Rice Imports and Electoral Proximity: The Philippines and Indonesia Compared

This article attempts to explain why the pattern of rice imports in Indonesia and the Philippines, two countries that share many similarities, differ as their respective presidential elections approach: rice imports tend to increase in the Philippines yet fall in Indonesia. The mainstream agricultural political economy literature can only help provide partial answers because it overly stresses the influence of material factors within institutional frameworks. To more fully come to grips with this contrasting pattern, we also need to understand how ideas impact politics and where these influential ideas originate. I find that Indonesia’s more pro-peasant, economic nationalist history, as compared to its Philippine counterpart, acts as a constraint on that country’s politicians. It compels them to reduce rice imports as elections approach in order to appear more populist.

稻米进口和选举趋近性：比较菲律宾和印度尼西亚

关键词： 印度尼西亚；菲律宾；稻米进口；农业保护主义；腐败；总统选举

本文尝试解释印度尼西亚和菲律宾这两个具有很多相似性的国家为什么在各自的总统选举来临之际，稻米进口的模式会有所不同: 菲律宾的稻米进口趋于增加而印度尼西亚趋于下降。主流农业政治经济研究只能提供部分的答案，因为它过于强调制度框架内的物质性因素的影响。 为了能更充分地理解这个两国的对比模式，我们还需要理解观念是怎样影响政治的，以及这些有影响力的观念是源自何方。我发现跟菲律宾相比，印度尼西亚的更支持农民的经济民族主义历史对该国政治家起到了限制作用。它迫使政客们在选举到来之际减少进口，以便表现得更为民粹主义。

Translated from English by Li Guo