https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2299-6174
![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Why do citizens in post-authoritarian democracies perceive that there is high respect for individual human rights in their country when objective indicators suggest differently? Drawing on multiple individual-level opinion data and using Philippines as an illustrative case, this study hypothesizes that delegative democratic attitude (DDA) (i.e. operationalized as support for strong executive with minimal legislative intervention) shape citizen’s perception of human rights respect. Despite reports of higher levels of human rights violations in the country which should have led to more negative appreciation of human rights protection, citizens with DDA are more likely to regard that individual human rights are respected and protected. We theorize that citizens form dissimilar perception of human rights protection based on their desire for quick fixes and decisive action which could have made citizens less rigid and more tolerant with their evaluation of government actions. This would then make them paint a less than horrible image of the human rights protection in their country although it may not be reflective of the true state of affairs objectively. Given the Philippines’ longstanding authoritarian legacies and struggles with democratic consolidation, our study sheds light to the enduring appeal for personalist rule in the contemporary political world.
Acknowledgement
We thank the editors and reviewers of Democratization for their valuable insights. This article also benefited from the conversations and comments of Dr. Wen-Chin Wu of the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS). All errors however are our own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus: Human Rights”; Hillebrechta et al., “Perceived Human Rights”; Anderson et al., “In the Eye of the Beholder?”; Anderson et al., “Political Repression and Public Perceptions of Human Rights”; Carlson and Listhaug, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Human Rights Practices”; Yates, “Uncomfortably Numb”.
2 Kruse, Ravlik, and Welzel, “Democracy Confused”.
3 Kay et al., “God and the Government”; Mirisola et al., “Societal Threat to Safety”.
4 Koo cited in Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus.”
5 Carlson and Listhaug, “Citizens’ Perceptions of Human Rights Practices”; Davis et al., “‘Makers and Shapers’: Human Rights INGOs and Public Opinion”; Hertel et al., “Human Rights and Public Opinion”.
6 Walker, “Delegative Democratic Attitudes”; Kang and Lee, “Delegative Democratic Attitudes”; Gronke and Levitt, “Delegative and Stealth Democrats”.
7 Kubiček, “Delegative democracy in Russia”; Schafer, “A Popular Mandate for Strongmen”.
8 O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy.”
9 Walker, “Delegative Democratic Attitudes.”
10 O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy.”
11 Again, we argue that it is the perception of respect of human rights, not the actual presence of abuse or violations.
12 Marks, “The Formation of Materialist”.
13 Streeten, “Basic Needs and Human Rights”; Howard, “The Full-Belly Thesis”.
14 O’Donnell, “Delegative Democracy,” 55.
15 Ranada, “Perceived ‘Decisiveness, Diligence’ of Duterte”.
16 Seyd et al., “Decision Responsiveness”; Arnesen et al., “The Legitimacy of Representation”.
17 Baniamin et al, “Mismatch Between Lower”.
18 Frederiksen, “Does Competence Make Citizens”.
19 Ron, “Introduction to special issue”; Barton et al, “A Neglected Nexus.”
20 González, “Unpacking Delegative Democracy”.
21 Tusalem, “Political and Economic Accountability”; Croissant, “From Transition to Defective Democracy”.
22 Carothers, “The End of the Transition Paradigm”; Guerrero and Tusalem, “3. Mass Public Perceptions”.
23 Guerrero and Tusalem, “3. Mass Public Perceptions”.
24 McCoy, An Anarchy of Families; Sidel, Capital, Coercion, and Crime; Hutchcroft, Booty Capitalism; Tadem and Tadem, “Political Dynasties in the Philippines”.
25 Mendoza et al., “Inequality in Democracy”; Querubin, “Family and Politics”; Panao, “Tried and Tested?”; Panao, “Electoral Persistence and the Quality”.
26 Kasuya, “Patronage of the Past and Future”.
27 Hutchcroft, “The Arroyo Imbroglio in the Philippines”; Quimpo, “The Philippines: Predatory Regime”.
28 Thompson, “Reformism vs. Populism in the Philippines”.
29 Teehankee and Thompson, “The Vote in the Philippines”; Thompson, “Bloodied Democracy”; Pernia, “Human Rights in a Time of Populism”.
30 Kusaka, Moral politics in the Philippines.
31 Putzel, “Survival of an Imperfect Democracy”.
32 Dressel, “The Philippines: How Much Real Democracy?”
33 To see the graph specifically for the Philippines, see Figure A.2. in the Online Supplemental Information.
34 Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) is a unique approach to conceptualizing and measuring democracy. For more information and access of their data, please visit: https://www.v-dem.net/.
35 Alizada et al., “Autocratization Turns Viral”.
36 Guerrero and Tusalem, “3. Mass Public Perceptions”.
37 Curato, “Politics of Anxiety, Politics of Hope”; Arguelles, “‘We Are Rodrigo Duterte’”.
38 Abinales and Amoroso, State and Society.
39 Agpalo, “The Philippines: From Communal to Societal”.
40 Teehankee, “Weak State, Strong Presidents”.
41 Baniamin et al., “Mismatch between Lower”; Pernia, “Authoritarian Values and Institutional Trust.”
42 Clark and Sikkink, “Information Effects”; Cordell et al., “Changing Standards or Political Whim?”; Haschke and Arnon, “What Bias? Changing Standards”.
43 Human Rights Watch, “Philippines”; Ng, “Philippines: Why It’s Deadly for Journalists”.
44 Amnesty International, “Philippines: Impunity for Torture”.
45 For more information, please visit https://www.politicalterrorscale.org/Data/.
46 Gibney et al., “The Political Terror Scale”.
47 To see the graph specifically for the Philippines, see Figure A.3. in the Online Supplemental Information.
48 Hutchcroft, Booty Capitalism; Quimpo, Contested Democracy.
49 Sales, “State Terror in the Philippine”.
50 Kim and Sikkink, “Explaining the Deterrence Effect”; Wiebelhaus-Brahm, Truth Commissions and Transitional.
51 Espenido, “Philippines’ War on Drugs”.
52 Kenny and Holmes, “A New Penal Populism?”
53 Pernia, “Authoritarian Values and Institutional Trust.”
54 Social Weather Stations (SWS), “Second Quarter 2019 Social Weather Survey”.
55 For a nuanced take on Duterte’s crime-related rhetoric, see Panao and Pernia, “Fear and Loathing or Strategic Priming?”
56 Thompson, The Anti-Marcos Struggle; Thompson, “Off the Endangered List”.
57 Desierto, “A Universalist History”.
58 United Nations, “Social, Humanitarian and Cultural Questions.”
59 United Nations, “Membership of the Human Rights”.
60 Elkins et al., “Getting to Rights: Treaty Ratification”; Risse et al., The Persistent Power of Human Rights.
61 Philippine News Agency, “UNHRC”.
62 Hillebrechta et al., “Perceived Human Rights”; Webster, “Democratization and Human Rights”; Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus.”
63 For details on the questionnaire, the sampling method, and the procedure for conducting the survey, visit https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs.jsp.
64 As early as in 1996 (WVS3), however questions pertaining to human rights and other relevant individual-level items were unavailable and hence WVS3 was excluded. Also, the Philippines did not participate in Wave 5, during which time Arroyo held office for almost a decade (2001–2010).
65 In this study, we modelled citizen perceptions in WVS4 as constituting the transition from Estrada to Arroyo regimes with the assumption that individual evaluation on the Arroyo regime (which by this time has been in place for less than 6 months) refers to the time during the Estrada administration.
66 Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus,” 293.
67 Originally, the range was the other way, but it was reverse coded so that high scores signify high degree of respect. See Table A.1. for the actual wording of the variables in Supplemental Information.
68 This was also reverse coded to make high values indicate high degree of support.
69 Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus”; Sandholtz, “Domestic Law and Human Rights”.
70 Although majority of the extant scholarship are at the aggregate-level, we argue that citizen’s evaluation of respect for individual human rights in the country will be influenced by their favourable views to the United Nations for its effort in the promotion and protection of human rights-related norms (Pinto, “Historical Trends of Human”; Addo, “Practice of United Nations”), which affects all individuals.
71 While extant studies have only utilized them at the country-level, this could also be a probable predictor of citizen’s perception of respect for individual human rights, see Bueno De Mesquita et al., “Thinking Inside the Box”. Also, since items pertaining to democratic satisfaction are limited only to Wave 4, we merge it with items pertaining to democratic perception in Waves 6 and 7.
72 Anderson et al., “Political Repression and Public”; Anderson et al., “In the Eye of the Beholder?”
73 Marks, “The Formation of Materialist”.
74 Jamal, “When is Social Trust”.
75 Vinson and Ericson, “The Social Dimensions of Happiness”.
76 Hillebrechta et al., “Perceived Human Rights”; Hofferbert and Klingemann, “Remembering the Bad Old Days”.
77 Hillebrechta et al., “Perceived Human Rights”; Barton et al., “A Neglected Nexus”.
78 Human Rights Watch, “Philippines”; Ng, “Philippines: Why It’s Deadly for Journalists”.
79 Since OLS estimates may be biased due to its assumption that the dependent variable changes in response to a one-unit increase in an explanatory variable which is difficult to make when your data “only reflect ordinality”, see Daykin and Moffat, “Analyzing Ordered Responses,” 159.
80 Ibid.
81 Walker, “Delegative Democratic Attitudes”; Kang and Lee, “Delegative Democratic Attitudes.”
82 Gerber, “Public Opinion on Human Rights”.
83 Hetherington and Suhay, “Authoritarianism, Threat, and Americans’”; Hetherington and Rudolph, “Priming, Performance, and the Dynamics of Political Trust”.
84 Pepinsky, “The Return of the Single-Country”.
85 Pernia, “Authoritarian Values and Institutional Trust.”
86 See the works of Rico et al., “The Emotional Underpinnings of Populism”; Roccato et al., “The Lasting Effects of the COVID-19”. This would further clarify the processes and mechanisms underlying their relationship which this present study has focused less.
87 Foa, “Why Strongmen Win”; Lührmann et al, “A Third Wave of Autocratization”.
88 Schafer, “A Popular Mandate for Strongmen”; Garrido, “The Ground for the Illiberal Turn”.
89 Then Vice president Leni Rodredo was a former human rights lawyer. Marcos Jr. won by a landslide victory, see Ratcliffe, “Ferdinand Marcos Jr Triumphs”.
90 Linz et al., Problems of Democratic Transition.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Ronald A. Pernia
Ronald A. Pernia is an assistant professor in the Political Science Program of the College of Social Sciences, University of the Philippines Cebu. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the Institute of Political Science at National Sun Yat-sen University (NSYSU) in Kaohsiung, Taiwan and a predoctoral fellow in the Institute of Political Science at Academia Sinica (IPSAS) in Taipei, Taiwan.
Rogelio Alicor L. Panao
Rogelio Alicor L. Panao, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman. He is a member of the Philippine Bar.