Embedded origins, unintended consequences
This article revisits the privatizations carried out after the People Power Revolution, and how a moralized understanding of the state’s role in the economy was rehearsed and developed by the revolutionary Corazon Aquino government (1986–1987) through the reorganization of the government-owned or -controlled corporation portfolio. It traces how the design and objectives of privatization reflected both “people-powered” ambitions, as well as a distinct, historically embedded ambivalence toward public enterprise. In turn, these departures from mainline neoliberalism shaped a key feature of the EDSA Republic: the continuity of rentierism as the dominant mode of accumulation, despite the apparent rupture of revolution.
This article appears in Vol. 72, no. 4 of Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints. It builds on a chapter from my PhD dissertation, and from work I had presented at the 2024 Association for Asian Studies annual conference in Seattle, and the 5th Philippine Studies conference in Japan in 2022.
Kenneth Cardenas 
Insightful, nuanced, well-written–great article!
Thank you, Dr. Hau! What a pleasant surprise to hear from you. I am glad you liked it.
Just this past week I was rereading your 2014 article on epistemic power and authority. There’s a lot of resonances in it that I’d like to pick up, and I want to ask you some questions too. I’ll email soon.
[…] A version of it was published on Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints as The EDSA Republic as moral liquidator: Embedded origins, unintended consequences. […]
[…] I will be presenting this paper at the The 5th Philippine Studies Conference in Japan organized by the Annual Philippine Studies Forum in Japan, on 27 November 2022. A version of this work was published on Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints as The EDSA Republic as moral liquidator: Embedded origins, unintended consequences. […]