The Philippines
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2012
The Philippines has exhibited characteristics of both a fragile and basic limited access order since independence in 1946, but the nature of the Philippine state has not been static. The country has experienced two critical junctures since independence, resulting in three distinct historical periods. Democratically elected representatives ruled the country from 1946 to 1972. The democratic experiment ended in 1972 when then incumbent president Ferdinand Marcos executed a coup against the system and began his rule as dictator. A nonviolent revolution ended Marcos’s authoritarian rule in 1986, and the country is once again ruled by democratically elected representatives.
These significant political changes were accompanied by changes in the nature of the country’s ruling coalition as well as the rents used to sustain the coalition (see Table 5.1). From 1946 to 1972, the country was dominated by a coalition of elite families and foreign capitalists who controlled access to economic and political power. The major source of wealth at independence was agricultural land, but this source was soon augmented by industrial policy-induced rents. The ruling coalition used these rents to secure loyalty and to defuse periodic violence from non-elite groups. The strategy was unsustainable, however, because the rent-creating policies did not produce enough resources to satisfy the increasingly restive non-elite groups. The threat of disorder and violence enabled Ferdinand Marcos to install himself as dictator in 1972.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.