Migrant Remittances and Democratization in the Republic of the Philippines

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International 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 ...

Master's Thesis from the year 2013 in the subject Politics - International 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 CONTENTSIntroduction 5Research Question and Thesis Statement 7Objectives of the Study 7Limitation of the Study 7Definition of Key Terms 8Chapter 1: Literature Review 10Chapter 2: Research Methodology 16Freedom in the World Index 18Corruption Perception Index 19Civic Society study 20Press-Freedom Index 22People under Threat Index 23Chapter 3: Findings and Analysis 25Assessment of the Philippine Democracy 25Political system 26Economic situation 31GINI Index 35The labor export scheme 36Financial remittances 40Civil Society 42Press freedom 45Peace and security 46Social remittances 48Summary of democratic assessment 51Democratization impact of remittances in the Philippines 53Conclusion and recommendations for further research 55Bibliography 59