Tag: embeddedness

The EDSA Republic as moral liquidator

Kenneth Cardenas2 Comments

Embedded origins, unintended consequences

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.

Access the full article through Project Muse here.

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.

“We must systematically ‘de-Marcosify’ Philippine society”

Kenneth CardenasLeave a comment

On the embedded precursors and unintended consequences of Edsa Republic privatizations

I presented this paper at the 2024 Association for Asian Studies annual conference in Seattle, and builds on my 2022 presentation at the Philippine Studies Conference in Japan. A version of it was published on Philippine Studies: Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints as The EDSA Republic as moral liquidator: Embedded origins, unintended consequences.

Access the full article through Project Muse here.

This article revisits the privatizations carried out after the Edsa Revolution, emphasizing historical context, the agency of Filipinos working within technocratic and bureaucratic spaces, and institutional path-dependence. It shows how a moralized understanding of the state’s role in the economy was rehearsed and developed by the revolutionary Aquino government (1986–7) through the reorganization of the Government-Owned or Controlled Corporation (GOCC) portfolio. Focusing on the Presidential Commission on Government Reorganization (PCGR), 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.

My thanks to my co-panellists Inigo Chotirawe Acosta, Johnny Bassett, and Claire Cororaton, and to our reactor, Dr. Taihei Okada.