Graduation Year

2025

Date of Submission

4-2025

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Government

Reader 1

Andrew Sinclair

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@2025 Pravallika Kona

Abstract

This thesis examines how populist leaders Narendra Modi (India) and Rodrigo Duterte (Philippines) exploited postcolonial vulnerabilities to consolidate power and erode democratic norms. It comparatively analyzes their strategies to show how Global South populism structurally responds to colonial legacies, elite capture, and neoliberal inequities. Combining discourse analysis with institutional audits, the study identifies three authoritarian mechanisms: (1) legislative weaponization codifying exclusion, (2) welfare conditionality tying benefits to compliance, and (3) institutional capture of courts and bureaucracies.

Both leaders reframed historical grievances (e.g., colonial divides) into moral crises, legitimizing exclusion under “national renewal.” Despite ideological differences, they centralized power by weakening checks on authority, co-opting institutions, and rewarding loyalists. Post-reelection strategies evolved into iterative authoritarianism—centralizing decision-making (Modi) and militarizing governance (Duterte) —transforming institutions into tools of majoritarian control. Challenging Western-centric frameworks, the study argues populism’s threat lies not in rhetoric but in institutionalizing exclusion through legal-bureaucratic systems. By integrating ideology and institutional analysis, it models how fractured democracies enable authoritarian adaptation. Findings underscore addressing systemic vulnerabilities-historical inequities and weak institutions-to counter populism’s entrenchment in the Global South.

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