volume-13-number-1

Pages: 1-15

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs were developed in the mid to late 1990s in Mexico and Brazil in response to the economic upheavals that affected the poor and vulnerable in Latin America following the imposition of structural adjustment policies. These social protection programs provide immediate cash disbursements under beneficiary compliance with health and education requirements, particularly for children and mothers. Since then, CCT programs have been implemented throughout Latin America and are rapidly being introduced in Africa and Asia, including the Philippines. Since the mid 2000s, the World Bank and other international financial institutions have been significantly involved in the implementation and scholarship of such programs as part of newly instituted social protection objectives. This introduces a formidable factor of Northern management and Southern implementation. In this way, CCT projects tend to follow a formula and exhibit many similar aspects of design, objectives, and evaluation measures. However, Brazil’s CCT program directly addressed social problems introduced by earlier neoliberal policy making and falls under a single centralized authority. The Philippine program has multiple institutional stakeholders and was introduced in 2007 under an expressly neoliberal presidency. By considering the similarities and differences in the cases of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia and the Philippines’ 4Ps, the mediation of the World Bank and other development lenders can be differently construed. There exists a potential for direct South–South, peer–peer correspondence of experience, cooperation, and autonomous development practices within terms that Boaventura de Souza Santos describes as an “epistemology of the South.” This alternate perspective on CCT progress and social protection in general has not until now been examined.

Keywords: Conditional Cash Transfer, Bolsa Familia, Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, social protection

Pages: 16-29

The purpose of this paper is to examine how economic growth and economic globalization contribute to poverty alleviation in Taiwan after its economic liberalization. This is the first study to investigate the separate impacts of export and import on poverty in Taiwan. Their distinct impacts highlight the importance for the Taiwanese government to shape trade strategies to boost export. This study is also the first to provide evidence showing the adverse influence of capital liberalization on poverty in Taiwan. The negative impact signifies that the warning with regard to the distributional effect of globalization may not be baseless.

Keywords: Taiwan, globalization, export, import, foreign direct investment, poverty

Pages: 30-40

There has been a surge of trade flows, foreign direct investments (FDIs), and monetary flows within and into the ASEAN economic block, brought about by the rapid expansion of inter- and intraregional trade in goods, services, and FDIs via trade and investment liberalization policies, preferential trading arrangements, and the creation of production networks. However, in order to attain a higher share of FDIs relative to previous decades, there is a need to advance the state of investment climate facilitation in the region, despite stiff competition from other destinations. Hegemony can be a viable means to facilitate investment integration because of the ability to harmonize investment incentives within the ASEAN region. This paper aims to open the amendment of the ASEAN charter, emphasizing ASEAN centrality and regional cooperation as a topic of discussion, and explore the possibility of Singapore as the regional benchmark for investment integration.

Keywords: ASEAN, ASEAN economic community, hegemony, investment, trade flows

Pages: 41-49

The article looks into responsibility to protect (R2P) in Southeast Asia and the role of civil society organizations (CSOs) as norm entrepreneurs. Using Finnemore and Sikkink’s “norm life cycle” theory, it is argued that civil society organizations contribute to the emergence of the R2P norm in the region; however, for the norm to be fully “internalized” by target states, it needs to be constitutively localized—that is, it needs to be reconciled with preexisting regional and domestic norms. CSOs need to engage governments, domestic political leaders, and local nongovernmental organizations in order for R2P to be applied in a manner consistent with the ASEAN Way and ASEAN states’ interests, preferences, and priorities.

Keywords: ASEAN, civil society, human security, norm life cycle, localization, responsibility to protect, Southeast Asia

Pages: 50-66

This article addresses the influence of distributive conflict on democratic consolidation in India, Thailand, and the Philippines by examining the conditions conducive to a political strategy that I term a “sandwich coalition.” Sandwich coalitions are formed when political actors occupying or seeking the apex of a political hierarchy undercut the power of middle-level actors by championing the needs of politically excluded or marginalized actors further down. They can occur in both electoral and nonelectoral settings and in a variety of social structures. The article builds on previous work in which the author argued that successful sandwich coalitions can be conducive to democratic consolidation by giving poor voters a stake in electoral democracy and elites a relatively nonthreatening way to remain electorally viable. This article argues that institutional factors, rather than socioeconomic differences, are the most important determinant of whether sandwich coalitions are built successfully. Specifically, sandwich coalitions depend on the ability of leaders to build direct links to poor voters, by delivering benefits to them in exchange for electoral support. This suggests that a crucial limiting condition is the honest administration of elections. In India, sandwich coalitions were made possible by the colonial creation of an elite civil service that was able to administer elections impartially. In Thailand, this became possible after the 1997 reforms. In the Philippines, where decades of electoral reform efforts have focused their attention more on the monitoring of abuses by NGOs than by ensuring an effective permanent election administration, sandwich coalitions have been attempted but seldom last.

Keywords: sandwich coalitions, political parties, democratic politics, India, Thailand, Philippines