In September 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law and imposed military dictatorship on the Philippines. In his recently published book, The Drama of Dictatorship (Cornell University Press, 2023), Joseph Scalice examines for the first time the complex events leading up to the declaration and traces the political developments and social context that made martial law possible.
How was it that the dynamic mass movement of the early 1970s, mobilized in defense of democracy, disappeared without a trace on the day of declaration? In answering this question, The Drama of Dictatorship uncovers the central role played by two rival Communist parties and rewrites the history of the elite opponents of Marcos, particularly Ninoy Aquino, revealing them to be forces who, like Marcos, were plotting against democracy.
This event was recorded and the video can be watched here.
Speaker and Chair Biographies:
Joseph Scalice is Assistant Professor of Southeast Asian history at Hong Kong Baptist University. He writes on revolutionary movements and authoritarianism in Southeast Asia with a focus on the postwar Philippines.
Prof. John Sidel is Director of the Saw Swee Hock Southeast Asia Centre, and the Sir Patrick Gillam Professor of International and Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Professor Sidel received his BA and MA from Yale University and his PhD from Cornell University. He is the author of Capital, Coercion, and Crime: Bossism in the Philippines (1999), Philippine Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century: Colonial Legacies, Postcolonial Trajectories (2000), Riots, Pogroms, Jihad: Religious Violence in Indonesia (2006), The Islamist Threat in Southeast Asia: A Reassessment (2007), Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines (2020, with Jaime Faustino) and Republicanism, Communism, Islam: Cosmopolitan Origins of Revolution in Southeast Asia (2021).