Cruel Populism and the War on Crime: The Making of Crime Warrior Politicians in the Philippines and United States

• In Event: Governing through Crime: Challenges and Implications of the Philippine Drug War

Abstract

Crime’s role and power in politics is worth reexamining in this age of populist politics when candidates for political office use crime propaganda as an effective tool for attracting and mobilizing supporters. The catchphrase “War on Crime,” both as a signifier of crime control policies and a euphemism for identity-based conflict, has been integral to the successful local and national political campaigns in the Philippines and the United States at various times over the last century. In this paper, I examine how crime has been transformed into political capital in the United States and the Philippines, focus in the United States on Presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump and, in the Philippines, on Presidents Ferdinand Marcos and Rodrigo Duterte. In studying roles of crime in the political careers of these individuals I explore how crime is transformed into political capital and how this transformation affects the nature and function of the criminal justice and political systems. To inform my understanding of these processes, I also ask the following corollary questions: 1) What is the nature and role of crime when it is used as political capital? 2) What political processes and social conditions facilitate the transformation of crime into political capital, and how? 3) How have voters responded to crime warrior politicians? and 4) What is the role of the state as context in these transformations?

Author

• Christopher Magno, Gannon University