From Recognition to Representation: Indigenous Rights and the Promise of Democratic Inclusion (Book Project in Progress)
Socorro, Oriental Mindoro, Philippines
In recent decades, states around the world have adopted policies recognizing distinct collective self-determination rights for Indigenous communites within their borders, in many cases devolving control over land and local governance functions to Indigenous political authorities. My book project explores how such policies affect the process of state-building and the quality of representation in modern democratic states. The recognition of collective self-determination rights for Indigenous communities is widespread and finds support in current international human rights law. Yet prominent literatures in political science suggest that the granting of such rights has the potential to both encourage state weakness and fragmentation and undermine democratic accountability.
In contrast, I argue that given underlying conditions of state weakness, collective recognition can offer a viable approach to incorporating peripheral populations into the state and creates opportunities for effective claim-making on the state through formal political processes. First, recognition allows the state to extend its reach in a way that is compatible with the incentives of local elites. Second, by legitimating collective claims on the basis of Indigenous identity and reinforcing Indigenous political structures, it enables collective mobilization that increases the leverage of historically marginalized communities in interactions with elected politicians and the state bureaucracy. This, in turn, encourages communites to channel demands through the formal political system, with nuanced implications for Indigenous-state relations. At the same time, the effects vary depending on features of existing local authority structures, local state capacity, and resource politics.
I illustrate and evaluate this argument primarily in the context of the Philippines, which has one of the most robust frameworks for Indigenous recognition in Southeast Asia. Drawing on more than two years of fieldwork in the country, I combine observational analysis of historical and contemporary administrative data, original survey data and survey experiments, and in-depth qualitative interviews with indigenous leaders and policymakers. I find evidence that recognition through the granting of collective land titles is associated with increased indigenous self-identification, but also with greater national identity and multiple indicators of voluntary compliance and state integration. In addition, I find evidence that recognition increases electoral mobilization directed toward obtaining public goods from the state. I corroborate my argument using cross-national data and secondary literature from additional country contexts.