Sideways strategies: civil society-state reformist crossover activities in the Philippines 1986-2010.

• Author: Lewis, David

Anthropological approaches to the analysis of policy seek to challenge a still-considerable tendency among researchers and policy analysts to rely on linear rational models of the policy process. (1) Although "patently far removed from real life", as Rosemary McGee has pointed out, such models are "surprisingly alive and well in policy, development and political circles and even in policy actors own accounts of what kinds of process they themselves are involved in". (2) This article aims to unpack more of the "the complexity, ambiguity, and messiness of policy processes". (3) It deploys an ethnographic approach to gaining a more nuanced understanding of policy processes, focusing on the difficulties encountered by individuals from civil society seeking to advance policy reform agendas from within government. There is also a long tradition of work on policy from outside anthropology that seeks to challenge the dominant fiction of linearity. For example, Charles Lindblom's view of "muddling through" as an important element of what he termed "incremental" policy-making processes was an important early foundation to such thinking. (4) Michael Lipsky's concept of "street level bureaucrats", who were seen as possessing a largely unrecognized level of power in determining the nature and outcome of policies, has also made a useful contribution to understanding the informal dimensions of policy. (5) In the field of development studies, Merilee S. Grindle and John W. Thomas' "interactive model" of the policy process rejected linear models of policy change and instead placed emphasis on understanding the ways policy actors analyse policy environments in search of opportunities for action and change, and linked such boundary crossers to this activity within an actor-oriented approach. (6) Such approaches to understanding the complexities of policy processes also resonate with the work of Norman Long in development sociology, whose actor-oriented perspective draws attention to the need to engage with the level of individual action, albeit viewed within a wider structural perspective, if we are to succeed in building fine grained accounts of social worlds. (7)

Using such work as a starting point, the aim of this article is to explore one such area of complexity and ambiguity in the context of the Philippines: reformist activity on the boundary between civil society and state. As David Gellner suggests, "it is the job of anthropologists to study how these boundaries work in practice". (8) It analyses new empirical data drawn from a set of "life-work histories" collected from activists who have temporarily crossed over the boundary from civil society to government in order to work from the inside in pursuit of reformist goals. (9) The use of a life history data collection methodology is of course not a pure type of ethnography, but it allows a fine texture or "being there" quality at the level of the individual and their relationship with context that goes beyond most other methods. This cross-over activity goes beyond more familiar and relatively well-documented terrain of non-governmental organization (NGO) advocacy and campaigning work to challenge and change policy, or social movements that serve to mobilize citizen-based political action. Social movement and NGO activity has long been documented in the Philippines context, (10) which has been seen as possessing a relatively rich and vibrant civil society sector (11) albeit one that has more recently been characterized as captured by elite interests. (12) Indeed, the sideways strategy that is embodied within this cross-over activity can be seen as an experimental result of rethinking the boundary between government and civil society (or the "third sector" as it is sometimes termed (13)) in the imaginary of some sections of civil society.

The study of this cross-over phenomenon also connects with Charles Tilly and Sidney Tarrow's concept of "contentious politics" that are understood as taking place outside of the more familiar realms of formal politics and social movements. This distinctive perspective allows for contention to take place within institutions, outside them, or against them, and it argues that political opportunity structures affect the choices around which political identities people bring into contention. These authors also emphasize the importance of boundaries as part of their contentious politics perspective. For example, they describe the concept of "boundary activation", either to refer to the re-drawing or creation of a new boundary, or to the "crystallization" of an existing one, as a means by which relations between reformist "challenging groups" and their targets can be re-structured. (14) In the context of the present article, when civil society activists attempt to "cross over" into government in order to pursue change from within, part of this effort involves trying to redraw the boundaries between state and civil society. This is, of course, an act that may also be resisted by interests within the state (and also some within civil society) who wish to maintain, protect and re-assert this boundary. At the micro-level, the data discussed here suggests that these boundary crossers were first attempting to transgress the boundary through a sideways strategy by moving from being "outsider" civil society critics of government policy to working on the inside, and then to shape or remake that boundary as "insiders" repositioned inside state institutions, where they hope to construct new islands of civil society ideas and values as the foundation for reformist action.

The phenomenon of civil society-state boundary crossing is chiefly examined in this article in the context of agrarian reform efforts in the Philippines. During four successive post-1986 regimes where acts of such boundary crossing have taken place, differing perspectives have emerged among those involved about the nature of state and civil society interactions, the location of the boundary between these sectors, and level of "success or failure" of such efforts. It is hoped that this data provides insights that may help us to understand more about how social actors attempt to shape policy and how this boundary between state and civil society is conceptualized, experienced, and sometimes reshaped by political activity at the level of individual actors. Such individuals can also be understood as operating as "brokers and translators" as they operate within local logics of change in the context of the Philippines using political strategies that are bound up with the changing construction, maintenance and representation of ideas about state, politics and civil society in distinctive and contingent ways. (15) Evolving ideas about entryist reform strategies, the nature of boundaries, and forms of boundary work, make possible the construction of new strategies within repertoires of contention. (16)

In 1986, the newly elected government of President Corazon Aquino immediately recognized the role of the non-government sector--which had helped to foster alternative political leadership during the years of martial law--in policy-making and project implementation within Article II of the new 1987 Constitution. (17) Although civil society actors differed widely on how they might relate to the state in this new political context, for some, the tactic of reformist entryism seemed to offer the possibility of changing things from within, as opposed to advocating from outside the state. Sectors such as social welfare, housing, and agrarian reform each saw civil society activists pursue such tactics. As might be expected, there has already been some commentary on the issue of state-civil society cross-over (18) from researchers in the Philippines context. For example, Saturnino M. Borras in a review of progress with agrarian reform processes, has described the role played by cross-overs in the post 1986 governments, and outlines its usefulness and success as a political strategy (particularly during the regime of General Fidel V. Ramos, see below), while simultaneously analysing and acknowledging the political constraints that have impeded reform processes. (19) Using Jonathan Fox's "accountability politics" approach, (20) he explores the ways that the policy change process responded to pressure "from above" within government, and "from below" outside it, in a process of symbiotic interaction. He suggests that such cross-overs may have helped to provide a third level of pressure for accountability within what he terms as a "sandwich" approach. With considerably more pessimism, Ben Reid has identified the cross-over phenomenon as part of the co-option and depoliticization of civil society by the state, relating it to the wider failure of what he terms the "democratic transition model" of change. (21) Reid argues that rather than contributing to positive change, individuals who crossed over into government are merely part of a larger process in which civil society actors are "incorporated" into dominant clientelistic structures. Both of these perspectives have many elements of plausibility, but the life history data explored in this article suggests that they each oversimplify the cross-over phenomenon. The micro-level reality is considerably messier and more complex than either position allows, and life history data makes it possible to explore this process in new ways.

Pursuing Agrarian Reform" Four Civil Society-State "Cross-over" Regimes

This article does not allow for a detailed discussion of the context of agrarian reform in the Philippines, but a brief introduction is needed for the contextualization of the data discussed from the life histories. Despite the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos that was in place throughout the 1970s, the Philippines had nevertheless "retained a rich array of local, regional and national associations representing both the traditional left and the...