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Abstract
To explore the overlooked role of political violence in global "populism," the essay explores the rise of Rodrigo Duterte from longserving mayor of a provincial city to an exceptionally powerful Philippine president. Using an analytical frame that juxtaposes localized violence with international influence, the essay examines not only the political dynamics that elevated Duterte to power but the tensions that are already circumscribing his authority after only a year in office. Application of this model to comparable cases could both highlight the parallel role of political violence in contemporary populism and indicate the forces likely to lead to its decline.
Introduction
After a century of mutable meanings that changed as academics focused on different continents or contexts, the term "populism" has recently been recast to encompass the nationalist, anti-globalization movements responsible for electoral upheavals in democracies worldwide. Speaking to an audience of policy experts at the Council of Foreign Relations in March 2017, Nikki Haley, UN ambassador for the proudly populist the Trump administration, trumpeted the "wave of populism that is challenging institutions like the United Nations, and shaking them to their foundations." The UN was, she said, "basically a club" for privileged elites and its Human Right Commission was "so corrupt." Just as the ambassador appropriated this label to lend coherence to a muddled foreign policy, so analysts have applied it to diverse movements without much consideration of its deeper meaning-particularly the frequent inclination to violence (Sengupta 2017; Fisher 2017).
Following the quarter-century of the globalization that came with the end of the Cold War, displaced workers around the world began mobilizing angrily to oppose an economic order that seemed to privilege corporations and political elites. Despite numerous economic studies to the contrary, just 19 per cent of Americans polled in July 2016 believed that trade creates more jobs. An earlier survey of public opinion in -14 countries found only 26 per cent of respondents felt trade actually lowers prices. Between 1999 and 2011, Chinese imports eliminated 2.4 million American jobs, closing plants for furniture in North Carolina, glass in Ohio, and auto parts and steel across the Midwest (Goodman 2016). As nations worldwide imposed a combined 2,100 restrictions on imports to staunch a similar loss of jobs, world trade started slowing...