In Search of the State-in-society: Re-conceiving Philippine Political Development, 1946 - 2002

This monograph investigates the politics of selected social forces in the post-independence Philippines since 1946. It answers three research questions: 1. Is the Philippines a weak state? 2. Why is it? 3. How exceptional is it? To answer the first and second question, an analysis of the politics of the Huk Rebellion and the Communist insurgencies is provided. As two contending social forces, their interactions with the Philippine state help to identify the ever-contesting nature of Philippine state-society relations. An analysis of the relationships between the Philippine Chinese and Philippine state formation further reveals two dominant patterns of state-society engagements in the Philippines: oligarchy and cronyism, in which private interests overshadow public common good. These elements constitute a cultural specificity for the weak Philippine state: the politics of contestations. A comparison between the Philippine state and the sub-Saharan African states is employed to answer the third question. The comparison further suggests that the politics of contestations is the unique symbolic-moral order of the Philippines.