Comparing the Philippines and Viet Nam: A History of Political Economies

This is a term paper from my masters program in Philippine Studies. Specifically it was for a course on theories of development (2022). My paper was about the divergent development histories and policies of the Philippines and Viet Nam, and the political reasons for these differences in policy and outcomes. The paper makes an overall argument that differences in how the Philippines and Viet Nam gained their respective independences were instrumental in creating the current political systems. In the Philippines' case, the lack of a sociopolitical revolution meant that the elite, landed political class was never beholden to the will of the people. This created a dynastic, regional political system where families and corporations own most usable land and development policy is run by the very families that need their wealth and power to be redistributed. This results in economic stagnation, mass poverty, and political violence. In Viet Nam, development policy has been guided by the communist party's mandate from the people as a revolutionary and anti-elite government. In practice this means that regardless of the restrictions on free expression in the country, the government understands that it is only in place because it served the masses' socioeconomic interests, and that in order to maintain this hegemonic position, they must continue to appeal to those interests on some level when devising development policy. This paper probably has grammatical mistakes since it never went through the journal review process, but I think it is worth making public because it can serve as a primer for students on some important devlopment ideas, as well as working as a bit of a "source list" with convenient explanations.