You are cordially invited to a special seminar on the Philippine president Duterte. The details are as follows.
Date: October 25th (Wed.) 14:00-16:30, 2017
Place: Tonan-tei, Room No. 201 on the 2nd floor of Inamori Foundation Memorial Building, CSEAS, Kyoto University
Speaker 1: Dr. Nicole Curato, Australian Research Council Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra
Title: From demagogues to deplorables? Populist publics in Rodrigo Duterte’s Philippines
Abstract: This presentation draws on my on‐going ethnographic work among Rodrigo Duterte’s supporters among disaster‐affected communities in the Philippines. I challenge the stereotypical portrayal of Duterte’s supporters, often disparaged as ‘Dutertards,’ as vulnerable people manipulated by a masterful demagogue. I argue that support for Duterte is negotiated and provisional, a product of systematic denial and performance of ‘hierarchies of misery.’ While much has been said about the violent, sexist, and crass politics of the Philippine President, I suggest a re‐orientation of the gaze from the populist leader to populist publics.
Nicole Curato is an Australian Research Council Fellow at the Centre for Deliberative
Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. She is the editor of
the Philippine Sociological Review, and her work on Philippine politics and society has
been published in Journal of Contemporary Asia, International Political Science Review,
and Qualitative Inquiry, among others. She is the editor of A Duterte Reader: Critical
Essays on Rodrigo Duterte’s Early Presidency (Ateneo de Manila University Press and
Cornell University Press, 2017).
Speaker 2: Dr. Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Tsukuba
Title: Duterte’s Securitization of Illegal Drugs and the Return to National Boss Rule
Abstract: President Rodrigo Duterte has been the president of the Philippines for just over a year, yet his “war on drugs” has already claimed the lives of over 12,000 people, with many drug suspects killed extra‐judicially. Why has Duterte embarked on this “war”? Are illicit drugs as much of a threat as they are touted to be? How successful has Duterte been in achieving his objectives? The author argues that the populist Duterte has shrewdly picked on an issue of broad popular concern – drug trafficking – and securitized it. He has hyperbolized the drug menace to justify the killings and violence. For Duterte, much more than just burnishing his “tough on crime” persona and broadening his popular appeal, the “war on drugs” constitutes a key instrument for turning the national police machinery into his power base and into a quasi‐private army with some death squad features, for bringing back national boss rule and for pursuing a national development strategy anchored on a perverse view of law and order. While Duterte currently still basks in broad popular support, the prospects of the anti‐drug “war” and of boss rule are most uncertain.
Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, a long‐time political activist in the Philippines before turning to an academic career, is currently an associate professor of political science and international relations at the University of Tsukuba, Japan. He has taught at the University of the Philippines, University of Amsterdam and Sophia University (Tokyo).
Quimpo has authored Contested Democracy and the Left in the Philippines after Marcos (Yale University Southeast Asia Studies and Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008), co‐authored Subversive Lives: A Family Memoir of the Marcos Years (Ohio University Press, 2016, and Anvil 2012), and co‐edited The U.S. and the War on Terror in the Philippines (Anvil, 2008) and The Politics of Change in the Philippines (Anvil, 2010). He has published articles in Comparative Politics, Pacific Review, Asian Survey, Southeast Asian Affairs, Critical Asian Studies and Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs. His research and teaching interests include: democracy, democratization and democratic governance; conflict and peace studies; political corruption; and Southeast Asian politics.
Moderator: Prof. Caroline HAU, CSEAS, Kyoto University