The Rise of Duterte: A Populist Revolt against Elite Democracy
Abstract
This book draws on the extensive literature on populism, democracy, and emerging markets as well as interviews with senior government officials, experts, and journalists in the Philippines and beyond, This book is the first to analyze the significance and implications of the rise of Filipino president Rodrigo Duterte within a rapidly-changing Asia Pacific region. As China's power in the Pacific grows rapidly, nations that have traditionally been US allies, such as the Phillipines, are experiencing political convulsions; Duterte's open willingness to realign towards China (at the expense of America) in exchange for infrastructure investment is one of the clearest indicators of what China's rise might look like for nations around the world. Timely, precise, accessible and fast-paced, this book will be of value to scholars, journalists, policy-makers, and China watchers. © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018. All rights reserved.
Chapters (4)
Drawing on the works of ancient political thinkers, Plato, and Aristotle, the chapter looks at the concept of political decay, inherent structural vulnerabilities of democratic regimes, and the attendant emergence of demagogues amid a popular backlash against the oligarchy. Utilizing theories of democratization by leading political scientists such as Huntington, Diamond, Carothers, and Przeworski. This chapter looks at the ambiguities, inherent contradictions and non-teleological nature of political development in post-colonial Asia, Africa, and Latin America. It provides a background of Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte and the relevance of one sociologist termed as “Dutertismo”, a distinct form of right-wing populism brought about by the controversial Filipino leader.
It discusses the unlikely electoral success of Rodrigo Duterte, a provincial mayor with limited resources, who astutely tapped into widespread grievance among a disillusioned electorate, which was fed up with broken promises of the liberal oligarchy. Drawing on the works of Hannah Arendt, Karl Polanyi, and Samuel Huntington, among other leading thinkers, it analyzes how Duterte’s brand of right-wing populism—dubbed as “Dutertismo”—gained traction in a booming economy like the Philippines. The chapter places the rise of Duterte within a broader wave of populist ascendancy across Asia and beyond, as the liberal establishment failed to inspire public support and cope with new challenges of globalization.
It discusses Philippine foreign policy under Duterte and the method behind the seeming madness of his diplomatic lexicon. It analyzes how the Philippines’ firebrand leader introduced a revolution in Philippine foreign policy by abandoning strategic subservience to America in favor of a more transactional dynamic, whereby the bilateral alliance is a product of constant strategic bargaining rather than fixed expectations, values and set of incentives. The chapter also discusses the personal and strategic motivations behind Duterte’s pivot to the East, particularly the high-profile rapprochement with China, and its impact on the South China Sea disputes, regional security environment and the US pivot to Asia policy.
The chapter looks at Duterte’s brand of governance, and how it is affecting the fabric of Philippine society and existing democratic institutions. Through fear and threatening rhetoric, he disciplines the opposition, reassures the insecure sections of the society seeking law and order, and addresses criminality with tried-and-tested scorched-earth policies. Yet, Duterte’s attempt to replicate his “Davao model” on the national scale has been far from successful and is fraught with risks of unintended consequences for his administration and the Philippines’ democratic as well as economic wellbeing. His signature “war on drugs” campaign has—even by his own admission—fallen short of its objectives, while triggering a domestic and international backlash. The chapter is a fearless prognosis of the trajectory of Philippine society under Duterte’s shadows.
... His utilization of media, communication, and spectacle has been viewed as a factor contributing to his rise and success (Heydarian, 2018). Duterte has been described as an expert at "attention hacking" (Webb, & Curato, 2019, p. 59), who can deliver televised speeches lasting hours. ...
... Underlying Duterte's offensive comments and stunts, he is said to be an effective communicator. Heydarian (2018) likens Duterte to Donald Trump in being "unusually media savvy" (p. 34) and being remarkably successful in generating earned media. ...
... 34) and being remarkably successful in generating earned media. Heydarian (2018) continues, asserting that the more controversial Duterte is, the greater media attention he enjoys. In government, Duterte was effective at promoting his government's achievements which is due to what Heydarian calls a "well-oiled communications machine" (2018, p. 101). ...
... The verbal skirmishes between President Rodrigo R. Duterte and the Catholic Church are an interesting topic to explore, not only because the President provides trenchant but vulgar overtones to the polemics but because they provide us a glimpse of how people perceive religion in relation to politics. More importantly, President Duterte, being the most popular and highest elected official of the country (Heydarian, 2018), acts as a porthole for us to study how people make sense of their religious beliefs when challenged by a popular political figure. This paper, however, is not an exploration of cult of Duterte; instead, it is a modest attempt to come up with a systematic account of Duterte's "theological" musings based on his random extemporized criticisms against God and the Catholic Church and its clergies. ...
... By his maverick campaign sortie, Duterte gambled: the Presidency or wooing the Catholics for votes. Surprisingly, he won the election by an overwhelming majority (Heydarian, 2018). It appeared that the Catholic voters preferred to forgive and ignore a strong, authoritarian leader rather than defending one of the major beliefs of the Holy Roman Catholic Church. ...
... He was honest enough to argue that he was not afraid of losing votes ("Duterte to critics: Take your complaints to God, " 2016). And even if many Catholics were alienated by his cussing of the Pope, he still went on to win the Presidential election (Heydarian, 2018). Either Catholics were not united or Duterte commanded such great charisma that he could make people love him despite his attacks on the leader of the Roman Catholic Church. ...
This paper is an attempt to provide a discourse analysis of President Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial statements and public pronouncements about God, the Catholic Church and its clergy, and Christian teachings based on online news and similar websites. Using critical discourse analysis grounded in Michel Foucault’s (1980) theory of knowledge/power nexus, the present paper is a modest attempt to come up with a systematic account of Duterte’s “theological” musings based on his random extemporized diatribes against God and Christian religion. Reconstructing Duterte’s “theology” does not mean assessing it from the mainstream religious point of view but rather bringing into light the theological tenets of Duterte’s concept of God and foregrounding them in the context of our predominantly Christian culture. This study wants primarily to understand what are the objectives that these performative pronouncements seek to achieve politically, and what interests they serve based on Foucault’s (1980) analysis of “regime of truth.”
... Duterte's foreign policy frames are built on a strong component of antiliberalism in at least two main ways (Arugay, 2018). On the one hand, he explicitly criticises established liberal powers, the United States in particular, and institutions of the LIO, especially the UN (Heydarian, 2018;Teehankee, 2016). On the other hand, his anti-liberal stance is reinforced though intensified collaboration with anti-liberal powers, especially China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. ...
... From his first day in office, Duterte made clear that he would put Philippine foreign policy on a new course, away from the traditional US dependency (Heydarian, 2018: 43). The Philippine leader did not only challenge the country's oldest allies but also questioned its long-standing commitment to the LIO (Heydarian, 2018;Magcamit, 2018). Duterte's political strategy is illiberal in the sense that he views human rights as particular rather than universal and staunchly opposes their imposition upon Asian nations (Curato, 2017: 16). ...
... While openly challenging liberal Western values, Duterte also initiated a foreign policy shift towards China and Russia (Heydarian, 2018). During the ASEAN Summit, when he officially took over the regional body's chairpersonship, Duterte declared a radical reorientation of Philippine foreign policy: 'I am ready to not really break ties [with the United States] but we will open alliances with China and . . . ...
A seemingly never-ending stream of observers claims that the populist emphasis on nationalism, identity, and popular sovereignty undermines international collaboration and contributes to the crisis of the Liberal International Order (LIO). Why, then, do populist governments continue to engage in regional and international institutions? This Element unpacks the counter-intuitive inclination towards institutional cooperation in populist foreign policy and discusses its implications for the LIO. Straddling Western and non-Western contexts, it compares the regional cooperation strategies of populist leaders from three continents: Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, former Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte. The study identifies an emerging populist 'script' of regional cooperation based on notions of popular sovereignty. By embedding regional cooperation in their political strategies, populist leaders are able to contest the LIO and established international organisations without having to revert to unilateral nationalism.
... Kendi seleflerinden çok daha farklı bir yönetim tarzı izleyeceği iddiası üzerine kurulu sert bir söylem geliştiren Rodrigo Duterte, 30 Haziran 2016 yılında Filipinler devlet başkanlığına seçilmiştir. Filipinler'in en yoksul ve güvenliksiz bölgesi Mindanao Adası'ndan olan Duterte, Filipinler'in Manila dışında bir eyaletinden gelen, ülkenin ABD ile ilişkilerini sorgulayan ve kendine sosyalist diyen ilk başkanıdır (Heydarian, 2017, Casiple 2016. Sık sık halk ağzı ile konuşan ve söylemini seçkin karşıtlığı üzerine kuran Duterte, klasik popülizm tanımına kolaylıkla dahil edilebilecek özelliklere sahiptir. ...
... Belki de en önemlisi, Filipinler, uluslararası sahadaki geleneksel ABD müttefikliğini terk etmiştir. Duterte'nin kendisi, dış politikada radikal boyutta revizyonist bir yol izleyerek Filipinler'in artık ABD'nin müttefiki olmadığını açık bir şekilde belirtmiştir (Heydarian, 2017). Selefinin Güney Çin Denizi'nde Çin'e karşı Filipinler'in direncini artırmak için ABD desteğiyle başlattığı askeri reform sürecini durdurmuştur (Castro, 2019;Castro, 2017). ...
... Selefinin Güney Çin Denizi'nde Çin'e karşı Filipinler'in direncini artırmak için ABD desteğiyle başlattığı askeri reform sürecini durdurmuştur (Castro, 2019;Castro, 2017). Duterte'nin ABD karşıtlığı ile kendisini sosyalist olarak tanımlaması (Heydarian, 2017) arasında pekâlâ bir bağ kurulabilir. Duterte, Müslüman kökenli büyük annesinin, ona çocukluğunda ABD'nin Filipinler'deki sömürgeci geçmişini anlatmış olduğundan ve lise yıllarında solcu bir öğrenci olduğundan bahsetmiştir (Chao, 2020). ...
... While liberal peacebuilding is based on the liberal peace theory and peacebuilding practices from the post-Cold War era, peacebuilding efforts in Mindanao are not necessarily the same with the conflict that began in the 1960s. This makes Mindanao a good case to probe: 1) Why is a liberal democracy, introduced by the US colonial government in the early twentieth century, not functioning effectively in Mindanao, as intended?; 2) Why has internal conflicts or violence among Moros prevailed in Mindanao, contrary to the expectation of liberal peace theory? 2 ; 3) How has the present administration, based on "illiberal" democracy or authoritarian populism (Heydarian 2018;Thompson 2018;Tobia 2019;Clements 2019), achieved the creation of a new political entity in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region-an area which the past liberal reformist administrations have failed in? ...
... In contrast to his predecessor, President Duterte is inclined toward illiberal 13 or authoritarian populism (Clements 2019;Tobia 2019;Hobson 2017;Heydarian 2018). He has given a new dimension to Bangsamoro peacebuilding, taking advantage of his Mindanaoan lineage. ...
... Catholics comprise some 80% of the population and Catholic imagery and references permeate Filipino political life. While Duterte has chosen to confront the Church and dismiss its criticism of his human rights abuses (Heydarian 2018), he has received support from the burgeoning evangelical and other Christian sects who see him as being an instrument of some divine purpose (Cornelio and Medina 2019). In this religious vein, Sharmila Parmanand (2020: 1) has cogently depicted Duterte as a "macho messiah" who can be adored by his supporters as both Tatay (Daddy) Digong as well as The Punisher. ...
... Duterte's assertive "bi-aligned" foreign policy has also had some counter-productive effects. Through his pro-Chinese pivot, one that has brought very few tangible investment results outside of Duterte's own fiefdoms in the Visayas and Davao (Heydarian 2018), he has allowed the disparate opposition led by Vice President Leni Robredo, to take on the mantle of being the true nationalists by appealing to the underlying anti-Chinese sentiment of a chauvinistic Filipino people. In April 2020 China's aggressive behavior in the South China Sea/Philippines provoked, yet again criticism of Duterte as being "soft on China," source of the Covid 19 pandemic. ...
In this chapter it is argued that, while sharing a number of the attributes of many contemporary populists, President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in 2016, is a product of the Philippines’ political system and its political culture. A brief historical overview is provided to situate the central place of strongmen in Filipino political life. An examination of Duterte’s “War on Drugs,” which has cost some 27,000 lives, shows how it is both a source of his enduring popularity, and the central element in his unique place as a punitive populist. The chapter then goes on to analyse four different ways he has been able to govern in an increasingly authoritarian way. These include judicial harassment of his opponents; draconian application of anti-terrorism laws to repress and kill dissenters; manipulation of both the mainstream and social media; and, finally, drawing on the legitimacy he has gained both internationally and regionally. Nevertheless, it is suggested that his popularity is also linked to the provision of social goods. The final section of the chapter looks at the sustainability of his punitive populist model—and the slide into authoritarianism—in the covid 19 and in a post-covid 19 pandemic environment.KeywordsPopulismRodrigo DutertePhilippinesWar on drugsRepressionAuthoritarianismMedia manipulationPopularityPunitive model
... Moreover, there is an opportunity to explore how Duterte's paradoxical statements reflect broader historical narratives within Filipino culture. The Philippines' rich postcolonial identity provides a unique backdrop for understanding how his governance resonates with societal aspirations and struggles (Heydarian, 2018). In simpler terms, Duterte's leadership can be seen as showing a kind of bold confidence-hubris-that challenges old ways of thinking and taps into national pride. ...
In a world grappling with the rise of populist leaders and the complexities of governance, this article takes a closer look at former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte, a leader whose paradoxical and oxymoronic leadership style has deeply impacted the Philippines. Blending strength with vulnerability, toughness with compassion, and authority with relatability, Duterte’s presidency mirrors the resilience and struggles of the Filipino people, shaped by a turbulent history. Much like the resonating “Agong” of Mindanao, a traditional Filipino gong symbolizing unity and cultural identity, his leadership echoes through the world, embodying the contradictions of governance in a society balancing its past and future. Through in-depth qualitative content analysis, enriched by observations and interviews to ensure rigor and reliability, this study uncovers how these paradoxes and oxymorons resonate with global public sentiment, fostering both a sense of belonging and empowerment. By exploring these complexities, the findings emphasize the importance of an engaged and informed citizenry—one that actively shapes its political future while honoring the diverse voices within society. Overall, this paper seeks not only to illuminate Duterte’s leadership but also to inspire readers to recognize their vital role in upholding democratic values and fostering collective resilience.
... I will discuss the Brazilian field site, but similar cases can be observed in other countries, especially in emerging economies from the Global South, like India and the Philippines. Recent scholarship on these countries has demonstrated that certain economic strata -that have been raised from poverty but remain in precarity -tend to vote for authoritarian leaders (Caspile, 2016;Heydarian, 2018;Jaffrelot, 2013;Kaur, 2014;Lero, 2023;Pinheiro-Machado and Scalco, 2020;Richmond, 2020). Building upon this finding, I have two aims in this paper. ...
In many countries, the political backlash against neoliberalism has mainly been a retreat from democracy, with a decline in independence of the judiciary and the monetary authorities, increased control of the media, and manipulation of elections for purposes of authoritarian control. The economic dynamics and the impact of neoliberalism, i.e. deregulation and liberalized markets, is just one cause of this authoritarian shift. The contributors to this volume examine the impact of neoliberal economic policies in relation to cultural and political factors and how these have promoted the recent authoritarian turn, as well as probing the economic policies and performance of the illiberal regimes.
... A related assertion is that the public is open to sacrificing liberal rights to discipline people (Butuyan, 2021) and to achieve needed change in the country (Abuso, 2021;Ranada, 2019;Thompson, 2018). Other commentators have focused on the inability of democracy to fulfil its promise of offering citizens a better life, thereby making authoritarianism with an alternative path towards progress more palatable to the populace (Arguelles, 2016;Heydarian, 2017;Jenkins, 2016). Finally, many analysts have brought forward socio-economic inequality as the driving force for Duterte's popularity, pointing to how he is seen by many as the one who will finally pay attention to longstanding problems of middle and lower-class electorates (Arguelles, 2016;Eadie, 2016;Mercado, 2021). ...
Former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte defied established political norms in the Philippines. Beyond his inflammatory rhetoric and authoritarian posturing, Duterte actively undermined institutions of liberal democracy including due process, gender rights, and freedom of the press. These developments may give observers the impression that democratic political norms in the Philippines have made a turn for the worse. After all, President Duterte, as his presidential term came to an end, continued to enjoy an excellent public satisfaction rating. We seek to challenge these impressions in this chapter. We argue that the President's popularity must not be conflated with public support for his democratic transgressions. Instead, we argue that Filipinos, for the most part, remain committed to the norms of (1) due process; (2) gender equality, and (3) press freedom. We further argue that rather than signalling a shift of political norms in the Philippines, what President Duterte exhibited was a vulgar articulation of the worst norms of longstanding elite democracy in a highly unequal society.
... The phenomenon "Dutertismo" was dubbed to refer to the support and yearning towards leadership that Duterte's campaign embodied (David, 2016). The campaign promised aggressive bloodbath initiatives against illegal drugs and other criminal activities; A sense of anti-democratic countermeasures to eradicate the social ills; The reignition of Filipino nationalism and hatred against colonialism; And a strong leadership that will carry the Philippine nation toward salvation (Heydarian, 2018). Hence, Duterte's campaign effectively characterized an authoritarian attitude (Curato, 2016a). ...
The classical notion of authoritarian attitude claims it lowers subjective well-being (Onraet & Van Hiel, 2014). However, some findings indicated that the authoritarian attitude is a protective function. The current study's data involved 706 participants who responded to psychological questionnaires spread through online platforms. Results showed that the neuroticism trait mediated the link between authoritarian attitude and subjective well-being. The authoritarian attitude negative association with the neuroticism trait could influence the decrease in negative feelings and influence increase in flourishing and positive feelings. The result extends the explanation for adherence to an authoritarian worldview and can be used to explain the rise of Dutertismo in the Philippine context.
... Political candidates often blame the country's problems on corrupt patrons and their connections to criminal groups (Co et al., 2007, p. 8;Sarkar, 2020). They campaign on anticorruption, anticrime, and antiestablishment platforms, but once in office do not challenge the insidious power structures (Heydarian, 2018;Quah, 2021;Thompson & Batalla, 2018, p. 10). Instead, they often intensify the strongman, authoritarian practices that strengthen their grips on societies and prevent progression towards developed democracy. ...
The anticorruption community largely views corruption as a government or development issue. But in the Philippines, corruption is a social structure. The very social bonds and social structures that are good at building civic unity and solidarity are also good at spreading and maintaining corruption, and this is why corruption is so difficult to remove. Patrons use these societal features to implement a ubiquitous social structure of corruption by means of maneuvered friendships that makes it difficult for the masses to know when a patron is acting as a friend or foe. The social structure encompasses the whole of society and corrupts the encircled government, political, and development systems as easily as it infiltrates all other segments of society. It is why oversight and sector-based anticorruption initiatives underperform, and why initiatives must pivot towards addressing this social structure.
... From early on he was 'a rock star' among overseas Filipino workers (Curato, 2017, p. vii). His vulgar style was a form of entertainment that helped him build his image as 'authentic' (Heydarian, 2018). He possessed 'native intelligence' (Miller, 2018, p. 143) and had 'dark charisma' (Curato, 2017, p. 1). ...
Both Narendra Modi and Rodrigo Duterte stand out as leaders that epitomise their respective reigns in ways that previous leaders did not. A juxtaposition of their political personae allows us to investigate a contemporary political phenomenon, that of the elected strongman leader. This article makes three points from this juxtaposition: (a) They presided over a period of ‘democratic backsliding’. (b) They came with social media. (c) They are their own message and that message is that they are extraordinary leaders, above ordinary constraints. This article concludes that they represent strongman politics—where they as their people’s representative engage in acts symbolic of the people’s sovereignty. In an age of discontent with democracy, new and social media have allowed them to portray themselves as true defenders of ‘the people’.
... 55 Duterte promised International Affairs 99: 2, 2023 to reorient the country's foreign relations away from its traditional dependency on the US and towards national interests and the benefit of ordinary citizens, thus questioning the Philippines' longstanding commitment to the so-called liberal international order. 56 To be sure, populism alone cannot explain this shift away from the US (and towards rapprochement with China), driven as it was by strategic geopolitical considerations. However, Duterte used populist framings to legitimate the role of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) within this overarching vision for Philippine foreign policy. ...
The rise of populists to power in many states around the world has caused concern among defenders of multilateralism and the so-called liberal international order. Due to their frequent attacks on established international organizations (IOs), populists are often falsely portrayed as unilateralists. Our article addresses the apparent contradiction that populist leaders legitimate certain IOs while actively legitimating others and examines on what grounds they do so. The study focuses on three populist leaders from different continents: Viktor Orbán, Hugo Chávez and Rodrigo Duterte. These populist leaders have all adopted sovereignty-centred and identity-based frames for the (de)legitimation of IOs, which subvert conventional legitimation strategies based on liberal norms. We call these frames ‘representational’ because they critically ask on whose authority IOs speak, in whose interest they act, who they are made up of and what they stand for. By relying on conventional arguments about performance or fair procedure, stakeholders of established IOs have sidestepped more fundamental representational questions of sovereignty and identity. Instead of criticizing populists for being unilateralists (which they rarely are), they should meet the populist challenge by engaging in more fundamental debates over the very purpose and mandate of IOs.
... With reference to Schmidt's (2010) work on 'discursive institutionalism', Thompson uses the Philippines as a case study to demonstrate how regimes in new democracies are often shaped by narratives of good governance and democratization while political institutions remain weakly developed. Significantly, the rise of Rodrigo Duterte as a reconstructionist president in 2016 exposed not only the weaknesses of the institutional framework but also the yawning gap between the rhetoric and the flawed reality of democratic governance in the Philippines (Heydarian 2018). As the following analysis will demonstrate, there are not only important parallels but also significant differences in the trajectory of the Indonesian presidential regime. ...
... In this vein, Duterte's populist charisma shares similarities with the appeal of Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkey), Viktor Orban (Hungary), Vladimir Putin (Russia), and Donald Trump (United States). Indeed, most of the contemporary literature about Duterte in relation to the Philippine drug war campaign has focused on charismatic politics, penal populism, and transnational authoritarianism Heydarian 2018;Miller 2018;Holden 2021;Rafael 2022). But other, more complicated stories persist on the sidelines of the dominant strongman narrative. ...
This article explores the claim that how we talk can inspire how we reason and act. Contemporary research suggests that the words militant Christian leaders in the Philippines use shape how they rationalize President Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs. Describing drug users as “sinners,” a trope in religious language, is particularly lethal. Using work on pragmatism and philosophy of language by Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and Lynne Tirrell, the author examines how the term “sinner” generates pernicious claims in the drug war. It explores how the use of the term inspires hermeneutic uptake, redirects discursive focus, and engenders certain social and political actions in the Philippines.
... Despite his father's career as a politician in Mindanao, Duterte portrays himself as an opponent to established dynasties, political clans, and patronage in the Philippine 'elite democracy' (Heydarian 2018 Duterte and his cabinet highlighted economic disadvantages related to climate politics by linking climate change to questions of inequality and social injustices. Employing anti-elitist rhetoric, Duterte constructs vulnerable groups as 'the people' compared to a wealthy elite. ...
The Paris Agreement expresses far-reaching commitments to combat climate change, but its translation into national contexts faces severe confrontation by populist movements and individuals worldwide. We unpack and compare how differently right-wing populist leaders translate rhetoric into climate policy-making and institutional change. We do so by investigating three areas of contestation: (1) the economic marginalization of the left behind, (2) conflicts between globalism and nationalist priorities, and (3) tensions between univer-salized science and situated experiences. We offer an analytical framework to study how right-wing populist leaders shape climate policymaking and test the approach with empirical observations from three democratically elected right-wing populists in the US, the Philippines, and Brazil. Populists severely affect climate policies in the long run, but these effects are highly context-specific. Engaging with populist climate politics needs to more seriously respond to local contexts and distinguish between the economic, anti-elitist, and knowledge foundations it is intertwined with.
... If we consider the Greek ancient roots of Western democracy, even at its birth, political thinkers bemoaned similar issues that we face today. As Heydarian (2018) points out, for Plato and Aristotle, the demagogues, which consisted of opportunistic 'crackpot posing as a genius' politicians undermined Athens during their period with oligarchic corruption and cyclical decay. Plato and Aristotle did not share our contemporary confidence or reverence for democracy. ...
This paper seeks to address the wider questions of populism and its seeming contemporary rise within the specific context of the Philippines, regarding education. Starting from the assumption that neither politics nor education sits above cultures or spaces autonomously acting upon them but instead emerges with/because/against particularities; after a brief overview of populism, I explore the conceptual characteristics in context. This is informed from my own experiences of living and researching in the Philippines, including experience of the Mindanao conflict but also the failure of liberalism in the Philippines more generally, the failure of western education to ‘develop’ the nation and the reactions that led to the populists rise of Duterte. The paper offers an understanding of the complexities of populism and offers some hope to how education can meet the challenge through a specific example of critical participatory community education.
... This local anti-drug strategy has been documented by international human rights organizations such as Amnesty International (2017) as coinciding with the period where increase in drug-related deaths and violence in Davao occurred. Despite this, Duterte's presidential bid was successful enough to generate a "38.5 percent plurality of votes" (Heydarian 2017) in the last 2016 national elections by mirroring the solutions laid out in Davao as an ought to be panacea for the entire Philippines. Paul Kenny and Ronald Holmes (2018) note that support for Duterte and the antidrug campaign remains resilient across class, gender, geographic and ethnoreligious groups, which is driven by Duterte's charismatic leadership and popularity. ...
The many political forces in support for and against Rodrigo Duterte’s war on drugs present a key challenge in drug policy analysis. As a highly politicized issue, drug policy concerns include questions of economic development, security, human rights, and public health. How has the policy evolved in the last two-and-a-half years of implementation given these different concerns? What can policy tracing contribute in understanding the policy? The article examines the policymaking process pertinent to the Philippine anti-drug campaign through a policy tracing technique. The study employed a qualitative research design using multiple sources such as chronological media review, informant interviews with policy implementers, elites, and experts, as well as document review of legislations and official documents. The policy design trace of the Philippine anti-drug campaign reveals policy characteristics that are neglected. First, the policy has evolved into four distinct stages—and these policy iterations are largely responses to numerous implementation crises. The rebranding of policies was used to legitimize policies than improve policy values and learning. Second, changes in policy were only seen in the reorganization of police and supplementary guidelines for Oplan TokHang operations. Finally, the campaign operates within a police-centric framework despite interagency and whole-of-government approaches. These findings provide an explanation as to why the campaign has been highly punitive and will continue to be so in the next years, despite the presence of alternative drug control interventions and policy positions.
... During the 2016 elections, Duterte's populist rhetoric appealed to the majority of low-and middleincome Manila voters whose frustrations towards trapos became increasingly palpable (Heydarian, 2017). He responded to democracy fatigue by promising quick fixes and heavy-handed solutions to national issues (Mendoza, 2018). ...
The ongoing war on drugs in the Philippines has become the epicenter of discourse and concern regarding human rights, populism, and illiberal democracy. While most studies focus on Duterte's controversial 'strongman' persona and mass appeal, very few have sought to analyze the locals' attitudes towards him as cognitive-affective phenomena; whereas, populist movements in Europe and the US have been thoroughly explored from various cognitive theories of ideology. To address this gap, this paper provides an in-depth qualitative analysis of pre-selected subjects from Davao and Manila, two regions in the Philippines with arguably the most salient pro-and anti-Duterte populations, respectively. Using EMPATHICA software modeled after Paul Thagard's emotional coherence theory, I mapped the possible cognitive-affective processes underpinning the political ideologies of an influential leftist organization in the Philippines. I also used the cognitive dissonance theory to consolidate the qualitative analyses of data derived from the surveys and interviews conducted. The findings suggest that the two populations' political ideologies were relatively similar, as expected of subjects who belong to the same organization. However, the significant differences of the subjects' responses to items related to the Duterte administration indicate that the socio-polotical contexts of Manila and Davao could affect political opinions.
In understanding the authoritarian character of Rodrigo Duterte's rule followed by the return of the Marcoses to power, it is important to situate both within the context of ‘electoral dystopias’ in the Philippines: the colonial and postcolonial history of democratic institutions deployed by rulers to produce undemocratic social effects. Elections thus look two ways: they seek to mobilise popular expectations for change even as they become instruments for reproducing hierarchy and reinforcing the power of elites. It is within this paradoxical conjunction of popular desires for radical change and elite attempts at containing and channelling those desires for conservative ends that we can see the rise of authoritarian figures such as Duterte. This essay is based on the first chapter of the author's The Sovereign Trickster: Death ad Laughter in the Age of Duterte, published by Duke University Press in 2022.
During the Duterte presidency from June 2016 to June 2022, the government of the Philippines limited its affinity with the United States and pursued an ostensibly pro-China policy. This bold move took place amid the ongoing US–China rivalry. This paper carries out a retrospective examination of Duterte's China policy from the perspective of Philippine domestic politics. Specifically, we assess the international relations literature on hedging as a foreign policy strategy and argue that domestic factors play a major role in filtering systemic influences and leaving state leaders with sufficient room for strategic discretion and maneuvering. This is particularly the case with the Philippines, where strong presidentialism gives clout to the president in foreign policy development. We argue that much of the “audacious” behavior in the foreign policy of the Duterte government can simultaneously be understood as pragmatic, as it was believed to better serve the regime's short-term goals. While the alliance with the United States remained largely intact, the Duterte government emphasized its success in stabilizing Sino–Philippine relations.
Political patronage is defined as political actors appointing individuals at their discretion to key positions in the public sector. The book examines this practice in the bureaucracies of 11 Asian countries through the use of a typological framework of patronage types. The framework is based on two key criteria: basis of trust and the major role of political appointees. Several countries with well-developed civil service systems showed minimal levels of patronage (Japan, Singapore and South Korea). Two countries with a weak civil service showed very high levels of patronage appointments (Bangladesh and India). Sandwiched between those extremes are countries with formal civil service systems that are heavily influenced by political parties and by social ties to society (Vietnam, Kazakhstan, and China). The book concludes that not all patronage is the same and what is important is the tasks being performed by appointees and the nature of the trust relationship.
Survey research focused on the effects of social media (SM) on protest behavior outside Western democracies is limited. In response, we designed and conducted a large N face-to-face survey in the Philippines, where pro-government elite families control the traditional press, but the same constraints do not apply to SM. This helps us to isolate SM effects on protest behavior since the online environment in the Philippines is one of the few places where there is an open flow of information. Adding gradations to common indicators of SM consumption (by measuring general SM use, political SM use, and the exchange and consumption of dissident information on SM) helps clarify the mechanism by which SM influence protest behavior. Our results indicate that online exchanges of dissident information have a stronger connection to protest behavior than general or even political SM use.
How do the economy, right-wing legacies, and personal style shape today’sautocracies? Analysts have commented that especially three contemporary autocrats—Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Narendra Modi, and Rodrigo Duterte—have similar styles, motivations, or bases of support. Yet, this paper will show that the paths that took them to their thrones are quite distinct. Neoliberalization had disorganized society in Turkey, India, and the Philippines. The rule of “strongmen,” in response, showed the way out of this disorganization. The main divergence, however, is that Erdoğanism introduced statism and mass organization as against the disorganizing thrust of neoliberalization. Modi parallels Erdoğan in the civic paramilitary aspects of rule, but not in statism. Other than a weak infrastructure thrust, Duterte did not make the economy into a central issue in the way Erdoğan and Modi did. Moreover, he did not deploy civic activism at all. These three routes have thoroughly shaped and differentiated the autocrats’ styles too, even though all involve a heavy resort to masculinity. Coming from a thick tradition of mass politics and moving in a state-capitalist direction, Erdoğan’s performance incorporates women’s civic mobilization and heavily emphasizes fertility and productivity. Shorn of such anchors and bedeviled by a fragmented polity, Duterte’s rule sexualizes violence rather than production. Modi’s celibate masculinity is similar to Erdoğan’s in its dramatization of size and production but downplays reproduction, except for deepening the ethnic divide his party relies on. These differences have culminated in hegemonic autocracy in Turkey, ethnic autocracy in India, and oligarchic autocracy in the Philippines.
Despite the fruitful research on populist communication patterns of fringe parties on social network sites, mainstream parties’ communicative behaviors have often been ignored. From a perspective of political campaign, this study argues that mainstream parties could professionalize their use of populist frameworks as the campaign strategy on social network sites. The professionalization of populist communication is defined as a) mainstream parties’ deliberate selections to stylistic devices to present certain affects in political campaign and b) mainstream parties’ increasing use of populist frameworks with an increasing online user engagement. With a focus on the Taiwan’s 2020 national election, a dataset composed of Facebook posts of parliamentary parties (N total = 3,315) is analyzed. Our findings indicate that mainstream parties per se tend to adopt more moderate populist frameworks on Facebook. While stylistic devices are positively associated with populist communication, mainstream parties tend to present populist frameworks in negative and emotional styles. While online user engagement is partially associated with populist communication, higher online engagement does not intensify mainstream parties’ degrees of using populist frameworks on Facebook.
This Element explores how in the Philippines a 'whiggish' narrative of democracy and good governance triumphing over dictatorship and kleptocracy after the 'people power' uprising against Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1986 was upended by strongman Rodrigo R. Duterte three decades later. Portraying his father's authoritarian rule as a 'golden age,' Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. succeeded Duterte by easily winning the 2022 presidential election, suggesting democratic backsliding will persist. A structuralist account of the inherent instability of the country's oligarchical democracy offers a plausible explanation of repeated crises but underplays agency. Strategic groups have pushed back against executive aggrandizement. Offering a 'structuration' perspective, presidential power and elite pushback are examined as is the reliance on political violence and the instrumentalization of mass poverty. These factors have recurrently combined to lead to the fall, restoration, and now steep decline of democracy in the Philippines.
This chapter focuses on the impact of populism on foreign policy in two countries in Asia: India and the Philippines. Our analysis is based on an understanding of populism as a thin-centered ideology entailing the two constitutive components of antielitism and people-centrism. Based on this definition, we develop the hypothesis that populists in power will pursue less cooperative and more conflict-prone foreign policies as compared to non-populist governments. We then move on to test this hypothesis for our two case studies by carrying out within-case comparisons of the populist governments of Prime Minister Modi and President Duterte with their respective non-populist predecessors. For each case, we outline the specific features of populism and we trace elements of change and continuity in foreign policy with regard to important regional neighbours. We find that the two cases developed in very different ways: in the case of India, the transition to a populist government led to a more decisive foreign policy vis-à-vis important rivals like China and Pakistan, but not to a radical foreign policy change; in the case of the Philippines, under Duterte’s administration, we see a high degree of volatility in foreign policy, epitomized most clearly by a surprising but short-lived rapprochement to China. In the concluding section of the chapter, we discuss potential explanations for such variation, focusing particularly on the constraining effects of structural factors and of ‘thick ideology’ as a framework that increases the predictability of the impact of populism on foreign policy.
Since the end of the Cold War, ASEAN has assiduously evolved itself at the very centre or in the driver’s seat in the Asia–Pacific affairs. It has done so by building multiple institutional mechanisms to discuss economic, political, and security issues, engaging all major and middle-power stakeholders to what is now called the Indo-Pacific. But this period has also witnessed ASEAN’s piecemeal drift from the US to China. In fact, China’s unprecedented economic rise has accelerated these ongoing drifts in not just regional, but also the global distribution of power. Beijing’s increased assertion and expansion throughout the Indo-Pacific region is seen as a direct challenge to the pre-eminence of the United States that sees itself as the status quo Pacific power. This has resulted in a series of strategies to check China’s growing power projection capabilities. Indeed, the very establishment of the Indo-Pacific concept—that conjoins the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean—and the revival of the Quadrilateral Security Framework between the US, Japan, India, and Australia seeks to preserve and safeguard the current US-led international rules-based order. It is amid this power competition that ASEAN has become increasingly wary of being side-tracked from its normative influence and centrality. This is where, ASEAN, through the initiative of Indonesia, has crafted this ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific that seeks to maintain the bloc’s role and relevance in Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Flowing from its quintessential salience of not disrupting major powers' core interests, the AOIP banks heavily on the need to adhere to existing regional mechanisms and the promotion of inclusivity to ensure ASEAN centrality. Though the AOIP is a step towards the right direction for ASEAN, the challenges concerning the unity and coherence of its member states may outstrip the potential to maximise its gains from such an initiative. To utilise the AOIP to its full potential, ASEAN member states must alleviate the deepening internal fault lines and lagging external connectivity.
Sino-Japanese relations have developed primarily by separating political and economic relations (Seikei bunri). This bifurcation has become more tenuous in the post-Cold War period as China’s comprehensive power increased. Xi Jinping’s ascension to the position of the Secretary General of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2012 and his more assertive policies in the region has further complicated the traditional Sino-Japanese formula for pragmatic, forward-looking relations. To balance the benefits from strong bilateral economic relations with China and growing concerns about an illiberal Pax-Sinica emerging in the Indo-Pacific region, Japan has crafted the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP)Vision. This chapter explores Sino-Japanese relations through the prism of FOIP. Key lines of enquiry include: (1) How have Sino-Japanese relations affected the design and implementation of FOIP; (2) How does FOIP reflect Japan’s long-standing hedging approach to China; and (3) Does FOIP represent a critical juncture in the Seikei Bunrei formula for bilateral relations. Findings suggest that FOIP remains both an inclusive and exclusive framework to shape the Indo-Pacific region’s rules-based order in-line with the post-WW 2 international order. It leaves windows of opportunity to deepen Sino-Japanese relations while contributing to robust, multilateral institution building to anchor the US in the region and constrain China’s efforts to reshape the region with Chinese characteristics.
This book is the first book about The Philippines Studies in Turkey. Filipino, Indonesian and Turkish authors studying the Philippines and Southeast Asia Studies contributed to this chapter. The book themes are decolonial studies, international migration, Filipino politics, history, agriculture, and the international relations of the Philippines. The language of the book is Turkish, but the authors are planning to English and Tagalog new volumes in the future.
The success of the maverick politician Rodrigo Duterte in the 2016 election is cited as a result of the weaponization of social media—whereby professional, tech-savvy strategists mobilized public opinion through a networked system of disinformation. Yet, there is evidence of grassroots campaign support that emerged via online platforms. Those who have mobilized include Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), who have used Facebook groups to rally in support of Duterte. This research looks at the activities of two OFW Facebook groups to understand precisely how and why they organized for Duterte. Employing a dualstage thematic analysis on posts and comments by group members between March 28 – May 9, 2016, three key findings emerged. First, motivations for supporting Duterte varied greatly among users and are far more complex than Duterte’s mandate to crack-down on corruption, crime, and drugs. Second, group behavior deviates from top-heavy explanations of online campaign mobilization, as these groups operated autonomously from Duterte’s official campaign. Finally, these groups were not amorphous and had, as the most active members and organizers, certain intermediaries. These grassroots intermediaries sought to amplify support for Duterte by organizing events, using diversionary tactics, and helping to propagate fake news. These findings suggest that while these groups were operating independently, they were not devoid of influence from Duterte’s official social media campaign.
This paper examines Philippine foreign policy under the Duterte government (2016–2022). During this period, Philippine foreign policy is widely acknowledged to have undergone dramatic shifts, with the government making friendly overtures towards China at the cost of its traditional alliance with the US. From a foreign policy analysis perspective, this paper explicitly focuses on the role of political leadership in guiding national foreign policy. This paper argues that the Duterte government made strategic use of political marketing in promoting its populist foreign policy. Thus, political marketing is used as an analytical lens with which to examine much of the rhetoric and behaviour
of the Duterte government, particularly in regard to its response to the
US–China rivalry. By engaging in this supposedly diplomatic game, the
Duterte government tried to sell its foreign policy promises and outcomes as
products even when its rhetoric was at times disconnected from its actual
performance. Overall, this paper develops an alternative perspective from
which to add to our understanding of the role of populist foreign policy initiatives
in a fragile democratic setting.
Despite increasing interest in populism and religion, scholars generally lack a conceptual foundation to distinguish strategies through which populists integrate religion into mobilisation. We use the case of Rodrigo R. Duterte’s Philippines to derive a four-part typology of such interactions grounded in distinct dimensions of populism. This typology distinguishes causal mechanisms and clarifies how, even within a single country, populists may opportunistically blend several religious strategies to suit their personalistic political ends. Populists may draw on religious norms and identity to buttress boundaries between in-groups and out-groups, credibly signal their outsider status by challenging religious hierarchies, leverage personalistic linkages to religious elites, and deploy a populist style with religious affinities. We trace how such strategies may cement religious support, and, at times, motivate religious resistance to populist rule. A systematic subnational assessment correlating religious demographics and Duterte’s voteshare in his 2016 election across over 40,000 Philippine subdistricts evaluates empirical implications of each pathway using relevant religious communities.
In arguably his most political novel, Demons,1 Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky warned that in ‘turbulent times of upheaval or transition low characters always come to the front everywhere’. Throughout his works, but most especially in this book, Dostoyevsky was absorbed by the perils of disruptive change in the ruins of a crumbling Czarist regime, as radicals and hardliners sought to establish a brave new world in a rapidly modernising yet tempestuous milieu. Quite presciently, he foresaw the dangers of what Italian thinker Antonio Gramsci, writing half a century later, most famously described as an impossible situation whereby ‘the old [order] is dying and the new cannot be born,’ thus ‘in this interregnum, a great variety of morbid symptoms [begin to] appear’. Confronting the advent of European fascism, Gramsci warned of ‘incurable structural contradictions [that] have revealed themselves’, with mainstream ‘political forces … struggling to conserve and defend the existing structure’. 2
We know a lot about the new wave of autocrats and how they operate but much less about why so many people, particularly in the developing world, are cheering them on. Case-in-point: How do we make sense of widespread popular support for Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte's strongman rule? Scholars generally cite frustration with a democracy widely regarded as elite-dominated and endemically corrupt, but this account is underspecified. Filipinos have been frustrated with liberal democracy for a long time and Duterte is not the first law-and-order candidate to seek the presidency. I will argue that we need to situate Duterte's election and enduring appeal in the conversation about democracy as it has unfolded on the ground. Specifically, (1) repeated failures to reform democracy have resulted in (2) conditional support for democracy and increasing openness to certain authoritarian forms of government. (3) These attitudes manifest on the ground as calls for “disciplining” democracy. (4) Rodrigo Duterte is seen as a “strong leader” and the answer to such calls, hence his enormous popularity. I will provide evidence for each of these claims and make the case for grounding the illiberal turn in people's experience of democracy.
Electoral autocracies – regimes that adopt democratic institutions but subvert them to rule as dictatorships – have become the most widespread, resilient and malignant non-democracies today. They have consistently ruled over a third of the countries in the world, including geopolitically significant states like Russia, Turkey, Venezuela, Egypt, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan. Challenging conventional wisdom, Popular Dictators shows that the success of electoral authoritarianism is not due to these regimes' superior capacity to repress, bribe, brainwash and manipulate their societies into submission, but is actually a product of their genuine popular appeal in countries experiencing deep political, economic and security crises. Promising efficient, strong-armed rule tempered by popular accountability, elected strongmen attract mass support in societies traumatized by turmoil, dysfunction and injustice, allowing them to rule through the ballot box. Popular Dictators argues that this crisis legitimation strategy makes electoral authoritarianism the most significant threat to global peace and democracy.
ملخص الرسالة:
تُعد الشعبوية من المواضيع المعاصرة المهمة، فباتت تشكل نقطة مهمة على صعيد الدراسات الإنسانية، فالدراسة تكشف النشأة الحقيقية للشعبوية في الفكر السياسي الأمريكي المعاصر، ومدى تغلغلها في السلوك السياسي، والعقلية الأمريكية، وفي السرد التاريخي للشعبوية الأمريكية، بدءاً من التسعينيات في القرن التاسع عشر إلى الزمن الحالي، يظهر أنَّ هذا التراث السياسي تمثل في شكل لغة الشعب، وتمَّ تبنيه من قبل عدد لا يحصى من الشخصيات السياسية في العقود اللاحقة من التاريخ الأمريكي.
فقد مثلت الشعبوية نوعاً من (البراغماتية) في الفكر السياسي الأمريكي بكل تجلياته، ولا سيما على الصعيد الخارجي، ومنطق العلاقات الدولية، وبشكل خاص مع تسنم دونالد ترامب الرئاسة في الولايات المتحدة بعد فوزه في الأنتخابات الرئاسية، عبر توظيفه للشعبوية، وتحشيده لخطاب الكراهية، وفوبيا الأرهاب الإسلامي، وهو ما أنعكس على مجمل السياسة الأمريكية المعاصرة، عبر أنعكاسها على الصعيدين الداخلي والخارجي، إذ مثل الخطاب الأمريكي( شعبوية قومية عرقية)، يغذيها الأستياء في مجمل جوانبها، مع تنامي الدوافع الإجتماعية والإقتصادية، والثقافية والسياسية التي تغذيها، بما في ذلك عدم المساواة في الدخل، والخوف من تأثير العولمة على الوظائف، والهوية الوطنية، والتغيرات الديموغرافية، والأستياء الشعبي من المؤسسة السياسية، والإقتصادية التقليدية.
Populism is considered one of the important contemporary topics. It has become an important point in the field of human studies. The study reveals the true emergence of populism in contemporary American political thought, and the extent of its penetration into political behavior, the American mentality, and in the historical narrative of American populism, starting from the 1890s to the present. This political legacy appears to have been represented in the form of the language of the people and adopted by countless political figures in the subsequent decades of American history..
Populism represents a kind of pragmatism in American political thought in all its manifestations, especially on the external level, and the logic of international relations, especially with Donald Trump assuming the presidency in the United States, after winning the presidential elections, through his employment of populism, his mobilization of hate speech, and the phobia of Islamic terrorism,which is reflected on the entirety of contemporary American politics through its reflection on the internal and external levels. The American discourse (Ethnic Nationalist Populism ) is fed by resentment in all its aspects, with the growth of social, economic, cultural and political motives that feed it, including income inequality, fear of the impact of globalization on jobs, national identity, demographic changes, and popular discontent of the traditional political and economic establishment.
Tensions concerning environmental governance have increased in Brazil since the far-right came to power in 2016. We offer insight into this process by analysing the first two years of Jair Bolsonaro’s (2019-ongoing) environmental policies—namely, how Brazil’s environmental protection arrangements are being dismantled. We find that the Bolsonaro administration centralises environmental governance in Brazil through complementary authoritarian and populist means. First in restricting participatory decision-making spaces such as the National Environmental Council (Conama) and the National Council of the Legal Amazon (CNAL), and, second, by attacking indigenous and traditional peoples, NGOs, scientists, and other environmental defenders. To illustrate the authoritarian dimension of Bolsonaro’s environmental governance, we carry out a political-institutional analysis of contemporary Brazilian environmental politics and then exemplify the ways and extent to which attacks against environmental defenders is a constituent part of Bolsonaro’s environmental populism. We hold that such attacks are not merely rhetorical but a political tactic to legitimise Bolsonaro’s authoritarian environmental governance in the promotion of ‘total extractivism’ while maintaining a populist appeal.
Populism in the 21st century became prominent in scholarly circles following Brexit and the 2016 electoral victory of Donald Trump. As democracy and globalization enthusiasts least anticipated these two monumental events in modern history, much emphasis came to be placed on the nature of populism and what conditions led to its manifestation in contemporary times. Working within this background, this study aims to review the ideational, political strategy and discursive approaches to the populism phenomenon and unpack the relative utility of each approach. I offer a thoughtful perspective that while the ideational approach’s “thin-centered” strand has the tendency to blur the boundaries of populism and lead scholars to accept “anything” as populism; it nevertheless enables us to comprehensively capture populism usage in multiple contexts. Further, I advance the notion that the 2020 electoral defeat of Donald Trump should not be misconstrued as the end or weakening of right-wing populism; the present state of American politics makes it ripe for populism resurgence.
Among contemporary illiberal populist leaders, only Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte has instigated mass murder under the guise of a “war on drugs.” Attributed to “penal populism,” it must be explained why Duterte won the presidency despite limited concerns about crime, why he organised extra-judicial killings and why this continued despite domestic and international criticism. As president, Duterte nationalised the violent populism he had first developed locally which wooed rather than intimidated voters with promises to protect “good people” against drug-induced evil. His appeals resonated given the failures of liberal reformism and with a proletarian populist alternative undermined. Using nationalism to respond to global criticism, he put opponents on the defensive. Breaking with the left, he has not undertaken major socio-economic reforms and his anti-oligarchy rhetoric benefitted his cronies. Despite killing tens of thousands and revelations of police corruption, as a legitimation strategy Duterte’s drug war has successfully diverted attention from the “death of development” with poverty levels high despite rapid growth. The Philippine case shows extreme dichotomisation of “good people” and criminalised “others” can legitimate mass killings with a populist breakthrough in a weak state with a poor record of human development.
In recent years, many populist leaders and parties have succeeded in taking over the levers of state power, in spite of the fact that much of their political rhetoric in opposition expresses anti-state sentiments. This paper examines how populist leaders and parties in Asia have been able to use the institutions of the state, including education, to exercise and perpetuate their power. Focusing on the examples of India, the Philippines and Singapore, the paper shows how in each of these cases, populist politics consists in attempts to reconfigure the nature of the state and its relationship to civil society, often seeking to obliterate the distinction. A great deal of effort is put in to transform the institutions of the state, including education, making it possible for them to translate populist sentiments into governmental practice. This explains how, when in government, populists are often able to extend their appeal and influence.
This paper concentrates on populism’s functional relationship with religion during times of crisis and how religion is instrumentalized for populist causes. Critical analysis of Philippine populism under President Rodrigo Duterte highlights often-overlooked nuances regarding populism as both disruption and reinforcement of traditional politics and its inherent institutional and religious dimensions. Though Dutertismo disrupts Manila-centric power, it reinforces traditional politics rooted in the Philippine political and cultural ethos. Moreover, because of populism’s institutional and religious dimensions, Dutertismo’s challenges to Philippine Christianity involve both its social and evangelizing missions. As institutions, Christian churches are called to a social mission that helps dismantle traditional politics. Their response involves disentangling their institutions and communities from traditional political networks and providing all Christians with political education towards the good of all, especially those oppressed by traditional politics. Dutertismo’s implicit religious perspective challenges Christianity’s evangelizing mission. Insufficiently discussed in many studies, this underlying Manichean perspective common to populists attracts many through an account of and a strategy against social suffering through the war between the good “we” versus the evil “others.” Christianity then must listen more attentively to the yearnings of the suffering people and accompany them more faithfully in the struggle for social transformation. These responses prepare Philippine Christianity to commemorate in 2021 its five-century presence.
The recent political developments in the Philippines require a reevaluation of the nature of the State under the Rodrigo Duterte regime. Just years ago, scholars illustrated the regime of Duterte to be a populist, illiberal, or authoritarian one. But since then, and especially during the pandemic, a lot of things have changed. In this paper, I will argue that Duterte’s regime is a fascist one. Unlike how Walden Bello characterized Duterte as a fascist original, a characterization laden with theoretical inconsistencies and practical difficulties, I will develop a concept of fascism proper to the neoliberal and semi-colonial conditions of the Philippines. I will likewise trace the rise, development, and stabilization of the regime’s fascism. The discussion will be supported and illuminated by some illustrative examples taken from the experience of the mass movement in Cebu.
The book examines how the maritime disputes have become a litmus test of China’s rise, whether it has and will be peaceful or not, and how smaller powers such as Vietnam and the Philippines have been resisting Beijing’s territorial ambitions. Drawing on extensive discussions and interviews with experts and policy-makers across the Asia-Pacific region, the book highlights the growing geopolitical significance of the East and South China Sea disputes to the future of Asia – providing insights into how the so-called Pacific century will shape up.
In this article, contrary to "neo-realist" and "neo-liberal" arguments that identify identites and interest as given in the system, the author porposes an alternative system perception based on the hypotheses of "constuctivist" theory focusing on the processes. This constructivist explanation that the author defends questions the main consensus in the literature by emphasizing the proceses and provides alternative explanations. In the first part, the author presents the way main stream theories explain the system and as alternative to them he explores how social proceses create and transform identites and interests. In the second part, the author explains how inter-state relations are formed and transformed with the examples from different types of states and emphasize that this relationship system is a process. In the third part, the author discusses the dynamics that define the structure of international relations by exploring concepts like security and sovereignty. In the conclusion, the author argues that the social dynamics are important in creation of the international system and that these dynamics can transform the system into different structures and that these alternative explanations should be explored more in the literature.
In 1978, as the protests against the Shah of Iran reached their zenith, philosopher Michel Foucault was working as a special correspondent for Corriere della Sera and le Nouvel Observateur. During his little-known stint as a journalist, Foucault traveled to Iran, met with leaders like Ayatollah Khomeini, and wrote a series of articles on the revolution. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution is the first book-length analysis of these essays on Iran, the majority of which have never before appeared in English. Accompanying the analysis are annotated translations of the Iran writings in their entirety and the at times blistering responses from such contemporaneous critics as Middle East scholar Maxime Rodinson as well as comments on the revolution by feminist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir. In this important and controversial account, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson illuminate Foucault's support of the Islamist movement. They also show how Foucault's experiences in Iran contributed to a turning point in his thought, influencing his ideas on the Enlightenment, homosexuality, and his search for political spirituality. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution informs current discussion on the divisions that have reemerged among Western intellectuals over the response to radical Islamism after September 11. Foucault's provocative writings are thus essential for understanding the history and the future of the West's relationship with Iran and, more generally, to political Islam. In their examination of these journalistic pieces, Afary and Anderson offer a surprising glimpse into the mind of a celebrated thinker.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, China is poised to become a major global power. And though much has been written of China's rise, a crucial aspect of this transformation has gone largely unnoticed: the way that China is using soft power to appeal to its neighbors and to distant countries alike. This book is the first to examine the significance of China's recent reliance on soft power-diplomacy, trade incentives, cultural and educational exchange opportunities, and other techniques-to project a benign national image, position itself as a model of social and economic success, and develop stronger international alliances. Drawing on years of experience tracking China's policies in Southeast Asia, Latin America, and Africa, Joshua Kurlantzick reveals how China has wooed the world with a "charm offensive" that has largely escaped the attention of American policy makers. Beijing's new diplomacy has altered the political landscape in Southeast Asia and far beyond, changing the dynamics of China's relationships with other countries. China also has worked to take advantage of American policy mistakes, Kurlantzick contends. In a provocative conclusion, he considers a future in which China may be the first nation since the Soviet Union to rival the United States in international influence.
In the West are the 'haves', while much of the rest of the world are the 'have-nots'. The extent of inequality today is unprecedented. Drawing on an extraordinary range of contemporary and historical examples, Why Nations Fail looks at the root of the problems facing some nations. Economists and scientists have offered useful insights into the reasons for certain aspects of poverty, such as Jeffrey Sachs (it's geography and the weather), and Jared Diamond (it's technology and species). But most theories ignore the incentives and institutions that populations need to invest and prosper: they need to know that if they work hard, they can make money and actually keep it - and the key to ensuring these incentives is sound institutions. Incentives and institutions are what separate the have and have-nots. Based on fifteen years of research, and stepping boldly into the territory of Ian Morris's Why the West Rules - For Now, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson blend economics, politics, history and current affairs to provide a new, persuasive way of understanding wealth and poverty. And, perhaps most importantly, they provide a pragmatic basis for the hope that those mired in poverty can be placed on the path to prosperity.
Pankaj Mishra's provocative account of how China, India and the Muslim World are remaking the world in their own image - shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2013. It is shortlisted for the Orwell prize 2013. Viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, the Victorian period was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire or burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, it was clear that for Asia to recover a new way of thinking was needed. Pankaj Mishra re-tells the history of the past two centuries, showing how a remarkable, disparate group of thinkers, journalists, radicals and charismatics emerged from the ruins of empire to create an unstoppable Asian renaissance, one whose ideas lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood, and have made our world what it is today. Reviews: "Arrestingly original ...this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today". (John Gray, Independent). "A riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections ...deeply entertaining and deeply humane". (Hisham Matar). "Fascinating ...a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book". (Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph). "Provocative, shaming and convincing". (Michael Binyon, The Times). "Lively ...engaging ...retains the power to shock". (Mark Mazower, Financial Times). "Subtle, erudite and entertaining". (Economist, New Delhi). About the author: Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.
Although multilateral cooperation against terrorism is desirable, divergent interests, sensitivities, and fears about adverse domestic reactions make it extremely difficult for a U.S.-inspired counterterrorism strategy to be adopted throughout Southeast Asia.
Domestic politics and international relations are often inextricably entangled, but existing theories (particularly “state-centric” theories) do not adequately account for these linkages. When national leaders must win ratification (formal or informal) from their constituents for an international agreement, their negotiating behavior reflects the simultaneous imperatives of both a domestic political game and an international game. Using illustrations from Western economic summitry, the Panama Canal and Versailles Treaty negotiations, IMF stabilization programs, the European Community, and many other diplomatic contexts, this article offers a theory of ratification. It addresses the role of domestic preferences and coalitions, domestic political institutions and practices, the strategies and tactics of negotiators, uncertainty, the domestic reverberation of international pressures, and the interests of the chief negotiator. This theory of “two-level games” may also be applicable to many other political phenomena, such as dependency, legislative committees, and multiparty coalitions.
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Spratlys deal unconstitutional: Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking void
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