Paul D. Hutchcroft, ed. Strong Patronage, Weak Parties: The Case for Electoral System Redesign in the Philippines. Mandaluyong: Anvil Publishing, 2019. 220 pp.

• Main Author: Juliano, Hansley
• Format: text
• Published: Archīum Ateneo 2019
• Online Access: https://archium.ateneo.edu/socialtransformations/vol7/iss2/6; https://archium.ateneo.edu/context/socialtransformations/article/1115/viewcontent/ST_207.2_206_20Book_20review_20__20Juliano.pdf
• Institution: Ateneo De Manila University

Excerpt: One classic criticism against the Philippine political system would be its persistent sustenance of patron-client relations. This much is reflected in most literature written regarding the topic, especially since Carl Landé’s (1983) explicit usage of the term in “Political Clientelism in Political Studies: Retrospects and Prospects.” The ubiquity of this argument in Philippine political science has led to the risk of it being casted as the end-all and be-all of the country’s institutional and social ills. There has also been no shortage of sloganeering, ideological discourse, and even civil society intervention upholding this line of thinking—if only because of its ubiquity and its casting of clear political “undesirables.” Subsequent literature thus takes it uncritically, thus also casting purported responses and solutions along similarly personalistic and/or partisan lines (Quimpo 2008).