Corruption, economic globalisation, and resistance: Insights from the Philippine rice industry

Abstract

Scholars have shown that narratives of corruption can both intensify economic globalisation and fuel resistance to it. However, little research has been done on how policy debates are framed by people with competing perspectives on corruption. This article draws on interviews with key stakeholders to highlight how narratives of corruption have framed debates about policy reform in the Philippine rice industry. Respondents whose views reflect an economic perspective that promotes market mechanisms to address corruption justified a law designed to deregulate the rice market. Their actions were a panacea to the growing power of cartels illegally and often corruptly importing rice into the country. Respondents whose views reflect a critical perspective argued that this law would only bolster cartel power and that other policy solutions such as land reform and self-sufficiency would reduce corruption and other injustices. Our analysis reveals how those debates informed deregulation of the Philippine rice sector and resulted in a Rice Tariffication Law in 2019. In the process, we reveal how competing perspectives on corruption and associated narratives are ideologically deployed to shape policy reforms that expand economic globalisation and benefit some groups, such as consumers, at the expense of others, particularly small-scale farmers.