Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor.

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Author: Marie, Anna
• Date: 01 December 2017

Moral Politics in the Philippines: Inequality, Democracy and the Urban Poor. By Wataru Kusaka. Singapore: NUS Press, 2017. Hardcover: 341pp.

Problematizing the tendency towards the moralization of politics to the exclusion of interest politics that questions inequalities in resource distribution in the Philippines is the central theme of this book. As such, it offers a fresh theoretical perspective and analytical approach to the study of democratization in the Philippines and presents a credible explanation for the instability of Philippine democracy in recent times. While most analyses would focus on the relationship between political elites and the lower classes, Wataru Kusaka focuses on interclass relationships and the antagonisms between the middle and lower social classes created by differences in language and media, among others, factors whose influence on class relations is often overlooked.

Kusaka's analysis rejects the all too facile and widely accepted interpretation of democracy in the Philippines as shaped by the persistence of elite democracy. Instead, he shifts the focus on the middle class and its ambiguous role in the deepening of democracy, particularly its exclusionary tendencies towards the masses. It can be located within the tradition of critical sociology...