Changing International Orders and Policy Reforms in Developing Economies: The Case Study of the Philippines and Southeast Asian Countries

Type

Single Round Table

Schedule

Session 10
Thu 10:00-11:30 Sala J. J. Linz

Convener

Shingo Mikamo Shinshu University

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Participants

Antoinette Raquiza University of the Philippines
Dennis Trinidad De La Salle University-Manila
How has the Philippines managed the ODA it received? Using the historical institutionalist approach, this paper analyzes the key reforms undertaken since the 1990s to improve the rules governing ODA use, identifies the critical junctures that paved the way for these reforms, and observes patterns in the ODA usage over time. The study covers changes in ODA structures and processes, across planning and implementation to monitoring and evaluation. It assumes that ODA governance is crucial to the aid’s developmental impacts. The paper argues that these reforms were incremental and mainly responses to domestic and international historical contexts. For example, the debt crisis of the 1980s, the Marcos scandal, the international agenda on aid effectiveness, and geopolitical considerations have a profound influence on the Philippines’ management of its ODA. By analyzing the Philippine case, the study seeks to enhance our understanding of why ODA governance is more efficient than others, as recipients adapt to changing global and domestic conditions. For years, the Philippines has relied on ODA to promote sustainable social and economic development. The passage of Republic Act No. 8182, also known as the ODA Act of 1996, profoundly transformed the Philippine aid institutions and enhanced the oversight functions of government agencies. Be that as it may, many inefficiencies in Philippine ODA processes have remained. Today, the country’s ODA portfolio is characterized by a huge share of loans, nearly half of which come from multilateral development partners such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), while Japan is the Philippines’ largest source of bilateral ODA loans.
Emirza Adi Syailendra Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies/Nanyang Technological University
Why does a rising power actively construct and maintain conditions under which weaker states can resist it? This article develops a theory of restraint as a legitimation practice, built on a proposition the existing literature has not theorised: a rising power cannot prove its own restraint. Any claim to self-limitation is unfalsifiable from the claimant’s side alone; the rising power needs external evidence, which only the orderly contestation of weaker states can provide. The article distinguishes between two modes of restraint — forbearance (“it could have been worse”) and structured space (the active provision of room for resistance) — and argues that the second is credible only when the first has established a foundation of trust. Drawing on an original dataset of restraint episodes in the South China Sea (1992–2026) and over one hundred interviews, the article traces this mechanism across China’s relationships with Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines. The cases reveal a rising power managing a portfolio of differentiated legitimation bargains, calibrated to the type of evidence each relationship needs to produce. The framework identifies restraint as the constitutive practice of legitimate hierarchy and demonstrates that the politics of restraint perception is not a secondary complication but a core feature of how legitimacy is produced in international politics.
Susumu Ito University of Niigata Prefecture, Japan
Infrastructure such as water, roads, airports, railways, and electric power is one of the fundamental elements for economic development and poverty reduction. Faced with a huge infrastructure gap, the Government of the Philippines has prioritized infrastructure development as one of the most important policy agenda in every administration. However, status of infrastructure development of the Philippines which lags ASEAN peers faces serious deficit in its development.

Why is there still an issue of infrastructure deficit in the Philippines despite multifaced efforts including government prioritization and international supports? What are the current and future challenges of infrastructure development in the Philippines? How do changes in international economic and political orders, including rise of China together with Belt and Road Initiative, securitization of ODA from Japan, and developments in the Philippines-US-Japan-China relations influence policy and governance of infrastructure development of the Philippines? This paper discusses the changes in infrastructure governance of the Philippines in response to changes in international economic and political orders.

Abstract

The “Washington Consensus,” once regarded as an influential guideline for policy reforms in developing economies, has largely disappeared, especially in Washington itself. At the same time, there is a growing retreat in confidence toward democratic governance. The future of liberal democracy, which has traditionally been seen as a pathway to human development, is now uncertain.
How do changes in international economic and political orders influence policy and governance reforms in developing economies? How can we foster effective cooperation to ensure economic well-being across Asia today? These central questions guide our research project, which seeks to explore the dynamic interplay between global changes and domestic policy transformations. These reforms are ongoing efforts, deeply rooted in historical trajectories, and vary significantly across different policy areas. Our project is a collaborative initiative, bringing together specialists from various policy areas to provide a holistic perspective on these changes. The Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries offer a compelling case study of how developing economies reform and adapt in a time of geopolitical uncertainty, shifting power balances, and contested visions of world order.