Empowering progress: Reformism and State-Building in the Philippines

Wednesday, April 19, 2017
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM (Pacific)

Philippines Conference Room
Encina Hall, Third Floor, Central, C330
616 Jane Stanford Way, Stanford, CA 94305

Speaker:

David G. Timberman

Co-sponsored by the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law and the Southeast Asia Program

The Philippines is typically characterized as a weak, even patrimonial, state in which powerful oligarchs and political families dominate politics and policymaking. By implication, the elite should be able to easily suppress reform and the state should be unwilling or incapable of carrying out reforms. Yet some efforts to achieve socioeconomic and governance reform have succeeded. How and why is this the case? And what does this suggest about the changing nature of the Philippine state?

This presentation will examine the dynamics and outcomes of three extended efforts at social, economic and governance reform in the Philippines: 1) agrarian reform; 2) liberalization of the telecommunications sector and 3) fiscal and budget reforms.

Theory and practice will be bridged in an examination of interlinked factors including the autonomy and capacity of the state, the limits on reform imposed by elite-dominated democracy, and the conditions and strategies that have enabled some reforms to succeed.

Particular questions to be addressed will include:

· What are the political and institutional barriers to reform in the Philippines? How have these changed over time?

· How have these barriers been overcome in the cases of “successful” reform? What does “successful” mean?

· How have attempts at reform strengthened or weakened the state?

· Looking forward, will the typically partial or incremental character of reform result in transformational change, or deflect it?

David Timberman is a political analyst and development practitioner with 30 years of experience analyzing and addressing political, governance and conflict-related challenges, principally in Southeast and South Asia. As a Visiting Scholar at Stanford/APARC he is working on a book on the contemporary Philippine political economy. During 2015-2016 he was a Visiting Professor of Political Science at De La Salle University in Manila. He has lived and worked in the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore, including experiencing first-hand the democratic transitions in the Philippines (1986-1988) and Indonesia (1998-2001). He has written extensively on political and governance issues in the Philippines and has edited or co-edited multi-author volumes on the Philippines, Cambodia, and economic policy reform in Southeast Asia.

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