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Philippine Political Science Journal

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State structure, policy formation, and

economic development in Southeast
Asia: The political economy of Thailand
and the Philippines
a
A. R. Magno
a
Department of Political Science , University of the Philippines
Published online: 27 Nov 2012.

To cite this article: A. R. Magno (2012) State structure, policy formation, and economic
development in Southeast Asia: The political economy of Thailand and the Philippines, Philippine
Political Science Journal, 33:2, 250-252, DOI: 10.1080/01154451.2012.734101

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2012.734101

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 Philippine Political Science Journal
Vol. 33, No. 2, December 2012, 250–263

BOOK REVIEWS

State structure, policy formation, and economic development in Southeast Asia:

The political economy of Thailand and the Philippines, by Antoinette R. Raquiza,
London and New York, Routledge, 2012, 204 pp., £85.00, ISBN 9780415617673

Among the attractions of the institutional approach is that it lends itself so easily to
comparative analysis. The combination of institutionalism and comparative politics is a
powerful one, enabling more incisive understanding of large phenomena: such as, for
instance, the variance in the development experiences of nation states.
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The combination of analytical approaches allows much more insight than, say, a mere
comparison of national accounts over a period. It enables the analyst to avoid the tendency
to descend into dogmatism in the highly abstracted debate between one development
policy approach against another: as in the worthless debate between “nationalist”
economic growth and “globalization.”
Antoinette Raquiza demonstrates this in her comparative study of the institutional
settings in Thailand and the Philippines in an attempt to explain the variance in economic
outcomes between the two countries. Her study is anchored on the characterization of
Thailand as a “bureaucratic polity” and the Philippines as a “proprietary polity.”
As a “bureaucratic polity,” the Thai state has been better able to take the “commanding
heights” in choosing between policy options to ensure more optimal and more sustained
paths to development. As a “proprietary polity” where the economic elites directly take a
stake in state power, resort to regulatory capture, or otherwise bend policy to suit specific
and immediate proprietary interests, the Philippine state produced a fluid regulatory
structure and constantly shifting policy architecture.
The difference in institutional configurations (and she fails to mention, in order not to
clutter her analysis, significant differences in political culture) produced different policy
outcomes. The differences in policy outcomes in turn produced different results in the
economic evolution of the two countries.
There is a growing genre of comparative analysis being done to help explain why the
Philippines had done so badly in a neighborhood of rapidly emerging economies.
This study is not the first and will not be the last comparing our inferior performance
relative to Thailand in particular.
The inferiority is quite sharp, indeed. Over the past three or four decades, Thailand
outperformed us in every conventional aspect of economic growth despite the mainland
Asian economy having more changes in government than we bother to count. Thailand has
a strong agricultural base, making her a net exporter of agricultural produce. Income
inequality is less pronounced. Thailand’s capital market overshadows ours many times
over.
Thailand’s manufacturing sector is strong, helped along by foreign direct investments
many times larger than what we get. By contrast, Philippine manufacturing is hollowing
out due to structural constraints. Adept policy-making insulates investor confidence in the
Thai economy against sometimes turbulent political episodes. By contrast, the Philippines

ISSN 0115-4451 print/ISSN 2165-025X online

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01154451.2012.734101
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 Philippine Political Science Journal 251

suffers from a shifting environment even in the most placid political episodes due to
extensive regulatory capture and a heavily politicized policy-making process marred by
sharp discontinuities after every “normal” transfer of power.
Using the categories of “bureaucratic” and “proprietary” polities, Raquiza
demonstrates the superiority of a strong bureaucracy in ensuring far-sighted policies
and institutional continuity. The difference in institutional configuration explains the
policy stability in Thailand and the policy chaos that drives away long-term direct
investments in the Philippines. It likewise creates differences in the “rent” derived by the
elites: in Thailand, retiring bureaucrats are rewarded with seats on the boards of large
conglomerates; in the Philippines, gratification is instant.
The comparison of “bureaucratic” and “proprietary” polities is a refinement on the
older juxtaposition of “strong” and “weak” states. It better represents the continuity of
institutional practices and the procedural cultures they nurture even after seemingly
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turbulent breaks in regimes. Taken from a longer view, after all, an economy’s
development performance tends to exhibit only incremental changes notwithstanding
sharp breaks in the political sphere.
It is one thing, however, to attempt a demonstration of the viability of a theoretical
approach and to compellingly explain the shaping of a long historical course (as the once
fashionable “grand theories” aspired to do).
Raquiza’s study (based on a doctoral dissertation), succeeds as a demonstration of the
viability of the theoretical approach she employs. Whether this is a final explanation for
the variance in development outcomes of the two countries she compares is, of course,
quite another thing.
There could be no monocausal explanation for complex historical outcomes. The
deeper our examination of historical processes, the more feeble our conceptual
instruments often seem to be. That is the exasperation – as well as the joy – of analyzing
large phenomena, such as nation states and the forms of development they foster.
The configuration of institutions and processes defining policy formation might seem
to be the key factor explaining variance in development outcomes, given political
scientists’ preoccupation with the state. This is the necessary postulation underpinning
Raquiza’s analysis.
We do recognize that there are more profound historical factors (as well as more
defining historical accidents) differentiating Thailand’s and the Philippines’ development
experiences.
Thailand has been a kingdom for centuries. The idea of a single community that is the
nation (or kingdom) is well rooted, facilitating greater sensitivity for the needs of the more
encompassing abstraction over more concrete and more particular interests. The kingdom
managed to negotiate its way to remain outside the fold of direct colonial occupation
(by Britain and by Japan), a feat reflected not only in a deep sense of common fate but also
institutional apparatuses as well as policies that enabled a deep tradition of self-
management.
By contrast, the Philippines is an entity defined by the colonial experience. The state
formed as an instrument of domination, often insensitive to the welfare of the grass roots.
The irresponsible elite that pervaded the archipelago operated on a different set of values
and economic goals. The bureaucracy never developed the degree of institutional integrity
seen elsewhere.
Too, there are glaring topographical differences: Thailand being a contiguous land
mass and the Philippines a fragmented archipelago. Early on, Thailand evolved an
efficient domestic logistical framework while the Philippines has been handicapped by
 252 Book Reviews

severe logistical inefficiency to this day, a factor explaining wide disparities in local
economies. The logistical inefficiencies, while they hampered domestic commerce, often
served the self-perpetuation requirements of local elites.
We can go on and on, building an inventory of historical, geographic, and cultural
variations, but the point is made.
A.R. Magno
Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines
E-mail: alexrmagno@gmail.com
q 2012, A.R. Magno

Feminista: Gender, race, and class in the Philippines, edited by Noelle Leslie de la
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Cruz and Jeanne Peracullo, Manila, Anvil Publishing Inc., 2011, 216 pp., PHP 495.00,
ISBN 97127-25401

The Philippines is often now touted by international development agencies as a country

that has substantially made progress in terms of gender equality. This is arguably subject to
debate given the intersection of gender with such factors as race, class, and ethnicity,
especially in the Philippine context. With only about 40% of Filipino women in paid
employment, and women’s political participation rate below international standards, the
country indeed has a long way to go in its gender equality goals. This is exactly the
argument made by Feminista: Gender, Race, and Class in the Philippines. Published in
commemoration of the centennial of the De La Salle University (DLSU), a group of
academics embarked on a book project seeking to present contemporary feminist issues.
In their introduction to the volume, editors Noelle Leslie dela Cruz and Jeanne
Peracullo argue that gender issues and debates remain relevant even as Filipinos are
bombarded on the internet by Western images that seem to potray a post-feminist era.
Indeed, as Emily Sanchez, one of the writers in the volume, candidly writes, the
Philippines has “a long way to go (151)” in protecting women’s rights despite premature
pronouncements to the contrary. In a country where reproductive health issues and divorce
remain contentious matters, grappling with modernity and its discontents is still a huge
preoccupation. What is interesting though is that in the essays there is a conscious effort to
clearly set the parameters that gender is not just about women but also includes men and
issues of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer communities. Lamentably, this
thinking is still confined to the academe since the general public still ascribe gender speak
with “women only.” Nevertheless, it is still a welcome respite that a group of academics
embarked on a book project that seeks to problematize gender and feminism with an
s. Beyond reifying a monolithic, narrow, and stereotypical image of man-hating feminists,
the book rightfully argues that “ . . . feminisms are self-reflexive, critical, and by no means
homogenous; and that the word feminist – as with the word nationalist – is something that
any honest and rigorous intellectual can be proudly associated with (x).”
Straddling the arena of post-structuralism and post-modernism, the essays bear an
eclectic mix of topics ranging from philosphical musings of feminist strategies,
interrogating the body as a terrain of inquiry, exploring arts and the media, to examining
current social policies and their gaps in addressing the feminist agenda. The common
thread that runs through the essays is their critical nature and the eclectic mix of methods
necessary to present a feminist critique of contemporary issues.