Nico Ravanilla

Working paper · June 2026 draft

Patrons, Bosses, and Brokers: A Theory of Local Development in the Philippines' Patronage Democracy

Nico Ravanilla

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In brief

Why do Philippine provinces run by seemingly similar political dynasties develop so differently? A principal-agent model of the fiscal deal between constituents and local politicians shows how patrons, bosses, and brokers emerge, and why passive constituencies facing bossist politicians fall into a low-provision, low-growth trap.

Three-panel line chart of locally sourced revenue as a share of provincial income from 1992 to 2017, for provinces grouped as brokers, patrons, and bossists. Broker and patron provinces track near the shaded all-province median band, while the bossist panel splits between high lines for Ilocos Sur and Cavite and lines near zero for Maguindanao, Sulu, and Masbate.
The local fiscal constitution by dynasty archetype, 1992-2017: each line is one province's locally sourced revenue as a share of provincial income. Broker and patron provinces hover near the all-province median, while bossist provinces split between high shares sustained at high cost and the passive frontier, which sustains essentially none.

Abstract

Entrenched political elites dominate Philippine local politics, yet localities governed by observationally similar elites trace out strikingly different development trajectories. I develop a principal-agent model of the fiscal relationship between constituents and local politicians in which, following Fabella [2005], contract design is embedded in a weak governance environment, so that rents and clientelist transfers emerge endogenously. The familiar figures of Philippine local politics (patrons, bosses, and brokers) arise as regions of a single parameter space, interacting with the constituents' participative capacity. With participative constituents, the optimal fiscal constitution is insulated from the politician's type; with minimally participative constituents, brokers improve while bosses degrade contract efficiency; and with passive constituents facing bossist politicians, no incentive-compatible constitution exists, generating a low-provision, low-growth trap. Twelve well-documented provincial dynasties and 25 years of provincial fiscal records illustrate each configuration of the typology. The model rationalizes stylized contrasts across Philippine provinces and implies that performance-based intergovernmental transfers can substitute for the fiscal contract that weak communities cannot write for themselves.

Cite

@misc{ravanilla_patrons,
  title = {Patrons, Bosses, and Brokers: A Theory of Local Development in the Philippines' Patronage Democracy},
  author = {Nico Ravanilla},
  howpublished = {Working paper},
}
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