Beginning with a historical analysis of the origins of the Philippine dependency relationship with the United States, the book goes on to argue that the Philippine State acquired some degree of autonomy in formulating national policies. It reveals that while the Philippine political system is based on free wheeling capitalism led by private enterprise, State intervention in the economy has been more extensive than the economic ideology suggests.
Beginning with a historical analysis of the origins of the Philippine dependency relationship with the United States, the book goes on to argue that the Philippine State acquired some degree of autonomy in formulating national policies. It reveals that while the Philippine political system is based on free wheeling capitalism led by private enterprise, State intervention in the economy has been more extensive than the economic ideology suggests.
Why do some small, developing countries industrialize and others don’t? What factors account for different economic performance among states that are vulnerable to external shocks, crony capitalism, and political instability? This book argues that the answer lies in the structuring of state power, specifically the way different sets of governing elites – political leaders and economic technocrats – are embedded in political organisations and state institutions, and the way these elites relate to each other in the economic development policy process. Conducting a comparative historical analysis of Thailand and the Philippines, the book argues that the institutional settings of governing elites influence economic outcomes. In Thailand, political power traditionally connects to state institutions in ways that has limited the impact of political turnovers and global downturns - conducive to long-term industrial activities. In contrast, Philippine state power derives from family networks that merge social and political power, suited to fast-moving, short-term commercial interests. In focusing on this political and institutional story, the author analyses the current development dilemmas of countries, weighed down by historical legacies of unstable regimes, dependency, and social conflict, and how they are likely to develop in the future.
In this critical and sophisticated analysis, Philip F. Kelly challenges the conventional definition of globalization as an irresistible and inevitable force to which societies must succumb. By tracing the consequences of global economic integration in the Philippines, he argues that global processes are constituted, accommodated, mediated and resisted in social processes at multiple scales, from the national economy to the village and the household.
While the British became the dominant colonial power in South Asia, the Dutch, Portuguese, and French also initially vied for control of the region. This volume traces the rise of European influence in South Asia with an in-depth discussion of the path to colonialism and various facets of colonial rule. It contains a history of resistance to colonial rule, discusses how the people of South Asia won their independence, and how explains how the region evolved after independence–including the partition of India and Bangladesh's separation from Pakistan. Readers will come away with an understanding of how colonialism shaped South Asia today.
The Politics of NGOs in Southeast Asia traces the history of the emergence of NGOs in the Philippines and southeast Asia and the political factors which encouraged this. The main focus is on the period from the mid-1990s when NGOs first became a notable force in the region. It documents the complex relations between NGOs and other political actors including the state, organised religion, foreign donors, the business sector and underground insurgent groups and their impact on NGO strategy.
The major objective of this book is to introduce social business models to face the challenge of social issues in emerging countries. Each chapter clarifies business strategies based on diligent field surveys in developing nations, focusing on Bangladesh and the Philippines, where social issues in the age of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are concentrated. The field surveys enable the effective construction of a sophisticated hybrid value chain by connecting a sustainable business ecosystem of local value chains with global value chains. Joint social business entities formed between local NGOs and foreign companies, multinational corporations with global value chains, among others, appear to be the keystones. In Part I, the case of Grameen Euglena in Bangladesh and that of Sari-Sari stores leveraging micro-financing in the Philippines, along with other interesting cases, are analyzed as effective social business models. Analysis also shows that the IT service industry in emerging countries helps to enlarge formal sectors so as to absorb younger generations into informal sectors. The e-health service business in Bangladesh and the business process outsourcing (BPO) IT service industry in the Philippines are examined in each part of the book. Part II, particularly, shows that IT and the digital technology-based service industry can lead to a new industrial development path in these countries instead of the conventional one based on manufacturing. In other words, digital technology-based service industries, as formal sectors, can absorb working people from informal sectors. As a result, poverty issues which form a key issue in SDGS will be alleviated. This book is highly recommended not only to academicians but also to businesspeople who seek an in-depth and up-to-date overview of new sustainable and inclusive businesses in the age of SDGs.
In Diasporic Cold Warriors, Chien-Wen Kung explains how the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) sowed the seeds of anticommunism among the Philippine Chinese with the active participation of the Philippine state. From the 1950s to the 1970s, Philippine Chinese were Southeast Asia's most exemplary Cold Warriors among overseas Chinese. During these decades, no Chinese community in the region was more vigilant in identifying and rooting out suspected communists from within its midst; none was as committed to mobilizing against the People's Republic of China as the one in the former US colony. Ironically, for all the fears of overseas Chinese communities' ties to the PRC at the time, the example of the Philippines shows that the "China" that intervened the most extensively in any Southeast Asian Chinese society during the Cold War was the Republic of China on Taiwan. For the first time, Kung tells the story of the Philippine Chinese as pro-Taiwan, anticommunist partisans, tracing their evolving relationship with the KMT and successive Philippine governments over the mid-twentieth century. Throughout, he argues for a networked and transnational understanding of the ROC-KMT party-state and demonstrates that Taipei exercised a form of nonterritorial sovereignty over the Philippine Chinese with Manila's participation and consent. Challenging depoliticized narratives of cultural integration, he also contends that, because of the KMT, Chinese identity formation and practices of belonging in the Philippines were deeply infused with Cold War ideology. Drawing on archival research and fieldwork in Taiwan, the Philippines, the United States, and China, Diasporic Cold Warriors reimagines the histories of the ROC, the KMT, and the Philippine Chinese, connecting them to the broader canvas of the Cold War and postcolonial nation-building in East and Southeast Asia.
Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research, this book provides a path-breaking account of civil society in the Philippines. It challenges the widespread belief in political science and development studies literature that civil society in developing countries is an institutional arena in which the poor can challenge and reverse their social, economic and political marginalization. The book goes on to argue that Philippine civil society is a captive of organised elite interests and anti-developmental in its impacts, helping elites to oppose the initiatives of reform-minded governments and to protect their interests. In contrast to literature suggesting that the character of civil society is a function of regime type and hence evolves in a path-dependent manner, the book explores the history of Philippine civil society between 1571 and 2010, and suggests that civil society is primarily a function of the evolving political economy of a country and the resulting social structure. It argues that civil society in nascent democracies such as the Philippines develops in a distinctly non-linear manner, largely independently of regime type or regime development. As a result, it argues, democratization in low income countries does not lead inevitably to broader participation and empowerment through civil society expansion, as many academics, activists and donor representatives suggest. The book is of interest to students and scholars of Southeast Asian history and politics, as well as those interested in the study of Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and social movements, and in the statistical capture of civil society.
This clear and nuanced introduction explores the Philippines’ ongoing and deeply charged dilemma of state-society relations through a historical treatment of state formation and the corresponding conflicts and collaboration between government leaders and social forces. Patricio N. Abinales and Donna J. Amoroso examine the long history of institutional weakness in the Philippines and the varied strategies the state has employed to overcome its structural fragility and strengthen its bond with society. The authors argue that this process reflects the country’s recurring dilemma: on the one hand is the state’s persistent inability to provide essential services, guarantee peace and order, and foster economic development; on the other is the Filipinos’ equally enduring suspicions of a strong state. To many citizens, this powerfully evokes the repression of the 1970s and the 1980s that polarized society and cost thousands of lives in repression and resistance and billions of dollars in corruption, setting the nation back years in economic development and profoundly undermining trust in government. The book’s historical sweep starts with the polities of the pre-colonial era and continues through the first year of Rodrigo Duterte’s controversial presidency.
