Articulating Populism in the Philippines: The Rhetorical Strategies of Joseph Estrada and Rodrigo Duterte

Articulating Populism in the Philippines: The Rhetorical Strategies of Joseph Estrada and Rodrigo Duterte

2025. Asian Politics & Policy 17 (1): 1–24. The article compares the rhetorical strategies of two of the most popular post-martial law presidents in the Philippines, Joseph Estrada (1998–2001) and Rodrigo Duterte (2016–2022). Adopting Laclau’s definition of populism and localizing De Cleen and Stavrakakis’s analysis of socio-spatial dichotomies, I examine the political logic that guided…

Populist Desires, Nostalgic Narratives: The Marcos Golden Age Myth and Manipulation of Collective Memories on YouTube

Populist Desires, Nostalgic Narratives: The Marcos Golden Age Myth and Manipulation of Collective Memories on YouTube

2025. Asian Journal of Political Science. This article investigates the Marcos golden age narratives on YouTube before the 2022 Philippine presidential elections. Despite evidence of brutality during the Marcos years, many Filipinos reminisce about his tenure as a period of peace and progress, influenced by selective historical accounts propagated through digital media. Expanding Laclau’s theory…

Duterte’s Transactionalist Foreign Policy and the COVID-19 Crisis in the Philippines

Duterte’s Transactionalist Foreign Policy and the COVID-19 Crisis in the Philippines

2024. Asian Politics & Policy 16 (1): 113–129. This article contributes a new layer to the existing analyses of Duterte’s foreign policy by arguing that he epitomized a transactionalist approach to Philippine foreign policy. This approach favored bilateral to multilateral relations, focused on short-term wins rather than long-term foresight, adhered to a zero-sum worldview, rejected…