of the Latin American democratization experience. Being a catholic country, with Spanish heritage and a recent authoritarian past, the Philippines may provide a ‘hoop test’ (i.e. a test of necessary conditions) for theories on Latin American politics. Latin America’s fragile combination of extreme inequality and democracy is often explained through the reminiscences of an Iberian political culture and through the effects of a statist ideology among elites. These theorized causes are present in the Filipino case as well. Located in Southeast Asia, the Philippines share several cultural and political features with many Latin American countries, such as social and political inequality, patronage and state inefficiency. Despite such problems, the Philippines and most Latin American countries have managed to sustain a democratic routine since the mid-80s. The Philippines and Latin America also face similar challenges, for instance popular dissatisfaction with political elites, high levels of urban violence and also circumscribed political violence. In order to sustain our argument of case similarity, first we compare historical patterns of development in the Philippines and Latin America. Then we compare available survey data on Latin America and the Philippines in order to test whether political values are in fact compatible among them. Our main goal is to evaluate if theories on Latin American politics effectively apply to an external case. If the similarity remains tout court, we may say that the Philippines in fact provides a ‘hoop test’ for Latin America. If not, the challenge becomes to incorporate findings in our understanding of Latin America and the Philippines.
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This article aims to determine the influence between poverty and the expansion of political dynasties in the Philippines and Indonesia in 2017-2021. To provide comprehensive empirical, testing is carried out using multiple linear regression tests. The author uses multiple linear regression tests. The author uses three independent variables representing wealth through the variable Gross Domestic Product (GDP) Per Capita, welfare through the Human Development Index (HDI), and inequality through the Gini Ratio. As a result, the author finds empirical findings about the influence of poverty on political dynasties in both countries. In the Philippines, only wealth and prosperity can affect political dynasties. While in Indonesia, only wealth and prosperity can affect political dynasties. In general, poverty in both countries contributes to the expansion of political dynasties.
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This study employs a qualitative method with a case study approach on village head elections in two villages in Central Java to explore the role of the brondot strategy in democratization. This strategy utilizes rewards, primordial issues, and political clientelism to establish political hegemony, aiding incumbents in winning contests and avoiding significant competition, with hopes of victory without buying votes. Brondot is closely linked to familial political networks, leveraging biological relationships for network tactic control. Family's role in political elections and generational inheritance influences this strategy. The study provides insights into local political position elections without significant expenses, relevant in Indonesia where buying votes is a common practice.
Article
This article nuances the poverty-inducing effect of political dynasties. We argue that local dynasties in the Philippines can pursue different development trajectories based on their ownership of local businesses and their province's initial state capacity. Adapting a framework developed by Bourguignon and Verdier, we develop a typology of political dynasties that acknowledges heterogeneity in their motivations as well as in the political opportunity structures that they work in. This outlines a theory of change that fosters the necessary conditions for political and economic competition over time, even in areas ruled by political dynasties. While the focus is on the Philippines, research on the nexus between political and economic competition provides insight into issues of political dynasties, competition policy, governance, and accountability faced by a broader set of countries.
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Why do some local governments comply with access to information while others do not? Brazil passed its Access to Information Law (AIA), a legal milestone of public transparency, in 2011. Nonetheless, in 2014 only 20% of the cities had passed the law. Evidence from the literature indicates that political variables, such as the margin of victory and electoral insecurity, can affect politicians’ incentives to comply with transparency. Still, there are also external factors, such as the size of the population and the GDP per capita, that can affect compliance. I propose the inclusion of political dynasties in this discussion to account for different forms of organizing and exerting power. I suggest that dynastic politicians have various incentives regarding transparency. I argue that dynastic mayors are negatively associated with access to information. This effect is conditioned to other political variables, i.e., the margin of victory, party alignment with the governor, and party alignment with the President. Using observational data from the TSE, IBGE, and CGU for 2015 and 2016, I test this argument with a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model for three different specifications of the dependent variable (regulation score, quality of information score, and passive transparency score). As for dynastic mayors, I propose a novel approach to identifying political dynasties: using Google search results to identify indications of dynastic kinship in local news. I use Google's Custom Search JSON API and Python's Beautiful Soup to collect Google results and extract text from the web pages. I then use ensemble learning for binary classification (that is, whether the texts indicate dynastic kinship, 1 or not, 0). The results suggest that when aligned with the president, dynastic mayors are essential to understand the local variation in compliance with transparency in cities that already comply to some extent with the law. For cities that do not yet comply, dynasties can negatively influence their chances of compliance when the mayor is from the same party as the governor. As a contribution, the research suggests a new political variable for the debate on local transparency, with a new way of identifying dynastic politicians. This new measure can be used to identify such politicians and to collect more detailed information about local dynasties automatically.
Article
Political families in transitional societies are often seen in the context of corruption, democratic regression, deterioration of socio-economic development, inequality, and deprivation. High levels of dynasticism, however, also exist in advanced democratic societies. Using the example of Taiwan, this article explores the factors behind the evolution of electoral dynasties and how the behavior of hereditary politicians has been conditioned by democratization. More specifically, the article argues that legacy politicians are not per se the Pandora’s box of low-quality politics. Rather, they act like other networks of personal relations. As such, self-imposed ethical standards and inherited cultural norms may substantially restrain the intrinsic particularistic potentials of such networks, but in the long run only political modernization can prevent them from cultivating political capitalism—the predatory use of public resources. That is, political modernization conditions the behavior of electoral dynasties. It transforms particularistic networks into more progressive and programmatic forms of dynasticism.
Article
The literature on distributive politics explores changes in public expenditures vis-à-vis the electoral incentives of politicians. In theory, term-limited politicians are not inclined to increase spending in the absence of re-election prospects. The Philippine case shows otherwise. Guided by theories and studies on Philippine local politics and the effects of term limits on electoral incentives, this article argues that even term-limited politicians can be driven to increase spending if they have a family member intended to succeed them in an upcoming election. Estimates from regression models that used panel data on public expenditures and elections in Philippine provinces and cities from 1992 to 2018 confirm this. Overall, this study provides insights on how electoral incentives and public spending behavior of term-limited politicians change once membership in a political family is factored in.
Article
Growing rapidly before the early 2000s, literature on provincial Thai politics has dwindled in recent years. This article makes a small attempt to redress this trend by highlighting one distinctive yet understudied emerging electoral dynamics in provincial Thailand. Specifically, drawing mainly on Thai-language primary sources, this paper shows that in the majority of Thailand's provinces, the Provincial Administrative Organisation, an electoral institution that has received an unprecedented amount of state funding in the post-1997 age of decentralisation, has enabled influential political families to retain and even increase their power. As political and economic power has been decentralised from Bangkok, it has ironically been centralised in the hands of a limited number of oligarchic provincial elites. This phenomenon is not an historical aberration; rather, it should be viewed as one manifestation or product of Thailand's enduring patrimonial culture, in which public officeholders’ positions are regarded as an extension of their personal or familial property. I conclude by discussing the Thai case theoretically and comparatively.
Chapter
The rising number of Indonesian women taking part in political leadershipLeadership on the localLocal level has been made possible within a new political contextContext of democratizationDemocratization that followed the overthrow of Suharto (the authoritarian Indonesian president during the New Order era, 1967–1998).
Article
Political dynasties, by limiting political competition, are thought to exacerbate corruption, poverty, and abuse of power. This paper examines the economic effects of the presence of political dynasties in Philippine cities and municipalities, taking into account possible channels in the local dynastic cycle – the framework in which politicians try to balance their goals to perform well for their constituents, to divert resources for personal gain, and to continue to be in power. Due to the lack of extensive income accounts or other economic indicators in finer geographical units (i.e., city or municipality level), we use the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program-Operational Linescan System ( DMSP-OLS ) nighttime light data as our proxy for economic activity. Using a panel of Philippine municipalities and cities, we find that, in general, the relationship of political dynasties on economic performance is weak. However, we find that a higher share of economic expenditures leads to lower economic development in municipalities where the mayor, governor, and congressman belong to the same clan. We see this as an indication of weak institutions of checks and balances in localities with dynasties.
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Fenomena politik kekerabatan pada perhelatan Pilkada Serentak di 270 wilayah di Indonesia paa 9 Desember 2020 kembali terjadi, bahkan dengan tren peningkatan yang cukup signifikan jika dibandingkan dengan Pilkada Serentak 2015. Banyak pihak bersepakat bahwa fenomena politik kekerabatan merupakan salah satu sisi gelap demokratisasi di era reformasi Indonesia saat ini. Secara khusus, artikel ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan serta menganalisis berbagai faktor yang telah berkontribusi pada munculnya fenomena politik kekerabatan pada Pilkada Serentak 2020. Selain itu, menjelaskan pula tentang konsekuensinya terhadap proses demokratisasi yang sedang berlangsung di Indonesia. Untuk menjawab pertanyaan tersebut, Penulis menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan studi literatur sebagai teknik pengumpulan data. Hasil analisis data menunjukkan bahwa tren politik kekerabatan dengan berbagai variannya merupakan implikasi logis dari disfungsi partai politik serta kuatnya pragmatisme partai politik dalam meraih kemenangan kontestasi elektoral. Karakter utama dari kekuasaan yang self-perpetuation dan dampak dari �name recognition� atau �brand name advantage� yang berkelindan dengan pragmatisme partai politik dan publik pemilih yang permisif juga diyakini telah berkontribusi signifikan terhadap maraknya politik kekerabatan. Sistem Pilkada yang candidate centered dan ketiadaan regulasi yang dapat memitigasi praktek politik kekerabatan juga menjadi penyebab penting lainnya dalam peningkatan tren politik kekerabatan ini pada Pilkada Serentak 2020. Praktek politik kekerabatan berpotensi mengakibatkan proses demokratisasi di Indonesia gagal dalam memfasilitasi potential benefits yang dijanjikan, jika tidak ada upaya memitigasinya.
Book
Cambridge Core - South-East Asian Government, Politics and Policy - Stateness and Democracy in East Asia - edited by Aurel Croissant
Chapter
Stateness and Democracy in East Asia - edited by Aurel Croissant May 2020
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The purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomena of political dynasties in Indonesia and its effect on local government performance. Moreover, this study also examines the moderating role of good public governance on the relationship between political dynasties and local government performance. Political dynasties define as the condition where local government head/vice head has a family connection with the head/vice head from the previous period or in other local government or with the legislative member. We use paired matched sample from local government in Indonesia during 2010-2015. The result shows that political dynasties negatively affect local government performance. Good public governance is proven to weaken the negative effect of political dynasties on the local government performance. Indonesia's central government need to regulate the practice of political dynasty as it is proved to decrease local government performance and encourage implementation of good public governance to reduce the adverse effects of political dynasties.
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Can elections serve as vector of good public policy in fledgling democracies where electorally persistent elites circumvent institutional safeguards? Examining legislative productivity for each member of the Philippine House of Representatives from 1992 to 2016, we argue that while electoral persistence can be short-run welfare enhancing by inducing legislative attention on particularistic policies, it is ultimately electoral competition and the prospect of ouster that determine overall legislative behavior. Using various measures of electoral competition, our panel estimates suggest that district incumbents who faced competitive elections, regardless of political pedigree, are more likely to work for the passage of their legislative proposals into legislation. The results lend credence to the disciplining effect of elections, even in precarious political settings where competition is between equally persistent political elites. Overall, incumbents who fought competitive elections are generally more likely to produce laws as a legislative preoccupation – a commitment they are likely to pursue even in the presence of institutional and political uncertainties.
Conference Paper
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In its pursuit of liberty and determination to prevent the rise of a political monarchy, the United States’ developed a highly democratic system of government that may have inadvertently fostered pseudoaristocratic tendencies in enabling an oligarchy. The political dynamics and lived experiences of its ostensibly democratic development appear at odds with the nation’s founding principles. In America’s úber-democracy, voters elect almost every conceivable public office; yet the democratic process often contradicts its egalitarian foundations. One such contradiction is the prevalence of political elites within the public sphere, and the hegemonic role of America’s political dynasties. The existence and prevalence of political families speaks to the enduring power of pedigree in a society that supposedly apportions democratic authority based on merit. The persistence of political families in a democratic country raises concerns about imperfections in popular representation. My research focuses on twelve US case study families with at least four successive generations in the direct line elected to state or federal office. I will outline what I have found thus far that accounts for the perpetuation of these families throughout the decades; why political dynasties so entrenched in American politics; and what causes one dynasty to ultimately decline, only to have their place taken by another. This examination aims to understand why American voters elect members of the same family to public office, generation after generation what this ultimately tells us about the value of class merit in American democracy.
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Using fiscal resources to achieve results is critical for equitable development. Accordingly, many countries have sought to strengthen their PFM systems, following a fairly standardized set of reform recommendations and approaches. Yet, the results achieved, as well as the pace of reforms and the areas of progress vary considerably across countries. From an impact perspective, it is critical to understand what accounts for such different rates of progress. While non-technical drivers such as ‘political commitment’ are widely considered important, to date there has been little systematic analysis of how such drivers matter for reform progress, or how to utilize such insights when developing and pursuing PFM reforms. This report maps out what PFM progress looks like across countries, regions, and income groups, and then drills down into specific experiences. Based on a detailed tracing of PFM reform progress in a small N sample of countries, it explores the underlying nontechnical drivers and constraints reformers faced, and how these influenced the feasibility and robustness of efforts to strengthen PFM. While not presuming to offer a complete set of answers on how to better approach PFM reforms, the authors aim to provide a stronger empirical basis for some key questions, and to offer some concrete guidance on how reform stakeholders and external supporters can take non-technical drivers into account and better calibrate their approaches to PFM reforms.
Article
Migrant remittances have been linked to improving the quality of government and political accountability in the developing world. The argument is that migrants have the capacity to withhold remittances to their families when they deem that their local governments are blighted with corruption and bureaucratic inefficiency. Relatedly, migrants also empower citizens in sub-national regions by providing funds to family members who become less beholden to clientistic ties with political parties which concomitantly foster state-level corruption. Thus, relatives of migrants also become social agents who will increasingly expect better governmental performance and demand higher levels of political accountability at the sub-national level. Using data provided by the Philippine National Statistics Office and the National Statistical Coordinating Board of the Philippines (NSCB hereafter), the study provides empirical evidence that the number of migrants (by province) and the amount of remittances sent by migrants are positively associated with governmental effectiveness and higher levels of human development at the provincial level. It is also found that opportunistic shirking on the part of the sub-national governments is also not occurring, as remittances also induce provincial governments to spend more on their citizens, which will likely lead to better public goods provision. The overall findings imply that just like their counterparts from other developing countries, Filipino migrants are agents of democratic accountability.
Article
Although many studies agree that electoral systems shape campaign strategies that candidates employ, there is important variation in their focuses and rhetoric even among those who face the same institutional constrains. To solve this puzzle, I argue that the dynastic status of candidates, defined as coming from a family with a history of involvement in politics, is an important individual-level predictor of campaign strategies. Dynastic candidates inherit personal support bases from their family members who have previously served in congress, and the special ties with these support bases provide them strategic incentives to adopt particularistic appeals in their campaigns. Analyzing the electoral manifestos of legislative candidates in Japan, I show that dynastic candidates are more likely to emphasize the distribution of particularistic goods than nondynastic candidates. I also find that the link between dynastic status and a particularistic campaign is especially strong among candidates with relatively short political careers. This study contributes to literature on the determinants of campaign strategies by offering a micro-level explanation for why some candidates rely more heavily on targeted and particularistic appeals than others.
Article
Liberal democracy has been chosen as a model and political mechanism after Soeharto era. One of its triumphs is local election that becomes a political instrument of democratisation at regional level. Many scholars believe that local democratisation in Indonesia enables local people to involve more actively in the political process. This political exercise in some cases, however, results in a paradoxical impact on Indonesian political realm today, as some practices of political dynasty frequently emerge. Using participatory point of view, this article aims to discuss why such political dynasty can possibly emerge within an electoral system, what factors cause it and how its consequences on the practice of local democracy in Indonesia in the future. Through the literature studies, we argue that although the liberal democratisation in Indonesia is successful in making local politics institutionally more democratic, it still suffers a lot of deficiencies and limitations especially in terms of accommodating people’s participation at local level.
Chapter
This chapter covers the twentieth century, when the Philippines were changed by the US colonization after a brutal war of conquest. Progress in education, medicine, urbanization and transportation was obvious, while the Americans fostered the development of a Filipino political class that was called to govern the country alongside American political ideals, as was hoped with the implementation of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935 under president Quezon. The difficult years of the Japanese occupation gave place to an independent nation in 1946, which had to deal with the presence of US military bases during the Cold War, profound social inequalities inherited from the Spanish period, and an economic dependence towards the United States. The central figure of Ferdinand Marcos exemplifies the difficulties of the country to attain a truly democratic life. Political power is still controlled by an oligarchy of a few dozen families. Corruption and violence are parts of the daily difficulties encountered by Filipinos.
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The Latin American political model – and Brazilian one in particular – has often been attributed by local scholars to an Iberian heritage, and also by current researchers. This variable is also seen in the Philippines, former Spanish colony in Southeast Asia whose politics and culture have much in common with Latin America. These countries share social and political inequality, patronage, clientelism and challenges such as dissatisfaction with the political elites and high levels of urban violence. Although with institutional and cultural patterns that date back to the Iberian past, Latin American countries and the Philippines have faced opposite dilemmas. While corporatism and excessive statism are seen as problems in Latin American main economies, the main problem in the Philippines indicated by the literature is the state’s atrophy and inability: there would be excessive state in former colonies in the Americas and less state in the former Asian colony. We explore this coexistence of similar societies and different states to discuss causal arguments mobilized in Brazilian and Latin American literature. To support our approach among Latin American cases and the Philippines, we compare survey data and explore the contrast between the historical development of the Philippines and Brazil, considered here as a typical case of Latin America.
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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content: Journal of Democracy 10.1 (1999) 126-140 On 11 May 1998, in the second set of general elections since Philippine democracy was restored in 1986, 28 million voters went to the polls to choose a president, a vice-president, 12 senators, over 200 members of the House of Representatives, and more than 17,000 local officials. It would not be difficult to portray these elections as something of a circus, and the Philippine and Western media did not fail to capture their peculiar moments. Two politicians serving life sentences campaigned for high office from prison -- and won. Many professional actors and athletes with little or no political experience ran for office. One successful candidate for the Senate, a basketball star, promised anxious followers that, if elected, he would not allow his senatorial duties to interfere with his game. Another victorious senatorial candidate took a starring role in a television situation comedy to heighten his public profile. The 11 candidates for president included Imelda Marcos, widow of Ferdinand Marcos, who ruled the Philippines as a dictator from 1972 to 1986. Mrs. Marcos, who was convicted of corruption in 1993 but has since been free on bail and engaged in an interminable appeals process, offered the voters an especially enticing inducement. She promised that, if elected, she would spend her late husband's money -- an ill-gotten fortune that Mrs. Marcos has spent over a decade denying she possesses -- on bolstering the nation's economy. In the end, however, the presidential contest was won handily by Joseph "Erap" Estrada, a former actor who had served as vice-president under outgoing president Fidel Ramos. Despite its less elevated moments, the campaign culminated in the freest, fairest, and least violent election in Philippine history, defying widespread expectations of extensive fraud and bloodletting. Given the system of vote-counting, in which votes from over 174,000 precincts are recorded and tallied by hand, ample room for cheating exists. Dagdag-bawas ("add-subtract"), a method popular among wealthy candidates that involves bribing electoral commission workers engaged in tallying votes at the provincial level as the results slowly make their way from the local precincts to Manila, was expected to mar the 1998 election. But the high correlation between the official vote count of the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and the counts of such reputable nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as the National Citizens' Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), which carried out parallel vote tabulations, and Social Weather Stations (SWS), which conducted exit polling, indicates that fraud was not as extensive as in past contests. Political violence also dropped to a historic low, with the number of political murders falling substantially below the level posted in the 1995 midterm elections. The relatively successful conduct of the May 1998 vote owes much to the vigilance of the media, NGOs such as NAMFREL and SWS, and groups of concerned citizens engaged in poll-watching. It was also due to the strong commitment of President Ramos to open and peaceful balloting. The Elections as a Turning Point Voting patterns in 1998 represented a substantial (and potentially momentous) departure from those of the past. The Philippines is inhabited by some nine major geographically concentrated ethno-linguistic groups (as well as numerous smaller groupings), and candidates have traditionally crafted their electoral alliances along explicitly ethnolinguistic lines. Victorious presidential candidate Estrada, however, targeted the lower classes nationwide. He vowed to narrow the yawning gap between rich and poor. His campaign posters were emblazoned with a memorable rhyme that encapsulated his campaign message perfectly: "Erap para sa mahirap" ("Erap is for the poor"). Unlike his main opponents, Estrada neither spoke English well nor possessed any technocratic, legal, or military expertise. The "Robin Hood" roles he played in his long career as a film star enhanced his image as a friend of the poor. Estrada's strategy proved devastatingly effective. He captured 40 percent in a field of 11 candidates (see Table on the following page). SWS exit polls show that he received overwhelming support among the poor. Raul Roco, the haughty self-styled technocrat who finished third with 14 percent, outpolled Estrada among the upper and middle classes. Estrada won despite the opposition of influential...
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This paper develops metrics to analyze the extent to which political dynasties in the 15th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines are linked to different social and economic outcomes in the country. Such a detailed empirical mapping and analysis of political dynasties is the first of its kind from the country. Results show that representatives from political dynasties account for 70 percent of the jurisdiction-based legislators in Congress. On average, they possess higher net worth and win in elections by larger margins of victory compared to non-dynastic representatives. Dynastic jurisdictions are also associated with lower standards of living (as measured by average income) and lower human development (as measured by the Human Development Index), and higher levels of deprivation (as measured by poverty incidence, poverty gap, and poverty severity). Results on the correlates of dynastic prevalence and inequality are less conclusive.
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Political dynasties, families in which multiple members have held elected office, commonly feature in the U.S. Congress. I explored the electoral origins of this phenomenon and determined that members of political dynasties have a significant advantage over first-generation politicians in open-seat House elections. Using an original dataset containing candidate- and district-level covariates for all candidates in open-seat House contests between 1994 and 2006, I found that dynastic politicians enjoy “brand name advantages,” giving them a significant edge over comparable nondynastic opponents. In contrast, hypotheses concerning potential advantages stemming from past political experience and fundraising ability yield null results.
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Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, this pioneering volume reveals how the power of Filipino family-based oligarchies both derives from and contributes to a weak, corrupt state. From provincial warlords to modern managers, prominent Philippine leaders have fused family, politics, and business to subvert public institutions and amass private wealth—an historic pattern that continues to the present day. Edited by Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families explores the pervasive influence of the modern dynasties that have led the Philippines during the past century. From the Osmeñas to the Lopezes and Pardo de Taveras, elite Filipino families have acted as formidable coalitions—controlling capital, dominating national politics, and deploying paramilitary force. Beyond Manila, strong men such as Ramon Durano, Ali Dimaporo, and Justiniano Montano have used "guns, goons, and gold" to accumulate wealth and power in far-flung islands and provinces.
Article
In many democracies a small subset of individuals enjoys a de facto electoral advantage. The existence of political dynasties, where individuals from a narrow set of families obtain larger vote shares and are more likely to access office, illustrates this phenomenon. In this paper, I study political dynasties in the Philippines and provide evidence of dynastic persistence. More precisely, I provide evidence that incumbency has a causal effect on the probability of having future relatives in office. Using a regression discontinuity design based on close elections, I find that candidates who barely win their first election by a small margin are around 5 times more likely to have a relative in office in the future than individuals who barely lose their first election and never serve. I discuss alternative channels that may explain dynastic persistence in the Philippines. I argue that access to office and public resources — important in clientelistic democracies like the Philippines — allows incumbents to give relatives an electoral advantage if they first run while they are still in office. Occupational choice, while plausibly important, is less likely to be the main driver of dynastic persistence.
Article
As a part of a larger study of Louisiana's political families from statehood to the present, this article seeks to demonstrate that the family influence on political recruitment is not just an historical phenomenon but a current reality. Over one-fourth of 785 state and parish officials in office in 1983 were found to have at least one officeholding relative. One-half of these 209 leaders had two or more kinsmen in office at some time, and almost one-third “inherited” their position from a relative. The article analyzes the structure of these families (size, generations, kinship connections), successions, and kinship networks. The last topic, networks, delineates the connections between and among families with 1983 officials and other families whose political experience occurred before 1983. The largest of the networks includes twenty-two families with 107 officials from several states. A principal conclusion is that the family continues to exert considerable influence on its members’ decision to enter the political arena. Evidence is presented indicating that Louisiana is not unique in this regard.
Chapter
Provides a brief account of major historical trends in the Philippine political economy. It begins by examining the character of the economic elite that emerged during the country's integration into the world economy in the nineteenth century. It focuses particular attention on the period since 1986 and argues that political and institutional factors are central to understanding the uneven and often lagging character of Philippine economic performance. Four political regimes have been surveyed, each with its notable strengths and weaknesses: (1) Aquino's "modest revolution;" (2) Ramos administration characterized as one of "building reform momentum;" (3) the "flawed experiment" of the Estrada administration; and (4) the "dilemma of normalcy" under the Macapagal- Arroyo administration.
Article
For centuries, oligarchs were viewed as empowered by wealth, an idea muddled by elite theory early in the twentieth century. The common thread for oligarchs across history is that wealth defines them, empowers them and inherently exposes them to threats. The existential motive of all oligarchs is wealth defense. How they respond varies with the threats they confront, including how directly involved they are in supplying the coercion underlying all property claims and whether they act separately or collectively. These variations yield four types of oligarchy: Warring, ruling, sultanistic and civil. Moreover, the rule of law problem in many societies is a matter of taming oligarchs. Cases studied in this book include the United States, ancient Athens and Rome, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, medieval Venice and Siena, mafia commissions in the United States and Italy, feuding Appalachian families and early chiefs cum oligarchs dating from 2300 BCE.
Chapter
Most models of party competition assume that citizens vote for a platform rather than narrowly targeted material benefits. However, there are many countries where politicians win elections by giving money, jobs, and services in direct exchange for votes. This is not just true in the developing world, but also in economically developed countries - such as Japan and Austria - that clearly meet the definition of stable, modern democracies. This book offers explanations for why politicians engage in clientelistic behaviours and why voters respond. Using newly collected data on national and sub-national patterns of patronage and electoral competition, the contributors demonstrate why explanations based on economic modernization or electoral institutions cannot account for international variation in patron-client and programmatic competition. Instead, they show how the interaction of economic development, party competition, governance of the economy, and ethnic heterogeneity may work together to determine the choices of patrons, clients and policies.
Article
Why has the literature on Asian development not addressed the issue of money politics in Korea? How can we reconcile the view of an efficient developmental state in Korea before 1997 with reports of massive corruption and inefficiency in that same country in 1998 and 1999? Politics is central to the answer. In this book the author makes two arguments. First, both Korea and the Philippines experienced significant corruption throughout the post-independence era. Second, political - not economic - considerations dominated policy making in both countries. Focusing on the exchange of favors for bribes between state and business, the author argues that politics drove policy choices, that bureaucrats were not autonomous from political interference in setting policy, and that business and political elites wrestled with each other over who would reap the rents to be had. Even in Korea, corruption was far greater than the conventional wisdom allows.
Article
Five years after the downfall of Ferdinand E. Marcos, scholars of Philippine politics have yet to achieve even minimal consensus on the proper characterization of his authoritarian regime. More importantly, scholarship has failed to account for fundamental continuity, across regimes, in the way in which dominant economic interests interact with the Philippine state. The author argues that a focus on patrimonial aspects of the Philippine state will not only bring a greater sense of coherence to many disparate aspects of Marcos's rule, but will also lead to clearer understanding of enduring characteristics of the Philippine political economy. Throughout the postwar years, political administration is often treated as a personal affair, and the assignment of privileges granted by the state is largely determined by the personal discretion of those oligarchs currently holding official position. The article explores factors that help to explain why there has been no effective pressure from either domestic or external forces to undermine the patrimonial features of the state, and suggests that future research should analyze why patrimonial features have persisted in the Philippines despite enormous change, yet elsewhere seem to have subsided in the face of change.
Article
Research in political economy emphasizes the tendency of elites to persist and reproduce their power over time, potentially undermining the effectiveness of institutional reforms. One particular form of elite persistence is illustrated by the existence of political dynasties. A natural question is whether certain political reforms can break dynastic patterns and open up the political system. In this paper I study the extent to which the introduction of term limits by the 1987 Philippine Constitution effectively broke the hold of incumbent families on power. The ability of term limits to dismantle political dynasties is not obvious, as term-limited incumbents may be replaced by relatives or may run for a different elected office. Whether these strategies undermine the direct effects of term-limits in reducing the time an individual can hold office is an empirical question. I find no evidence of a statistically significant impact of term limits on curbing families' persistence in power. Moreover, term limits deter high-quality challengers from running prior to the expiration of an incumbent's term. Challengers prefer to wait for the incumbent to be termed-out and run in an open-seat race. As a consequence, incumbents are safer in their early terms prior to the limit. These results suggest that political reforms that do not modify the underlying sources of dynastic power may be ineffective in changing the political equilibrium.
Article
This paper presents metrics to estimate the size of political dynasties in the 15th Congress of the Republic of the Philippines and analyze the relationship between political dynasty and socio-economic outcomes. Results show that political dynasties comprise 70 percent of jurisdiction-based legislators in the current Congress. They possess higher net worth and win elections by larger margins of victory compared to not political dynasties. Jurisdictions of political dynasties are characterized by lower standards of living, lower human development, and higher levels of deprivation and inequality.
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In this article we reassess the thesis of Lipset and Rokkan in a non-European context and thereby seek to contribute to the understanding of the relationship between social divisions and party creation. Political parties are usually generated by the politicization of social cleavages that exist within societies. The critical question is why certain divisions become politicized and others do not. Using the Philippines as a case study, we seek to explain how acute social dissensions could fail to give rise to competitive political parties. We contend that certain institutional forms could significantly influence whether social conflicts are translated into political form.
Article
Social Scientists rarely take full advantage of the information available in their statistical results. As a consequence, they miss opportunities to present quantities that are of greatest substantive interest for their research and express the appropriate degree of certainty about these quantities. In this article, we offer an approach, built on the technique of statistical simulation, to extract the currently overlooked information from any statistical method and to interpret and present it in a reader-friendly manner. Using this technique requires some expertise, which we try to provide herein, but its application should make the results of quantitative articles more informative and transparent. To illustrate our recommendations, we replicate the results of several published works, showing in each case how the authors' own conclusions can be expressed more sharply and informatively, and, without changing any data or statistical assumptions, how our approach reveals important new information about the research questions at hand. We also offer very easy-to-use Clarify software that implements our suggestions.
Article
No country in Asia has more experience with democratic institutions than the Philippines. Over more than a century—from the representational structures of the Malolos republic of 1898 to the political tutelage of American colonial rule, from the cacique democracy of the postwar republic to the restoration of democracy in the People Power uprising of 1986—Filipinos know both the promise of democracy and the problems of making democratic structures work for the benefit of all. Some 100 years after the introduction of national-level democratic institutions to the Philippines, the sense of frustration over the character of the country's democracy is arguably more apparent than ever before. On the one hand, the downfall of President Joseph Estrada in January 2001 revealed the capacity of many elements of civil society to demand accountability and fairness from their leaders; on the other hand, the popular uprisings of April and May 2001—involving thousands of urban poor supporters of Estrada—highlighted the continuing failure of democratic structures to respond to the needs of the poor and excluded. Philippine democracy is, indeed, in a state of crisis.
Article
Journal of Democracy 15.4 (2004) 111-125 Friends of Philippine democracy breathed a sigh of relief when incumbent president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo turned back the challenge of populist movie star Fernando Poe, Jr., in the May 2004 elections. The reaction was understandable: Poe's principal allies and political platform were inherited from actor-turned-politician Joseph Estrada, whose corrupt and incompetent run as president ended abruptly amid popular demonstrations in 2001. The Filipino electorate's rejection of a return to celebrity demagoguery alleviated fears of immediate political collapse, but business as usual is unlikely to resolve the problems which have long plagued Filipino democracy. Estrada had won the presidency in 1998, triumphing in the cleanest and most decisive election that the country had ever seen. Macapagal-Arroyo was elected vice-president on a separate ballot with an even larger mandate than Estrada's. Less than three years into Estrada's six-year term, the economy was failing, crime and insurgency were rampant, and allegations of presidential corruption filled the media. The Philippine Congress filed articles of impeachment; when political machinations in the Senate derailed the trial, popular demonstrations in Manila—at least one of which was addressed by a senior military officer—drove Estrada from office. The process was hardly democratic, but it was accepted as necessary, at least among Manila's upper and middle classes, and Macapagal-Arroyo became president on 20 January 2001. Macapagal-Arroyo used her first three years in office to continue economic-reform policies that President Fidel Ramos had first launched back in the mid-1990s. She put the economy back on a modest growth track, and emerged as a major supporter of the global war on terror, drawing a substantial increase in U.S. aid. Her no-nonsense governing style provided welcome relief from the drunken carousing of Estrada's "midnight cabinet" of cronies. As the 2004 elections drew near, disquiet suffused a nation still reeling from the aftermath of its last electoral exercise. Armed Muslim separatists remained active in the south, with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front challenging the Philippine Army for control of large parts of the large southern island of Mindanao and demonstrating increasing ties to international radical Islamist movements. The communist New People's Army showed signs of resurgence in economically depressed rural regions. Organized crime remained a major problem. Economic growth had done little to reduce glaring disparities in the distribution of wealth.The elite-dominated Congress had not enacted any significant political reforms. Many of those who had backed Estrada were now rallying around Poe, who like Estrada courted the voting power of the masses with a combination of personal celebrity and populist rhetoric. Macapagal-Arroyo's perceived lack of charisma and limited mass popularity reinforced the perception that she was the underdog. By election day, the contest seemed more equal. The opposition failed to unite: Senator Panfilo Lacson, once national police chief under Estrada, refused to quit the race, dividing the Estrada machine's resources and support base. Poe, on the other hand, lacked Estrada's affability and political instincts, appearing awkward, temperamental, and dependent on his handlers. Macapagal-Arroyo remained unflappable throughout the acrimonious campaign, and made effective use of Poe's refusal to debate. She also took full advantage of her incumbency, a situation that the Philippine constitution, which calls for a single six-year presidential term, was designed to prevent. The case of a vice-president running for reelection after finishing the term of a president who left office early was unforeseen, and the powers of public office gave Macapagal-Arroyo's coalition a crucial edge. Government coffers opened: Short-term road repair projects gave jobs to thousands, land titles were distributed to small farmers, and a record number of poor people were enrolled in government health-insurance programs. The campaign and the election followed a familiar pattern. The party system, already dysfunctional, in effect ceased to exist. There was no meaningful nomination process. Five candidates ran for president—all as heads of loose, transient, ideologically undifferentiated coalitions. Campaign events on both sides focused on entertainment rather than on issues. Election-related violence claimed almost 150 lives. Procedural glitches marred the...
Article
In this paper we analyze the political economy of disaster assistance in the Philippines. We seek to both shed some light on the extent to which political calculations direct public goods provision following natural disasters and to use the Philippines case as a window into the particularization of public policy that is common in many democracies (see Cox and McCubbins 2001). We focus on disaster response in the wake of typhoons and tropical storms. Using a unique dataset, we are able to produce estimates of the extent of typhoon affectedness across municipalities in the Philippines and examine the extent to which disaster assistance corresponds to the level of damage. We find that the extent of storm damage in a given municipality by itself has no significant effect on the amount of targetable reconstruction funds allocated there. However, we find that measures of political ties between the mayor of a given municipality and the congressman or congresswoman of that district, specifically a match in their party affiliation or their clan affiliation, increase the level of targetable funds allocated to that municipality, but that the magnitude and significance of these effects depend substantially on levels of typhoon affectedness.
Article
Drawing on in-depth research in the Philippines, this book reveals how local forms of political and economic monopoly may thrive under conditions of democracy and capitalist development. ---------- John T. Sidel is Lecturer in South East Asia Politics at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. ---------- This book focuses on local bossism, a common political phenomenon where local power brokers achieve monopolistic control over an area’s coercive and economic resources. Examples of bossism include Old Corruption in eighteenth-century England, urban political machines in the United States, caciques in Latin America, the Mafia in Southern Italy, and today’s gangster politicians in such countries as India, Russia, and Thailand. For many years, the entrenchment of numerous provincial warlords and political clans has made the Philippines a striking case of local bossism. Yet writings on Filipino political culture and patron-client relations have ignored the role of coercion in shaping electoral competition and social relations. Portrayals of a “weak state� captured by a landed oligarchy have similarly neglected the enduring institutional legacies of American colonial rule and the importance of state resources for the accumulation of wealth and power in the Philippines. The author, by contrast, argues that the roots of bossism in the Philippines lie in the inauguration of formal democratic institutions at a relatively early stage of capitalist development. Poverty and insecurity leave many voters vulnerable to clientelist, coercive, and financial pressure, and the state’s central role in capital accumulation provides the basis for local bosses’ economic empires and political machines. These contradictions have encouraged bossism in the Philippines, as well as in other countries. The book elaborates these arguments through case studies of bosses in two Philippine provinces, Cavite and Cebu. The contrast between single-generation gangster politicians in Cavite and enduring commercial dynasties in Cebu reveals variation in the forms of bossism that reflect variations in the local political economies of the two provinces. Comparisons between bosses over successive historical periods highlight the gradual transformation of bossism through capitalist development. In sum, Capital, Coercion, and Crime provides a comparative historical analysis of bossism, drawing conclusions of great interest not only to scholars of Southeast Asia but to students of comparative politics as well. ---------- “This book is certainly a contribution to the literature on Philippine politics, comparative politics, and state-society relations. It builds on, while going significantly beyond, what other scholars have done and lays out a reasoned argument that future scholarship will have to engage about how public offices are won and lost and for whose benefit.�—The Journal of Asian Studies “...Sidel has written a superb and pioneering analysis that defines the future course for studies of local elites—not only in the Philippines but elsewhere as well.�—Paul D. Hutchcroft, University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Political dynasties have long been present in democracies, raising concerns that inequality in the distribution of political power may reflect imperfections in democratic representation. However, the persistence of political elites may simply reflect differences in ability or political vocation across families and not their entrenchment in power. We show that dynastic prevalence in the Congress of the U.S. is high compared to that in other occupations and that political dynasties do not merely reflect permanent differences in family characteristics. On the contrary, using two instrumental variable techniques we find that political power is self-perpetuating: legislators who hold power for longer become more likely to have relatives entering Congress in the future. Thus, in politics, power begets power.
Article
We construct a model to study the implications of changes in political institutions for economic institutions. A change in political institutions alters the distribution of de jure political power, but creates incentives for investments in de facto political power to partially or even fully offset change in de jure power. The model can imply a pattern of captured democracy, whereby a democratic regime may survive but choose economic institutions favoring an elite. The model provides conditions under which economic or policy outcomes will be invariant to changes in political institutions, and economic institutions themselves will persist over time. (JEL D02, D72)
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