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“Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines

Gerard Clarke Orcid Logo

Development Policy Review, Volume: 39, Issue: 3, Pages: 398 - 418

Swansea University Author: Gerard Clarke Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1111/dpr.12494

Abstract

Reform coalitions represent a potential means for donors to support macro-political reform in developing countries, enabling them to avoid the limitations of micro-political or public sector reform where appropriate circumstances exist. Donor support for reform coalitions, however, is difficult to e...

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Published in: Development Policy Review
ISSN: 0950-6764 1467-7679
Published: Wiley 2021
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa53344
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last_indexed 2021-05-06T03:17:18Z
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Donor support for reform coalitions, however, is difficult to engineer in institutional terms, and is fraught with political risk, including the risk of partisan taint. To illustrate these difficulties and risks, this article explores the efforts of Australian Aid and the World Bank to promote reform coalitions and constituencies in the Philippines during the Presidency of Benigno S. Aquino III (2010-2016) and to institutionalise the reform agenda of his administration. It draws on a range of sources including programme design documents, mid-term &amp; end-of-term reviews, and contextual policy documents. It also draws on economic and governance data sets to explore relevant correlations. It finds that second-generation reform coalitions brought together stakeholders from government, the private sector and civil society and promoted both economic and other reforms. These donor strategies arguably failed, however, with the election of Rodrigo Duterte in May 2016, a President critical of Aquino&#x2019;s record of office and ostensibly committed to reverse-engineering many of the Aquino administration&#x2019;s positive achievements. The article critiques a governance-centric explanatory chain of causation and proposes an expanded politics-centric chain to aid the assessment of reform coalition activities. Policy recommendations from this article come in two main forms. In conceptual terms, planning of reform coalition activities must better account for dominant coalitions and the political settlements which they underpin and must set out explicit theories of change, specifying distinct political pathways to change. 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spelling 2021-05-05T09:32:34.0764082 v2 53344 2020-01-23 “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines cfeec5339b0ed351848d33801069bcb0 0000-0002-3777-7302 Gerard Clarke Gerard Clarke true false 2020-01-23 APC Reform coalitions represent a potential means for donors to support macro-political reform in developing countries, enabling them to avoid the limitations of micro-political or public sector reform where appropriate circumstances exist. Donor support for reform coalitions, however, is difficult to engineer in institutional terms, and is fraught with political risk, including the risk of partisan taint. To illustrate these difficulties and risks, this article explores the efforts of Australian Aid and the World Bank to promote reform coalitions and constituencies in the Philippines during the Presidency of Benigno S. Aquino III (2010-2016) and to institutionalise the reform agenda of his administration. It draws on a range of sources including programme design documents, mid-term & end-of-term reviews, and contextual policy documents. It also draws on economic and governance data sets to explore relevant correlations. It finds that second-generation reform coalitions brought together stakeholders from government, the private sector and civil society and promoted both economic and other reforms. These donor strategies arguably failed, however, with the election of Rodrigo Duterte in May 2016, a President critical of Aquino’s record of office and ostensibly committed to reverse-engineering many of the Aquino administration’s positive achievements. The article critiques a governance-centric explanatory chain of causation and proposes an expanded politics-centric chain to aid the assessment of reform coalition activities. Policy recommendations from this article come in two main forms. In conceptual terms, planning of reform coalition activities must better account for dominant coalitions and the political settlements which they underpin and must set out explicit theories of change, specifying distinct political pathways to change. In operational terms, donors must work to avoid traditional 'transactional' relationships in favour of more innovative 'transformative' ones and must balance 'strategic opportunism' with strategic retreat and adaptation where necessary. Journal Article Development Policy Review 39 3 398 418 Wiley 0950-6764 1467-7679 Aid, Philippines, political economy, politics, reform 1 5 2021 2021-05-01 10.1111/dpr.12494 COLLEGE NANME Politics, Philosophy and International Relations COLLEGE CODE APC Swansea University 2021-05-05T09:32:34.0764082 2020-01-23T17:06:38.9727729 Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences School of Culture and Communication - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations Gerard Clarke 0000-0002-3777-7302 1 53344__16416__bb89e3f06ab549a69100395de9a018f5.pdf MainManuscriptRIS.pdf 2020-01-23T17:10:49.5603213 Output 1006721 application/pdf Accepted Manuscript true 2022-01-30T00:00:00.0000000 true eng 58 Gerard Clarke 0000-0002-3777-7302 G.Clarke@Swansea.ac.uk true true
title “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
spellingShingle “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
Gerard Clarke
title_short “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
title_full “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
title_fullStr “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
title_full_unstemmed “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
title_sort “Thinking and Working Politically”: The case of donor‐supported reform coalitions in the Philippines
author_id_str_mv cfeec5339b0ed351848d33801069bcb0
author_id_fullname_str_mv cfeec5339b0ed351848d33801069bcb0_***_Gerard Clarke
author Gerard Clarke
author2 Gerard Clarke
format Journal article
container_title Development Policy Review
container_volume 39
container_issue 3
container_start_page 398
publishDate 2021
institution Swansea University
issn 0950-6764
1467-7679
doi_str_mv 10.1111/dpr.12494
publisher Wiley
college_str Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofhumanitiesandsocialsciences
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
department_str School of Culture and Communication - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences{{{_:::_}}}School of Culture and Communication - Politics, Philosophy and International Relations
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description Reform coalitions represent a potential means for donors to support macro-political reform in developing countries, enabling them to avoid the limitations of micro-political or public sector reform where appropriate circumstances exist. Donor support for reform coalitions, however, is difficult to engineer in institutional terms, and is fraught with political risk, including the risk of partisan taint. To illustrate these difficulties and risks, this article explores the efforts of Australian Aid and the World Bank to promote reform coalitions and constituencies in the Philippines during the Presidency of Benigno S. Aquino III (2010-2016) and to institutionalise the reform agenda of his administration. It draws on a range of sources including programme design documents, mid-term & end-of-term reviews, and contextual policy documents. It also draws on economic and governance data sets to explore relevant correlations. It finds that second-generation reform coalitions brought together stakeholders from government, the private sector and civil society and promoted both economic and other reforms. These donor strategies arguably failed, however, with the election of Rodrigo Duterte in May 2016, a President critical of Aquino’s record of office and ostensibly committed to reverse-engineering many of the Aquino administration’s positive achievements. The article critiques a governance-centric explanatory chain of causation and proposes an expanded politics-centric chain to aid the assessment of reform coalition activities. Policy recommendations from this article come in two main forms. In conceptual terms, planning of reform coalition activities must better account for dominant coalitions and the political settlements which they underpin and must set out explicit theories of change, specifying distinct political pathways to change. In operational terms, donors must work to avoid traditional 'transactional' relationships in favour of more innovative 'transformative' ones and must balance 'strategic opportunism' with strategic retreat and adaptation where necessary.
published_date 2021-05-01T04:06:14Z
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