Migrant Remittances and Democratization in the Republic of the Philippines

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - Region: South Asia, grade: A+, , language: English, abstract: This paper analyzes the remittances and democratization nexus, using the Republic of the Philippines as a case study. The onset of this paper is a riddle. A number of scholars stress the positive impact of remittances on a society and its democratization. The Philippines has successfully sought to gain more remittances through a state driven labor export scheme and has been for many years among the top receiving countries in the world. Despite those conditions deemed propitious to democratization, the Philippines show many democracy deficits. Several scholars have claimed that remittances impact positively on democratization. However, a range of democratization indicators for the Philippines, belie this assertion.

This paper delves into various aspects of the democratization, migration and remittance dynamics. Firstly, it examines the scholarly work on remittances (always understood in a wider sense, as comprising social and financial remittances) and the democratization history in the Philippines. Secondly, it argues the methodology used for this paper. Thirdly, it evaluates and describes a selected number of particularities of the Philippine democratic system and its labor export scheme. It interprets the impact of remittances on democratization in the Philippines before drawing conclusions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 5

Research Question and Thesis Statement 7

Objectives of the Study 7

Limitation of the Study 7

Definition of Key Terms 8

Chapter 1: Literature Review 10

Chapter 2: Research Methodology 16

Freedom in the World Index 18

Corruption Perception Index 19

Civic Society study 20

Press-Freedom Index 22

People under Threat Index 23

Chapter 3: Findings and Analysis 25

Assessment of the Philippine Democracy 25

Political system 26

Economic situation 31

GINI Index 35

The labor export scheme 36

Financial remittances 40

Civil Society 42

Press freedom 45

Peace and security 46

Social remittances 48

Summary of democratic assessment 51

Democratization impact of remittances in the Philippines 53

Conclusion and recommendations for further research 55

Bibliography 59