THE POLITICS OF STATUS: EXAMINING MIDDLE CLASS SUPPORT FOR RIGHT-WING POPULIST LEADERS IN PHILIPPINES AND INDONESIA

Abstract

The rise of right-wing populist leaders like Donald Trump in the USA and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines has received much attention in recent years. Scholars have posited that their nativist, sometimes xenophobic, and often illiberal rhetoric appeals to lowly educated blue-collar workers who feel ‘left behind’ by the increasing economic inequality and cultural heterogeneity in many liberal democracies, who are otherwise known as the ‘losers of globalisation’. However, empirical evidence for this is mixed, and in Southeast Asia, the results of the 2014 Indonesian and 2016 Philippines presidential elections showed that the educated middle-class were the main supporters of right-wing populists Prabowo Subianto and Duterte respectively. Why did educated middle-class voters in Indonesia and the Philippines, who do not fit the profile of the ‘losers of globalisation’ and have traditionally supported democratic governments in these two countries, support these two leaders who have used illiberal and exclusionary campaign rhetoric? To answer this question, this thesis undertakes a comparative analysis of both presidential elections by examining the failures of incumbent administrations and juxtaposing them with an analysis of both Prabowo and Duterte’s election campaigns using the framework of populism as a political style. Accordingly, I hypothesise that the failure of “good governance” narratives in Indonesia and the Philippines has led the educated middle class in both countries to fear the relative loss of their status, creating the conditions for right-wing populists to appeal to these voters through an explicitly anti-elite and strongmen populist political style that promises to restore their status. This thesis thus seeks to examine how there might be commonalities across country-specific narratives for why voters support right-wing populists in Southeast Asia and contribute to the limited comparative studies on populism in the region.