Prof. Herman Joseph Kraft recently published a book chapter entitled “IR in the Philippines: Accommodating New and Traditional Approaches” in Global International Relations in Southeast Asia, published by Routledge.
The abstract reads:
IR in the Philippines developed as a sub-field of the discipline of Political Science. The latter in turn was situated less as an academic field and more as a preparatory course for those pursuing a Law degree or a career in the bureaucracy. There is now, however, greater attention given to academic pursuit as an objective of higher education in the Philippines—and the consequent attention to more theoretical research, and the teaching of IR as a field of study not completely beholden to the need to produce bureaucrats and technocrats for foreign policy work. This can be seen in the increasing diversity in the types of research interests being pursued by scholars of IR in the country. At the same time, the field continues to be embedded in its antecedent purpose of providing training for aspiring diplomats and foreign-policy bureaucrats. Nonetheless, the influence of greater exposure to the shifting grounds of Social Science research from what had been normalized ontological, epistemological, and methodological positions is opening up spaces for more theoretical and reflexive thinking even as it continues to be grounded in its antecedents.
Access it here: https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003431169-7/ir-philippines-herman-joseph-kraft