Beyond the ballot
A We-Poem and significant-others analysis of senior citizens’ vote-buying narratives in the 2025 Philippine National Elections
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19491891 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hermenio Jr Baylin Cabusog (Bukidnon State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2026 |
| Volume | 8 |
| Publication date | 2026-05-29 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers in Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2673-3145 • E-ISSN: 2673-3145 |
| Publisher | Frontiers Media SA (PUBLISHER • CH) |
| DOI | 10.3389/fpos.2026.1749705 |
| OpenAlex | W7162799450 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 34 |
Introduction Vote-buying remains a durable feature of clientelist electoral politics and may contribute to democratic backsliding not only through elite manipulation, but also through everyday forms of adaptation, dependence, and moral negotiation among voters. This article examines how senior citizens in Northern Mindanao, Philippines narrated and negotiated vote-buying during the 2025 Philippine national elections. Methods The study used a qualitative, interpretive, multiple-case design. It drew on in-depth interviews with five older voters from Misamis Oriental, Bukidnon, and Lanao del Norte who reported direct encounters with vote-buying. The analysis combined We-Poem analysis with Significant Others Matrices to reconstruct the relational moral worlds through which electoral inducements were interpreted, accepted, contested, or quietly resisted. Results The findings identified five overlapping modes of everyday citizenship under clientelist elections: sheltered home–church minimalism, pedagogical critique through teaching and faith, negotiated survival with conscience, quiet authority and strategic acceptance, and vulnerable vigilance with vote protection. Across cases, vote-buying was not narrated as a straightforward sale of the vote, but as a morally ambivalent practice shaped by poverty, kinship, religious commitment, neighborhood pressure, vulnerability, and claims to conscience. Discussion The study shows how democratic backsliding is lived from below. Electoral erosion is reproduced and normalized through routinized “help,” dependence, withdrawal, and strategic acceptance, yet it is also partially checked through prayer, civic pedagogy, vote protection, rights-based autonomy, and moral boundary work. The article contributes a relational account of vote-buying that complements survey-based and experimental approaches by showing how degraded electoral politics are negotiated in everyday life
Ambivalence · Citizenship · Democracy · Elite · Narrative · Negotiation · Politics · Philippine History and Culture · Politics and Society in Latin America · Populism, Right-Wing Movements
Characterising and justifying sample size sufficiency in interview-based studies
Purposeful Sampling for Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis in Mixed Method Implementation Research
The Philippines
Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism
A practical guide to reflexivity in qualitative research
Language differences in qualitative research
Sample sizes for saturation in qualitative research
Local elections and democratic backsliding
Doing qualitative and interpretative research
Democratic backsliding in the Philippines
Introduction
Civil Society's Inconsistent Liberalism in Southeast Asia
Civil Society and Democratic Decline in Southeast Asia
Bowed, Bent, & Broken
Poem is What?” Poetic Inquiry in Qualitative Social Science Research
Using thematic analysis in psychology
When Clientelism Backfires
On Democratic Backsliding
State of the world 2024
Vote buying, turnout and trust
Guns for hire and enduring machines
State of the world 2021
Agents of resistance
What halts democratic erosion? The changing role of accountability
Vote Buying, Norms, Context, and Trust in Elections
Interpretation and political science in Australia
Unwelcome Change
Theories of Democratic Backsliding
Code Saturation Versus Meaning Saturation
Sample Size in Qualitative Interview Studies
Thematic Analysis
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |