Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores social policy reforms championed by the Philippines' strongman president Rodrigo Duterte during his first three years in office (2016-19), as a case for examining the transformative potential of social policy expansion under rising new right-wing and authoritarian leaders. By showing how political economy and historico-institutional conditions foreclose the transformative possibilities of the social policy changes effected by Duterte, the author offers a critique of current tendencies in global development discourses to treat all forms of social policy expansion as progressive. In the Philippines case, there is no progressive ideology guiding the reforms, nor are there political movements overseeing the expansion of social rights now inscribed in law. Rather, the reforms institutionally entrench a minimalist approach to universalism and strengthen the foothold of poverty targeting as an organizing principle of social provisioning. Social policy expansion under Duterte manifests aspects of the 'dark side' of social policy reforms during the current global political moment, including the use of such policy reforms to legitimize a conservative and authoritarian political order, and the functionality, across the political spectrum, of 'narrow universalism' - the type championed by international development agencies - which serves to deepen segmentation in social provisioning.
Source: Development and Change
DOI: 10.1111/dech.12564
Author: Charmaine G. Ramos
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
Estimated APC paid: $3,300
Funder: European Research Council
Award: G7088140009
OpenAlex ID: W3000276680