Duterte and the Global Rise of Strongmen

“Society is always prone to accept a person offhand for what he pretends to be, so that a crackpot posing as a genius always has a certain chance to be believed,” Hannah Arendt warned in Origins of Totalitarianism almost half-a-century ago. Her pioneering work shed light on the factors that led to the emergence of fascist governments in Western Europe in the early decades of the 20th century.

Arendt analyzed how rapid modernization could create a profound sense of alienation and dislocation within what she called a “mass society,” where large numbers of disaffected and marginalized people “are not held together by a consciousness of common interest” and “lack that specific class articulateness,” thus preventing them from participating in mainstream politics. 

Yet, eager to gain political voice, the masses are susceptible to mobilization by demagogues who offer salvation and empowerment in exchange for unbending obedience to an absolute authority--Der Führer, Il Duce--even to the point that some followers would lose “interest in their own well-being” for the fulfillment of a higher cause. As in the case of Germany and Italy, that cause could be highly amorphous goals such as “national glory” or making a broken community “great again.”

Arendt’s work provided an in-depth understanding of the psychological context within which even highly educated societies like Germany could succumb to an atavistic form of politics defined by hierarchy, conformity, and blind obedience, with the horrors of the World War II as its denouement. More importantly, she evinced the dark side of modernity as well as the limits of democratic institutions in containing humanity’s self-destructive instincts.

For some, Arendt’s work is also relevant to understanding contemporary politics among established democracies, especially in light of the rise of far-right parties across Europe, with the likes of Poland and Hungary increasingly resembling “illiberal” democracies, and, even more alarmingly, Donald Trump’s eerily auspicious bid for the White House. Trump’s anti-liberal demagoguery has provoked panic even among the country’s most conservative thinkers. Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative, has gone so far as likening Trump’s presidential campaign to the arrival of fascism in Europe, warning that the “unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people.”

As far as Europe and America are concerned, the retreat of liberal values and the return of nativist politics can’t be dissociated from broader structural factors, namely a stubborn economic downturn, a shrinking middle class, deepening inequality, outsourcing of low-skilled labor and widespread unemployment, or a dramatic uptick in number of refugees and immigrants. In a prescient essay, entitled Why Fascism Is the Wave of the Future (1994), Edward Luttwak warned about the dire political consequences of structural transformation in Western economies, particularly the advent of finance-driven capitalism, which “inflict[s] more disruption on working lives, firms, entire industries and their localities than individuals can absorb, or the connective tissue of friendships, families, clans, elective groupings, neighborhoods, villages, towns, cities or even nations can withstand…” In short, capitalism is on the verge of devouring democracy.

With mainstream parties unable to offer effective countermeasures, Luttwak predicted, there emerges a political “space that remains wide open” to fascist elements, who promise “the enhancement of the personal economic security of the broad masses of (mainly) white-collar working people” and whose “real stock in trade would be corporativist restraints on corporate Darwinism, and delaying if not blocking barriers against globalization.” As Francis Fukuyama argues in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs, this is precisely what is happening in the 2016 American election campaign.

“Given the enormity of the social shift that has occurred, the real question is not why the United States has populism in 2016 but why the explosion did not occur much earlier,” Fukuyama points out in bewilderment. “And here there has indeed been a problem of representation in American institutions: neither political party has served the declining group [blue-collar white American workers] well.”

But what about non-Western societies, many of which are in the middle of an economic renaissance, with an increasingly mobile and aspirational middle class? Well, the march of democracy and liberal values hasn’t been as encouraging outside the West. In the words of Larry Diamond, a leading authority on democratization studies, what the world is experiencing now is a “democratic recession.” As the Stanford University scholar observes, “[t]hough the total number of democracies has not sharply declined, space for civil society is shrinking. Freedom and democracy are in recession.”

In the past fifteen years, as many as 27 democracies experienced either a temporary or long-term breakdown. Some of them, like Kenya, Turkey, Russia, and Thailand, have been among the most promising economies in the emerging world. Since 2012, up to 90 draconian laws have been passed or proposed by various governments to curtail freedom of expression and assembly, primarily to strengthen the grip of the incumbent and weaken opposition groups.

Though a majority of countries across Asia hold regular elections, few of them qualify as liberal democracies. Many fall along the spectrum of electoral autocracies, where elections are designed to simply affirm the hegemony of the ruling coalition, or illiberal democracies, where elected parties are responsive to the prejudices and exclusionary worldviews of the majoritarian constituencies at the expense of minorities.

Even prosperous democracies such as Japan and South Korea have experienced an illiberal lurch in recent years. Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s return to power in Japan, press freedom has experienced a dramatic decline. Between 2010 and 2015, Japan’s ranking in the Press Freedom Index fell from 11th to 61st, thanks to a whole range of draconian measures that curtail freedom of expression in the country. At least three prominent liberal newscasters--Hiroko Kuniya, Ichiro Furutachi, and Shigetada Kishii--have had to resign from their evening news program slots due to alleged political pressure from atop. Nonetheless, Abe is expected to remain at the helm of Japanese politics, thanks to his enduring charisma, coalition-building skills and, above all, the absence of a credible alternative among the opposition.

In South Korea, President Park Geun-hye, the daughter of former dictator Park Chung-hee, has pushed for new state-sanctioned history textbooks, which, according to leading academics, are nothing but self-serving revisionism to whitewash the crimes of her father. Even foreign press, as in the case of Tatsuya Kato, the bureau chief of Japan’s Sankei newspaper, has had to grapple with lèse-majesté-style charges of defamation and a restrictive climate of political discourse.

The picture is equally disconcerting in India, the world’s largest democracy and among the oldest in Asia. In 2014, Hindu-nationalist Narendra Modi, the controversial chief minister of Gujarat, ended the decades-long hegemony of the Congress Party by pulling off a massive electoral victory. For Modi’s legions of supporters, he is a strong-minded and decisive leader who brought unprecedented growth to the state of Gujarat and could do the same for India as a whole. To his critics, he is more of a demagogue, who has overseen an erosion of liberal values and pluralism in India, as the curious trial of award-winning author Arundhati Roy poignantly demonstrates.

Under Modi, there is growing concern that the country’s secular and pluralistic traditions are under threat, so much so that even the supposedly apolitical technocrats have been compelled to air out their opposition. No less than Raghuram Rajan, India’s celebrated central bank governor, was eased out of office not long after expressing discontent with growing threats to freedom of expression under Modi’s watch.

Not too dissimilar from Abe, whose allies are expected to fare well in the July 10 elections, Modi seems to be in a position of dominance, with his allies making huge electoral gains across the country’s diverse political landscape. Strongman figures such as Mamata Banerjee and Jayalalitha Jayaram in the populous states of West Bengal (91 million) and Tamil Nadu (72 million), respectively, have done well in the latest elections, underscoring the widespread appeal of authoritarian figures in Indian politics.

In West Asia, Turkey -- long hailed as a model of Islamic democracy -- has suffered an even more dramatic democratic backslide, as former Prime Minister and current President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan snuffs out voices of moderation within his own party, particularly former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, as well as voices of opposition without. Major newspapers such as Zaman have been entirely shut down, with alarmingly large numbers of journalists placed behind bars.

In Southeast Asia, recent years have seen noticeable political liberalization in places such as Myanmar and, to a lesser degree, Vietnam. But the overall picture is less encouraging. Thailand’s fragile democracy gave way to a military junta, with few signs of a return to democratic politics in the foreseeable future. Malaysia, meanwhile, is grappling with its most acute political crisis in decades, as Prime Minster Najib Razak confronts corruption scandals and a resurgent opposition with little promise of political resolution in the near future.

In Indonesia, the highly charismatic Joko Widodo, affectionately known as “Jokowi,” nonetheless faced stiff competition from Prabowo Subianto, a Suharto-era general, who has been accused of human rights violations. Pushing back against the progressive populism of his opponent, Prabowo astutely tapped into autocratic nostalgia among Indonesian voters and promised Suharto-style discipline and decisive leadership to rein in widespread corruption and political uncertainty in the reformasi era.

If not for the 11th hour outpouring of support among millennial voters and significant sections of the Indonesian middle class, Jokowi could have very well lost an election that months earlier many thought he would win with relative ease. As a populist, Jokowi was able to capture the imagination of Indonesian voters by presenting himself as a hands-on executive, who is willing to be constantly in touch with the voters and fight for the rights of common men against the Jakarta-based oligarchy. To some, even Jokowi himself began to exhibit authoritarian tendencies once in power.

The Philippines, one of Asia’s most promising emerging market democracies, hasn’t been immune to this broader global and regional trend, specifically the growing penchant for decisive, single-minded leaders, who promise swift and definitive solutions to long-standing social maladies. As Indian essayist Pankaj Mishra eloquently explains, the appeal of strongmen and populist leaders lies in “offering not so much despotic authority as a new relationship between the rulers and the ruled.” Their electoral strength lies in how they “shrewdly grasped a widely felt need for a new mode of sincere, dedicated leadership, as well as a more energetic way of involving the masses in politics.”

This is the context within which one should understand the stunning victory of Rodrigo Duterte, a tough-talking provincial mayor who has gained international notoriety for his foul-mouthed outbursts, macho yet puerile bluster, diplomatic gaffes, abhorrent jokes, and open criticism of the Southeast Asian country’s democratic institutions. Similar to Erdoğan, Jokowi, and Modi, who banked on their successful local government stints in Istanbul, Solo, and Gujarat respectively, Duterte promised a “Davao model” of business success and public safety to the Filipino people. And similar to his Indonesian, Turkish, and Indian counterparts, Duterte also presented himself as an anti-establishment candidate, promising to overhaul a dysfunctional system hobbled by patronage-politics and an elite-dominated economy.

In Duterte, the Philippines hasn’t only elected a strongman, but it may have very well opted for a new era of politics. Three decades after the downfall of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, the Filipino people are clamoring for systemic change. But who is Rodrigo Duterte? How did he manage to pull off an unlikely victory in the Philippine presidential elections? What does his election mean for the country and beyond? What are his key challenges?

Grievance Politics

In recent years, the Philippines has been the toast of the town among international media and institutional investors. And there is good reason for this. Under the leadership of President Benigno “NoyNoy” Aquino, the sole son of one of the country’s most revered democratic icons, the Philippines has experienced its highest growth rates in almost half-a-century. Macroeconomic indicators have rarely been as good, with sustainable debt levels, moderate interest rates, a healthy trade balance, and relatively low inflation creating an encouraging business environment in a country long dismissed as “sick man of Asia.”

Last year, the Philippines was the world’s fourth fastest growing economy. Earlier this year, the Philippines posted the fastest growth rate in Asia. Emerging market gurus like Ruchir Sharma of Morgan Stanley have been bullish about the Philippines, identifying it as among the world’s most promising breakout nations. The Philippines has also experienced progress, leapfrogging in major indices such as economic competitiveness and openness and, to a lesser degree, in combating corruption, which has been the centerpiece of the Aquino administration’s good governance (Daan Matuwid) initiatives.

No wonder then that Aquino, who is considered the country’s most trusted official, is stepping down from office as one of the world’s most popular democratically elected presidents in recent history. Against this uplifting background, many expected Aquino’s allies and preferred successors to dominate the 2016 elections. Instead, the polls produced a president that won on the back of discontent against the status quo.

In his landmark work, Political Order in Changing Societies (1968) Harvard University Professor Samuel Huntington warned about the prospects of political breakdown and/or autocratic takeover in post-colonial nations. Huntington argued that rapidly developing countries might sow the seeds of their own political undoing. More specifically, he explained how intensified social demands and civil society mobilization tend to supersede government’s capacity to supply basic services and fulfill rising expectations among an increasingly aspirational middle class. Soon, a revolution of expectations, Huntington argued, would bring about unexpected political change even when economic conditions seemed most promising.

In many ways, this is what happened in the Philippines’ case. On one hand, gains under the Aquino administration weren’t as impressive, locally, as portrayed by the international media. And yet, the government constantly promised the impossible, vowing to rid the country of corruption, bring lasting peace to the troubled regions of Mindanao, and transform the Philippines into an economic powerhouse. Despite years of rapid economic growth, the Philippines still suffers from the highest unemployment rate in Southeast Asia. Metro-Manila, which is host to one of the largest slums in the world, is a constant reminder of the failure of trickle-down economics and inefficiencies of the public sector in the country.

According to the 2015 Global Driver Satisfaction Index, the Philippines’ capital has the world’s worst traffic congestion, largely because, in the words of The Economist, Manila’s “transport plans have been terrible—among the most foolish adopted by any great city.” Under Aquino’s watch, public transportation woes have festered. Despite the administration’s promise to revamp the country’s creaking public infrastructure, recent years have seen frequent breakdowns in the Metro Rail Transit (MRT) system, an embarrassing April 2016 blackout in the country’s international airport, as well as delays and alleged anomalies in the bidding process and implementation of big-ticket Public-Private Partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects.

Far from becoming “Asia’s rising tiger,” the Philippine economy continues to pivot around low-to-medium-end services, an import-driven retail industry, large-scale remittances from Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs), and speculative enterprises like real estate development. The manufacturing sector, hobbled by high utility costs, a shortage of skilled labor, and the infrastructure deficit, is a minor player in the country’s economic landscape. Meanwhile, rural poverty is as severe as ever, with anachronistic feudal conditions undermining the country’s food security and tremendous agricultural potential. As far as land reform and financial-institutional support for impoverished farmers is concerned, the Aquino administration has been a major disappointment. 

Even when it comes to the Aquino administration’s core initiative, the record is mixed at best. For many Filipinos, the Aquino administration’s anti-corruption measures lacked both efficacy and impartiality. The main targets were often members of the opposition and holdovers of the previous administration, while government insiders were allegedly shielded from prosecution. The bigger problem, however, is effectiveness. Not even a single high-profile figure accused of corruption has been put in jail. In fact, one of them, Senator Juan Ponce Enrile, a Marcos-era crony, was able to get back to work after posting a relatively modest bail. Here, the blame should be primarily heaped on the Philippines’ snail-paced judicial bureaucracy, which has been too slow in operationalizing the president’s anti-corruption initiatives.

The Aquino administration also suffered from setbacks in the realm of ensuring public safety and enhancing the country’s national security. After years of painstaking peace negotiations with the country’s major rebel group, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Aquino administration -- facing public backlash after the Mamasapano tragedy -- failed to convince its legislative allies to pass the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL), the legal foundation for the establishment of an autonomous Muslim sub-state in Mindanao. In recent months, Mindanao-based extremist groups aligned to the Islamic State (ISIS) have upped the ante, capturing headlines by launching high-profile kidnap-for-ransom operations and expanding attacks on the national army.

In the maritime realm, the Philippines also suffered reversals as a revanchist China chipped away at Philippine-claimed land features such as Scarborough Shoal and restricted the ability of Filipino fishermen and troops to roam in the Southeast Asian country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). Meanwhile, the national crime rate soared to worrying levels, undermining public trust in the ability of the government to confront organized crime and suppress petty criminals. 

Nonetheless, the majority of Filipinos appreciated Aquino’s sincere efforts to make corruption a central theme in the country’s public discourse, and have taken notice of the Philippines’ rising international profile. Yet, Aquino’s greatest shortcoming was the failure to meaningfully transform a country of 100 million dominated politically and economically by a few families and conglomerates. Out of 81 provinces in the Philippines, at least 73 are dominated by around 178 political dynasties, which have made a mockery out of the country’s democratic institutions by turning elected office into a family business. Even compared to notoriously unequal Latin American countries, the Philippines stands out as a classic case of oligarchy disguised as democracy. The majority of legislators (70 percent) in the Philippine Congress hail from political dynasties, a far higher rate than in comparable countries like Mexico (40 percent) and Argentina (10 percent). According to the World Bank, the 40 richest families in the Philippines gobbled up more than three-fourths of newly-created growth in the country.

Aquino, who significantly raised public expectations by promising a righteous government, was not a transformational leader. And the Philippine “democracy” was losing its appeal. The public began to rapidly run out of patience ahead of the 2016 presidential elections, with a zeitgeist of grievance politics taking over the nation. In this new political atmosphere, the Filipino electorate proved increasingly open to “outside the box” candidates, who promised decisive solutions to longstanding challenges such as poverty, criminality, and corruption.

The whole elite democratic regime, which replaced the Marcos dictatorship, faced a referendum during the 2016 elections, with “autocratic nostalgia” suffusing the political discourse. Large pluralities expressed either passionate support or decided to cast protest votes in favor of Ferdinand “Bong Bong” Marcos Jr., the son of the former dictator who lost the vice presidential race by a whisker, and Davao City’s tough-talking mayor, Rodrigo Duterte, who captured the presidency in a landslide victory over his closest rivals.

The 21st Century Caudillo

Grievance politics surely provided the necessary space for unorthodox candidates like Duterte to enter the presidential race. Autocratic nostalgia gave Marcos a huge boost. But Duterte’s victory was also a reflection of the weaknesses of his opponents and the strengths of his campaign strategy. In the initial phase of the presidential race, Duterte was largely dismissed as a “political outsider” with little chance of dislodging rivals from Manila, who were better known and boasted massive campaign machinery.

Duterte, a scion of one of the Philippines’ oldest political clans, turned his perceived outsider status into a source of strength. He constantly portrayed himself as the underdog, a provincial mayor from Mindanao with limited resources. At some point, he even suggested calling it quits due to financial constraints. It didn’t take long before he presented himself as the anti-establishment candidate, who needed the support of the ordinary folks to take on the national oligarchy in “imperial Manila.”

Luckily for him, Duterte’s opponents were not short of vulnerabilities. Vice President Jejomar Binay, who a year earlier was seen as a runaway winner and could boast his own “Makati model” of success, confronted corruption scandals, which alienated much of the electorate. Neophyte Senator Grace Poe faced constant criticism regarding her eligibility, particularly her citizenship and residency status, lack of relevant executive experience, and, above all, proximity to reviled oligarchs and corrupt politicians.

As for Manuel “Mar” Roxas, an Ivy-League-educated technocrat and the anointed successor of Aquino, he not only lacked the populist touch of his opponents, but, more importantly, made the crucial mistake of presenting himself as a de facto referendum on the incumbent just when a growing number of people were clamoring for change and improvement of the status quo.

Eager to stand out in a tightly contested race, Duterte went on the offensive, portraying his opponents as incompetent, corrupt, and as puppets of the oligarchy. Meanwhile, he also launched a social media blitzkrieg, which further amplified his already-extensive media presence. Similar to Donald Trump, Duterte, with his profanity-laced braggadocio and penchant for transducing political correctness, skillfully placed himself at the center of media coverage and public discourse without spending a single penny. Duterte projected himself as a modern caudillo, and many loved it.

Unlike Trump, however, Duterte could boast two decades of actual public service and a myriad of progressive programs for minorities. One of Duterte’s strongest assets was his rose-tinted portrayal of Davao--his “Exhibit A”--as a city of progress and tranquility. Much of his political career was spent in the provincial city, which not long ago was considered as among the most dangerous places in the country, ravaged by insurgencies and organized crime. Today, Davao is known as the economic engine of the southern Philippines, a bustling metropolis with massively improved public safety and overall living conditions.

To residents of Metro-Manila and the vote-rich northern island of Luzon, Duterte promised public safety and efficient governance. To voters in the peripheral regions of Visayas and Mindanao, he promised greater autonomy, infrastructure investments, and increased revenues. It proved a winning formula, allowing Duterte to dominate the race across all socioeconomic classes and build support in all major provinces. In the Philippines’ single-round, first-past-the-post presidential race, all Duterte had to do was to gain more votes than his opponents, convincing a plurality of voters to bet on him.

But now that he is the president, the reality is kicking in. Perplexed by Italy’s rapid transformation in the early-20th century, Antonio Gramsci lamented how the “old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born.” The Philippines is caught in a similar interregnum. While Duterte’s victory marks, at least symbolically, the requiem for the elite democracy that replaced the Marcos regime, it is not clear what a Duterte presidency will actually mean.

Without a doubt, the primary challenge for Duterte is to transform from a “loose cannon” candidate into a more statesmanlike figure who upholds the dignity of the presidential office and appropriately engages foreign dignitaries and other key circles of power. To be fair, Duterte has exhibited a more pragmatic streak when it comes to his foreign policy pronouncements, particularly with respect to the South China Sea disputes, as well as macro-economic policy.

Unlike the outgoing Aquino administration, which has taken a confrontational stance on the maritime spats, Duterte has emphasized the necessity of direct bilateral engagement and revival of investment relations, particularly in the realm of infrastructure development, with China. Duterte, a self-described “socialist” with historical ties with communists, has often expressed doubts with regard to America’s commitment to the Philippines. But he is unlikely to significantly shake up the institutionalized alliance with Washington, which is extremely influential among the Philippine security establishment and media.

Most likely, he will adopt an equilateral balancing strategy toward superpowers, particularly the United States and China, refusing to side with one against the other and cooperating with each depending on the issue at hand. In fact, Duterte, who has expressed doubts vis-à-vis the utility of international law in resolving the South China Sea disputes, may even choose to not fully leverage a favorable arbitration outcome against China in order to reopen frozen communication channels with Beijing.

A cursory look at Duterte’s cabinet also reveals that he will stick with the macroeconomic policies of his predecessors, with seasoned and trusted technocrats ensuring the Philippines will maintain its economic momentum. One can expect more speedy and expansive infrastructure development under Duterte, who is open to large-scale Chinese infrastructure investments and is eager to bridge the development gap between Mindanao and the rest of the country. Duterte’s transportation secretary, Arthur Tugade, may even employ emergency powers to speed up approval of public infrastructure projects to address traffic congestion in Manila. In order to ensure more economic inclusiveness, Duterte has offered several cabinet positions to leftist-progressive stalwarts, who dedicated their lives to advocating for farmer and labor rights, land reform, and the environment.

Having raised public expectations to stratospheric levels, Duterte faces the daunting task of operationalizing his main campaign promise, the astonishing claim that he can eliminate -- later downgraded to “suppress” -- organized crime and the proliferation of drugs within his first three to six months in office. Drawing on his experience as mayor of Davao, Duterte has expressed his determination to empower the law enforcement agencies to more effectively fulfill their duties. This could come in the form of much-needed salary hikes, better training and equipment, dismissal of corrupt officers, introduction of more meritocratic promotion, and the overhaul of the penitentiary system.

By promising to launch a comprehensive campaign against crime, Duterte has significantly raised the morale of the Philippine National Police, which has stepped up its operations against organized crime. It is, however, important for Duterte to push back against his overzealous supporters, who expect overnight solutions to inherently complex issues such as the prevalence of crime and drugs, by calling for more patience and appreciation of the limits of state power. He will also have to reassure his legions of critics -- from the Catholic Church to members of the media and the outgoing president, who have raised concerns with Duterte’s authoritarian tendencies – that he will not tinker with the democratic institutions and will respect the rule of law.

Enjoying “supermajority” support in the Philippine Congress, and set to appoint 11 justices of the Supreme Court, Duterte enters office as the most powerful president since Marcos. At the same time, he enters office as the most polarizing president since the fall of Marcos, with lower trust ratings than all his predecessors. To govern effectively as a democratically-elected leader, he will have to expand his constituency and translate his unprecedented power into actual reforms on the ground. As far as his contemporaries are concerned, many hope that Duterte will go along the path of Jokowi, who has gradually translated his popularity into concrete reforms, rather than that of Erdoğan, who transformed from a populist democrat to a modern sultan.