Description
As the Philippines navigates geopolitical tensions alongside uncertain global markets, the spotlight has been on the government’s ability to secure its economic interests against a volatile security backdrop. The active pursuit of economic diplomacy ranks high on policymakers’ agendas. While this is the conventional approach to Philippine foreign policy (FP), it can also be argued that the scope of FP analysis does not only include issues that directly impact economic diplomacy—it also involves studying how the space for acceptable policy is defined and made possible.
It is in this spirit that this paper examines the financialisation of remittances as a FP tool. The critical importance of remittances to the Philippines has already been widely discussed but there has been relatively limited attention given to the financialisation of remittances. The significance of remittances in this context can be illustrated in terms of (i) how remittances have affected long-standing dependence on external funding, and (ii) how this has shaped the Philippines' policy space and exposure to external risks.
Studies on remittance flows between the Global North and Global South have captured the persistence of inequalities underpinning relations between host and home countries. This paper aims to offer a more nuanced assessment of the financialisation of Philippine remittances that puts the fragmentation of sovereignty and its implications for the Philippines’ position in the global political economy at the centre of the analysis.