Politicians, Parties, and the Persistence of Weak States
Lessons from the Philippines
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4901344 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gabriella R Montinola (0000-0003-3297-7484, University of California, Davis, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 30 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 739-774 |
| Publication date | 1999-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Development and Change (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0012-155X • E-ISSN: 1467-7660 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-7660.00136 |
| OpenAlex | W1978541261 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
Under what conditions will politicians strengthen state capabilities through bureaucratic reform? This article presents a principal-agent model of state capacity that shows that unless competition to influence policy is largely confined to a single dimension, politicians have no incentive or 'political will' to adopt bureaucratic reform. The validity of this model is tested using the experience of the Philippines in the period 1946-72. It is found that politically relevant groups in the Philippines were competing to influence policy over issues of social welfare, economic nationalism and control over public spending, and that groups' demands over these issues failed to align along a single dominant dimension. Consistent with expectations derived from the principal-agent model, there were numerous calls for and attempts to improve bureaucratic performance, but the calls went unheeded and the attempts failed miserably. The study highlights a lesson of potential use to countries currently undergoing democratization. It argues that state capacity is not a function of insulating the state from societal forces, but rather of clarifying lines of authority and accountability in the hierarchy of principal-agent relationships between society, politicians and bureaucrats
Accountability · Bureaucracy · Competition (biology · Democracy · Democratization · Dimension (graph theory · Economic system · Economics · Hierarchy · Incentive · Market economy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Principal (computer security · State (computer science · Asian Studies and History · Law · Philippine History and Culture · Public Administration
Pro-Poor Land Reform
Syndromes of Corruption
Democracy, Inequality and Corruption
Philippine Politics and Government
Political Obstacles to Decentralization
Syndromes of Corruption
The 2019 midterm elections in the Philippines
Electoral persistence and the quality of public policies
Transaction Costs and Crony Capitalism in East Asia
When Running for Office Runs in the Family
The politics of decentralizing national parks management in the Philippines
Elites in Local Development in the Philippines
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,48 |
| Citation span | 2001 - 2023 (23) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |