Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
3-2022
Abstract
Political dynasties exist in practically every type of democracy, but take different forms in different places. Yet the types of dynastic structures have remained unexplored. We argue that horizontal dynasties—multiple members from the same political family holding different political offices concurrently—affect policymaking by replacing potential political rivals, who may oppose an incumbent’s policy choices, with a member of the family. But in developing countries, the policy change that accrues from dynastic status may not lead to higher levels of economic development. We test this argument’s implications in the Philippines. Using a close elections regression discontinuity design on a sample of mayors, we show that (i) horizontally dynastic mayors have higher levels of government spending, (ii) direct institutional constraints are the mechanism that drives this core result, and (iii) horizontally dynastic mayors do not lead to higher economic growth economic growth or lower poverty.
Keywords
political dynasties, include veto players, economic development, political parties, regression discontinuity design, the Philippines
Discipline
Asian Studies | Leadership Studies | Political Science
Research Areas
Political Science
Publication
Comparative Political Studies
Volume
55
Issue
4
First Page
588
Last Page
627
ISSN
0010-4140
Identifier
10.1177/00104140211024292
Publisher
SAGE
Citation
DULAY, Dean C., & GO, Laurence.(2022). When running for office runs in the family: Horizontal dynasties, policy, and development in the Philippines. Comparative Political Studies, 55(4), 588-627.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3801
Copyright Owner and License
Authors
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.1177/00104140211024292