Framing Superiority and Closeness: Bridging the Class Gap in Philippine Electoral Politics

Abstract

Contentious politics produces diverse leadership styles that may all be salient to a country's electorate. This article explores key cultural frames that allow politicians to project both superiority and closeness to lower-class populations, hinged on different criteria of legitimacy. In the Philippine electoral arena, the established "patronage frame" is challenged by new political contenders who put forward the "oppression frame" of class politics, the "good governance" frame of liberal reformers, and the populist frame of media celebrities-turned-politicians. Given the salience of multiple frames, ordinary people may employ seemingly contradictory criteria of superiority and legitimacy and combine these effortlessly when they choose whom to vote for. This article suggests a social logic of frame diversity.In a society marked by stark socio-economic inequalities, where the rich and powerful dominate government posts, members of the elite need to court the vote of a vast electorate of poor, lower-class people with each electoral round. In the Philippines, elite candidates selectively use and dissimulate marks of social distinction in order to bridge the class divide and convince the poor that they are the best champions of their cause. The cultural frame of patronage has long provided a useful ideological vehicle