earticle

영어

Most of the literature on Philippine foreign policy indicate that its centrality lies in the presidency. Most of it focuses on each presidential terms and their way of navigating international affairs. This may be because it has been suggested that the Philippine president is the chief architect of the nation’s foreign policies and is responsible for primarily taking the lead on charting the decisions to be made. This notion coincides with the idea that foreign policy decision making tends to be elitist in nature. However, this paper argues that several actors within society influence the decision-making process to an extent. Arguing that the state is not a monolithic entity, this paper will be using the state transformation approach, to examine some instances of fragmentation, decentralization, and internationalization that have shaped the decision-making process, balancing the previously thought notion of the president’s centrality, particularly in Manila’s foreign policies toward China, from 2016 to 2020.