The Endurance and Erosion of Support for Mano Dura: Electoral Evidence from the War on Drugs in the Philippines

Enrico Antonio B La Viña and Nico Ravanilla

Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, Working Paper Series from Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California

Abstract: Why does public support for mano dura policies, once implemented, either sustain or erode? This study examines the Philippine war on drugs. Using municipal-level vote shares from the 2019 elections—three years into Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency—we measure support for mano dura by analyzing votes for senatorial candidates who backed or opposed the drug war. Pairing this data with municipal-level crime and violence reports from Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project (ACLED) and police blotters, we construct a panel of candidate-municipality observations and employ fixed effects for candidates and municipalities to identify the effects of targeted crimes and state violence on public support. We find that increases in targeted crimes, particularly drug-related offenses, bolster public support for mano dura, while state violence, especially by police, erodes it. These findings reveal a fragile balance between public safety concerns and the costs of repressive governance.

Keywords: Social and Behavioral Sciences; Elections; crime; repression; justice; law; public safety; state violence; human rights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-08-25
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