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The former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte often gets lumped together with the former U.S. president Donald Trump on the basis of their autocratic practices. However, there are crucial differences in their respective situations and the reception of their autocratic practices on the ground. Consequently, if we understand Duterte only through Trump or with reference to the category of "emerging autocrat" then we end up misunderstanding the situation in the Philippines. This article is about the limits and pitfalls of thin comparison and the necessity of thicker ones. It advocates understanding practices embedded in the social structures and processes that make them meaningful. I proceed as follows: I present the case of Rodrigo Duterte and review the grounds for lumping him along with Trump as an emerging autocrat. I then pursue a thicker comparison of Duterte and Trump, putting their support in economic, social, political, and historical context and highlighting substantial differences in their respective situations. Finally, I argue that thin comparisons are especially susceptible to interpretive biases in general and highlight three such biases—toward contemporaneity, continuity, and centrality—using the case of Duterte to illustrate.

This essay highlights democracy in the Philippines and how the Trump administration may have accelerated disenchantment with American democracy for Filipinos.

In American sociology, segregation is usually conceived in terms of spatial concentration, social isolation, and the consolidation of race, place, and poverty. This conceptualization fails to capture the reality of segregation in many of the largest cities in the Global South. Studying segregation in these places presents an opportunity to "open up" the concept and reimagine it more expansively. In the paper, I compare segregation in Manila, Philippines, to the standard model. The case challenges the model in significant ways. First, we see a form of segregation characterized not by the concentration of poor black neighborhoods but by the interspersion of slums and enclaves, and thus are led to view segregation as relational. Second, we are led to emphasize not the isolation of people living inside segregated spaces but their unequal interactions with people outside them. Third, we are better able to identify the role of segregation in constituting, not merely consolidating, group difference through a process of spatialization. These aspects also apply to American segregation but tend to be overlooked. By looking at segregation in Manila, however, they come into focus. We are led to think about segregation in different ways and see American segregation in a new light.

AbstractScholars contend that weak institutions as manifest in corruption and bad governance are driving people towards illiberal forms of democracy. This explanation is underspecified. It does not make clear why people are turning towards authoritarian rule instead of working to strengthen democratic institutions. It cannot explain why we are seeing, specifically, a turn to the politics of discipline in countries like the Philippines. We need a better grasp of how weak institutions are experienced and how this experience shapes people's attitudes towards democracy. Drawing upon several years of ethnographic research, I depict the experience of democracy of the upper and middle class in Metro Manila. For informants, the problem of democracy is not that institutions are weak but that valued institutions are actively contradicted by disvalued ones. They describe an experience of disorder, identifying four major sources: corruption, rule-bending, clientelism, and informal settlement. A view of democracy as disorder prompts calls for "disciplining" it. These findings lead us to reframe the issue. Whereas a weak institutions' framework emphasizes the gap between valued rules and regressive norms, I emphasize their contradiction as shaping perceptions of disorder. Contradiction is experienced as a moral dilemma, a conflict between how things are done and how they should be done. This experience is informed by a normative sensibility rooted in upper- and middle-class position. The framework provides a better account of democratic backsliding: socially embedded, broader in scope, and closer to experience.

AbstractScholars have identified a new configuration of spatial inequality in several of the largest cities in the developing world. This configuration, which I label interspersion, is characterized by the general proximity of classed spaces, particularly 'slums' and 'enclaves'. There is disagreement about how interspersion affects class relations. One side argues that it worsens class relations by foreclosing substantive class interaction; the other side maintains that it improves class relations by enabling greater class interaction. I argue that it is not the extent but the form of class interaction that matters. Interspersion worsens class relations by promoting categorically unequal interaction. It provides regular opportunities for the imposition of spatial boundaries on slum residents. Regular experiences of boundary imposition deepen their sense of discrimination. This argument is based on an ethnographic study of the relations between slum and enclave residents in Metro Manila.

AbstractPostcolonial cities are dual cities not just because of global market forces, but also because of ideological currents operating through local real‐estate markets — currents inculcated during the colonial period and adapted to the postcolonial one. Following Abidin Kusno, we may speak of the ideological continuity behind globalization in the continuing hold of a modernist ethic, not only on the imagination of planners and builders but on the preferences of elite consumers for exclusive spaces. Most of the scholarly work considering the spatial impact of corporate‐led urban development has situated the phenomenon in the 'global' era — to the extent that the spatial patterns resulting from such development appear wholly the outcome of contemporary globalization. The case of Makati City belies this periodization. By examining the development of a corporate master‐planned new city in the 1950s rather than the 1990s, we can achieve a better appreciation of the influence of an enduring ideology — a modernist ethic — in shaping the duality of Makati.RésuméLes grandes villes postcoloniales sont des villes duales, pas seulement à cause des forces de la mondialisation économique, mais aussi à cause de courants idéologiques qui passent par les marchés immobiliers locaux, courants inculqués à l'ère coloniale puis ajustés à la période postcoloniale. Dans le sillage d'Abidin Kusno, on peut signaler la continuité idéologique sous‐jacenteà la mondialisation, qui s'exerce dans la mainmise pérenne d'une éthique moderniste, non seulement sur l'imagination des urbanistes et constructeurs, mais aussi sur les choix des consommateurs appartenant aux élites qui préfèrent des espaces exclusifs. Les travaux de recherches sur l'impact spatial de l'urbanisation menée par de grandes entreprises ont généralement rattaché le phénomène à l'ère 'mondialisée', dans la mesure où les schémas spatiaux obtenus semblent résulter intégralement de la mondialisation contemporaine. Le cas de Makati dément ce profil temporel. En analysant l'aménagement d'une ville nouvelle selon le schéma directeur d'entreprises dans les années 1950, au lieu des années 1990, on peut mieux apprécier l'influence d'une idéologie persistante — une éthique moderniste — dans la configuration de la dualité de Makati.