ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the rich literature on local politics in the Philippines dating back to the heyday of ‘patron-client relations’ in the 1960s and early 1970s and the spate of studies of local ‘bosses’, ‘dynasties’, and ‘warlords’ in the 1990s in the wake of the restoration of (decentralized) oligarchical democracy in the country. The chapter revisits the author’s empirical research and comparative analysis of patterns of local ‘bossism’ in Cavite and Cebu and suggests how variegated patterns of local politics in other parts of the Philippines might also be understood. The chapter concludes with a brief consideration of the nature and extent of change in local politics over the past few decades, especially in urban and suburban localities.
