Building programmatic parties in a patronage -dominated system: Akbayan and the Liberal Party in the post -1986 Philippines

Programmatic parties, in theory and practice, have been central to the representation and aggregation of interests and the ability of voters to hold governments accountable. Scholarship has examined the emergence of programmatic parties in Western Europe and North America, but we know little of why and how they might emerge in countries where most parties are patronage-oriented.;The Philippines presents an excellent setting in which to investigate these questions. Mainstream political parties there have long been characterized as indistinguishable on policy grounds. Their lack of concern with competition over substantive issues, along with constant party-switching, has contributed to a policy-making process that benefits elites at the expense of the general population and engendered widespread criticism of the quality of Philippine democracy. Since 1986, however, the Philippines has experienced a flurry of attempts to form programmatic parties. Of these two efforts---to form Akbayan and to reform the Liberal Party---are serious and sustained. This dissertation examines these two endeavors from their beginnings in the mid-1980s to the May 2004 elections.;What factors explain programmatic party formation? Structural changes play a role but are subject to the interpretations of political agents; incremental institutional reforms may influence programmatic parties, but do so primarily after their formation. Most important, this research suggests, are two factors: institutional crises and agency. First, a dramatic closing and opening of the political system provides strong encouragement to the formation of programmatic parties. Second, party-building activists respond to the transformed political environment based on their perceptions and beliefs. They have two options: to foam a programmatic party from scratch or reform an existing party. The decision of whether and how to establish a programmatic party requires judgments regarding constituencies for issue-based politics and organizational resources available. The bar proves to be high for sustainable programmatic parties, and resources from civil society, existing parties and donors bring their own threats to the cohesion of party programs and organization. Akbayan and Liberal Party reformers nevertheless have injected substance into political discourse and developed innovative means for doing so.