Synopses & Reviews
Review
“These vivid portraits suggest that pursuing family history provides one way to indicate how the Philippines operates and what partially inhibits a better future for its citizens.”—John A. Larkin,
PilipinasReview
“[These] case studies reveal in startling detail the close interconnection between power and wealth. They also demonstrate the resilience of the elite families in the face of dramatic changes in [Philippine] politics and long periods of social turbulence.”—Alex Magno,
The Manila ChronicleReview
“Makes an important contribution to Southeast Asian s. These essays are based on intensive scrutiny of primary sources and they tell us much that we could not learn from other publications.”—Glenn A. May, University of Oregon
Review
“Rends the canopy of ‘civility’ and ‘culture’ surrounding the ruling families of the Philippines, revealing long histories of opportunism and violence.”—Patricio Abinales, Kyoto University
Synopsis
Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, this pioneering volume reveals how the power of the country’s family-based oligarchy both derives from and contributes to a weak Philippine state. From provincial warlords to modern managers, prominent Filipino leaders have fused family, politics, and business to compromise public institutions and amass private wealth—a historic pattern that persists to the present day.
Edited by Alfred W. McCoy, An Anarchy of Families explores the pervasive influence of the modern dynasties that have led the Philippines during the past century. Exemplified by the Osmeñas and Lopezes, elite Filipino families have formed a powerful oligarchy—controlling capital, dominating national politics, and often owning the media. Beyond Manila, strong men such as Ramon Durano, Ali Dimaporo, and Justiniano Montano have used “guns, goons, and gold” to accumulate wealth and power in far-flung islands and provinces. In a new preface for this revised edition, the editor shows how this pattern of oligarchic control has continued into the twenty-first century, despite dramatic socio-economic change that has supplanted the classic “three g’s” of Philippine politics with the contemporary “four c’s”—continuity, Chinese, criminality, and celebrity.
Synopsis
Winner of the Philippine National Book Award, but now out of print outside of Asia,
An Anarchy of Families: State and Family in the Philippines explores the dynamics of family-based oligarchies and their pervasive influence on Philippine politics. Throughout the 20th century, kinship networks radiating from elite Filipino families have acted as powerful coalitions--wielding substantial capital, exercising political sway, and sometimes backing it up with paramilitary force. This volume shows how the power of these extended families both derives from, and contributes to, a weak and corrupt state. Exploiting inherited wealth and invoking their family names, provincial and urban elites gain access to political privileges such as low-cost government credit, selective slackening of commercial regulations, licenses for state-regulated enterprises, and freedom from interference in labor disputes. Many of these families then pressure constituents to deliver, in exchange, votes for the officials who conferred the favors sought. The result is often increased factionalism, intensification of violence, and further attenuation of central government.
Edited by Alfred W. McCoy, the volume offers nine essays that demonstrate the variety of style and method exhibited by the Filipino political families discussed therein. Their lives, punctuated by the mundane experiences of baptism, marriage, disputes over inheritance, and other events of the domestic sphere, have profoundly affected the life of the nation. From provincial warlords to modern managers, these familial networks have fused politics and business to subvert public institutions and reinforce private accumulation of wealth--a pattern that continues to the present day.
In the years following its publication in 1995, An Anarchy of Families won both praise and criticism. Neither managed to add or subtract significantly from the most essential attribute of the book: It had struck the sciatic nerve of Philippine politics. In effect, the volume had identified and analyzed a sensitive, far-reaching facet whose operation is as central to the functioning of the Philippine polity now as it was then. As reader Patricio Abinales and series editor Katherine Bowie confirm, An Anarchy of Families has continuing relevance and should be made available once again to students and scholars. Originally published by the Center for Southeast Asian Studies, this proposed reprint will help supply our series New Perspectives in Southeast Asian Studies with both critical mass and intellectual gravitas.
About the Author
Alfred W. McCoy is J.R.W. Smail Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His books include
The Politics of Heroin and
A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation from the Cold War to the War on Terror.