Democracy in the Philippines

Author(s):  
Tony Smith

This chapter examines the dynamic of American imperialism in the Philippines since 1898 and the role played by the United States in determining the values, practices, and institutions that constitute democracy in the islands today. It first explains why the United States decided to sponsor democracy in the Philippines after defeating Spain in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898. It then considers the political and socioeconomic dimensions of the United States' democratization of the Philippines, focusing on its introduction of the trappings of modern government such as political parties, elections, and the rise of a Filipino landed class whose wealth was based on the production of export commodities. It also discusses the negative effects of a landowning oligarchy on Philippine democracy and concludes with an assessment of the reasons why General Douglas MacArthur did not mandate land reform for the Philippines.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wyatt Wells

AbstractIn the 1890s, questions about whether to base the American currency upon gold or silver dominated public discourse and eventually forced a realignment of the political parties. The matter often confuses modern observers, who have trouble understanding how such a technically complex—even arcane—issue could arouse such passions. The fact that no major nation currently backs its currency with precious metal creates the suspicion that the issue was a “red herring” that distracted from matters of far greater importance. Yet the rhetoric surrounding the “Battle of the Standards” indicates that the more sophisticated advocates of both sides understood that, in the financial context of the 1890s, the contest between gold and silver not only had important economic implications but would substantially affect the future development of the United States.


1944 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 235-248
Author(s):  
Clarence A. Berdahl

It is now more than one hundred years since the substance of the Connally Resolution was first adopted by a legislative body in the United States; it is almost fifty years since the United States, at the Hague Conferences, took the lead in pressing for an international court with much more power than the Court we have since failed to join; it is about thirty-five years since Congress itself, by a unanimous vote in both houses, adopted a resolution urging that the United States Navy be combined with other navies into an international police force for the preservation of peace; it is not quite thirty years ago that the political parties, without any of the present hullabaloo on the point, and at a time when the United States was not itself at war, achieved such a unity of position in their stand for effective American participation in world order as to make debate between them on that issue virtually nil; and it is not quite thirty years ago that the man soon to become the Republican leader in the Senate joined from the same platform with the Democratic President in an appeal for a League of Nations, and a League with force, both economic and military, at its command.


1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 561-576 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randall B. Ripley

In the literature on political parties in the United States Congress two points are usually stressed. First, it is said that the political party label lacks a precise programmatic content because “party government” in the British sense is absent in the American Congress. Second, however, it is contended that the party label is the single most important and reliable attribute in predicting the voting behavior of a Senator or Representative.Between these two contentions lies a sizeable area of unexplored territory. If party is the best predictive device in analyzing voting behavior in Congress then, despite the lack of “party government,” the party machinery in both houses must have effects that deserve study. Professor Huitt has suggested the necessity and importance of this kind of study: “… the preoccupation with reform has obscured the fact that we have no really adequate model of party leadership as it exists in Congress, and that none can be constructed because we lack simple descriptions of many of the basic working parts of the present system.” Huitt himself and a few others have filled some of these gaps.


1950 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 338-338

Two topics were the subject of discussion in the Allied Council and Executive Committee during August 1949: 1) the question of Allied Control over Austrian political parties; and 2) the western attempt to eliminate censorship over Austrian communications. Concerning the political parties two resolutions were submitted by the French and by the United Kingdom Commissions. The French draft was rejected by the three other commissions and the United Kingdom draft, declaring that the Allied Council had decided that political parties needed “no longer obtain the authorization of the Allied Council as required by the decision of the 11th September 1945“ and the “Austrian Government will be responsible for regulating the formation and activity of political parties or organizations according to provisions of international laws,“ was adopted by the Council. The Soviet representative objected to this and to a second French proposal. The United States and United Kingdom agreed to a French suggestion that the Allied Council meet in an extraordinary session to consider further the French position and the question in general but the Soviet High Commissioner refused to accept


2020 ◽  
pp. 159-184
Author(s):  
Colleen Woods

This chapter assesses the formation of a private paramilitary organization in the 1950s by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agents who were associated with Edward Lansdale, as well as by a group of veterans from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP). This “Freedom Company” was meant to transport the “lessons of the Huk campaign” to sites elsewhere in Asia and Latin America. As an organizing principle, the Freedom Company and its U.S.-based supporters assumed that U.S. colonialism had imparted “modern political knowledge” to Filipinos; as the most “politically modern” Asians, therefore, they were best equipped to “export democracy” throughout the region. The Freedom Company Philippines (FCP), staffed entirely by Filipinos in an effort to distance contemporary U.S. interventions from a history of Western imperialism, actively promoted the idea that the U.S. colonial project in the Philippines had succeeded, while European imperial practices had failed to develop Asian societies properly. Though steeped in racialized perceptions regarding the political capacities of colonized or formerly colonized peoples, anticommunists contended that U.S. colonialism in the Philippines and contemporary U.S. interventions demonstrated the United States' interests in liberating Asians from colonialism across the region.


1961 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 356-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
David H. Burton

In the antithesis of Western imperialism and colonial nationalisms and the still uncertain synthesis the United States has had a significant and in some ways a determining role. By the extension of its frontiers into the Caribbean and the Pacific at the turn of the century, the United States found itself an imperialist power. American imperialism consciously endeavored to bring what was best of the Western way of life to its colonial peoples. Nevertheless, it depended on the conventional instruments of military force and colonial-civil government imposed by the conqueror. For the United States the Philippines became the fittest subject for this Westernizing process for which Theodore Roosevelt was the outstanding spokesman and apologist. Under President Roosevelt's direction the work of civilizing a backward people received a full American expression, and from a consideration of that enterprise the temper of American imperialism may be sounded. Drawing from the Philippine experiment and from experience with the Caribbean countries Roosevelt combined practical judgments with certain intellectual and emotional attitudes to elaborate a comprehensive doctrine of imperialism.


Author(s):  
Sharon E. Jarvis

According to Schattschneider (1942, 1), political parties “created democracy, and … democracy is unthinkable” without them. This chapter makes a case for attending to the sounds of partisanship by (1) discussing the importance of listening to partisan messages, (2) examining the major findings on the uses and effects of party labels and partisan styles in the United States, (3) addressing unanswered questions in this area, and (4) showing how the talk surrounding the political parties in the United States, to date at least, underscores their indispensable roles in the polity.


Author(s):  
L. Sandy Maisel

American Political Parties and Elections: A Very Short Introduction examines the electoral process in the United States and explains why it is widely misunderstood. Why is participation in elections so much lower in the United States than in other mature democracies? What role do the political parties play in the electoral process? And why do unregulated groups such as 527 advocacy organizations have as much, if not more, influence than candidates' campaign organizations? This VSI examines these and other issues to provide an insider's view of how the system actually works and why there remain only two main political parties, despite the fact that many citizens claim allegiance to neither and think badly of both.


1982 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 95-115 ◽  
Author(s):  
Walter J. Stone

Many students of the United States Congress have contended that the institution is too closely tied to the interests of members' local constituencies. While the responsiveness this charge implies may seem laudable, the localism said to exist, especially in the House, weakens national agents of representation such as the political parties. Institutional features like seniority and the norm of reciprocity are often criticized for the premium they place upon members' success in their local constituencies, and the narrow, particularistic policy which results. Those who prefer a legislature responsive to national interests lament the disproportionate influence of constituencies with well-placed representatives on the committees and subcommittees in the House, and the fragmented, ‘distributive’ character of the legislative process.


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