Customer Reviews

Policing America's Empire: The United States, the Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (New Perspectives in Se Asian Studies)

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The introductory chapter to Policing America's Empire is one of the most brilliant things I've read in some time. McCoy both argues for putting surveillance and control front and center to the analysis of politics and state formation, and also emphasizes how control techniques developed in colonies, such as the Philippines, are reimported back into state structures, in this case the US. In this way, without going anywhere near post-structuralist inflected theorizing, he lives up to one of the key imperatives of post-colonial thought--shedding light on how colonial histories shaped the histories of dominant states and classes. He also makes a highly provocative argument that whereas the British depended on the production of orientalizing knowledge about peoples, the US depended more on methods of surveillance that cast a tight net over the terrain, flora, fauna, etc of the lands being exploited. He suggests that the compilation of knowledge and the deployment of scandal based on that knowledge are more important to political history than is usually granted.
Unfortunately, as he enters into his narrative, some of these points fade from view. He is most skillful at depicting this question of scandal--different colonial and nationalist leaders would target each other with true and untrue rumors to discredit their opponents (you may well suspect there was more to the downfall of Elliot Spitzer than the official story after reading this). But the barrage of names and narratives is at times difficult to follow. The question of the American form of colonial control noted above is almost entirely left out. Honestly, I cannot remember many specifics at all of McCoy's description of the period of Philippino history under US colonial rule.
In the next section, McCoy shows how some officials returning from the Philippines imported forms of control developed there back into the US state. Alliances between governmental surveillance and voluntary organizations crushed dissent around World War I. In addition to government agents, there were also retired intelligence officials who developed their own files to help the government, something I've seen in some spy movies but is apparently a real phenomenon. McCoy highlights the continuities between repression after World War I and the eventual McCarthy era, although the theme of colonial importation gets a little lost.
The final section, on postcolonial politics in the Philippines, is the best since the introduction. McCoy shows how each new political leader has come to depend on police forces developed during the colonial era to exert control and forestall social reform. They also seem increasingly intertwined with corruption generated by 'jueteng' lotteries, more recently replaced with drug dealing. McCoy offers a vivid narrative of the three waves of 'people's power' (the one that propelled Corazon Aquino to power, the only one most of us in the US heard about, was just the first), and their limits. Although many left books end on an optimistic note, foreseeing the prospect of revolution as a response to growing inequality, McCoy is bleak, suggesting a broken middle class and a drug addicted underclass offers little hope. Meanwhile, although the US has closed its bases, it has expanded the 'war on terror' in the Philippines, the third most important country in that war besides Iraq and Afghanistan.
This book raises a number of very intrigiuing themes. I wish the first section on Philippino colonial history had been better edited to more clearly highlight the themes and narrative McCoy sought to emphasize. But patient readers will find much to chew on here.

[Disclaimer: I haven't finished reading it yet; thus a streamlined review] A well-reasoned, well-researched, and well-written work that is destined to become a foundation stone in the study of the development (or metamorphosis) of the American nation since the invasion of the Philippines in 1898. The work is formidable and highly enlightening for both academics and for all those who have struggled to understand the stark discrepancy between the mythical America as imagined by citizens indoctrinated with the ideologies of Jefferson, Lincoln, and the contemporary ideologues on the one hand, and the America as manifest in its heavily armed and brutal police forces, its global military, its advanced and ever-advancing weaponry, its global surveillance network, and its CIA.

Strongly recommended.

What a terrific book. McCoy manages to merge rigorous historical research, insightful analysis, comprehensive summaries and overviews, and good story-telling in this master study of the modern Philippines.

The book is focused on the critical position of policing in Philippines society, as conveyed in the title. In the first chapter, McCoy discusses and justifies a focus on policing: he discusses the often overlooked but still important matters of policing and scandal in any general society, why policing (and scandal) maintains an uncharacteristically central role in Filipino society, and how the Filipino history is also crucial for an understanding of US history - in summary: empire affects both the colony and the imperial country.

When recounting a historical event, McCoy tells the story in an entertaining yet neutral manner. Perhaps, since truth is stranger than friction, he is aided by the sheer absurdity often inherent in scandals and instances of blackmailing, bribery, and general corruption; but nevertheless I found many parts of the book to be quite amusing. Another great aspect of this book if the "Conclusion" section at the end of each chapter: as this subsection title suggests, McCoy concludes each chapter by giving a rough summary of the history covered in that chapter, and he describes how and why these events connect to the larger themes mentioned above - policing, government legitimacy, and the consequences of imperial conquest.

Again, McCoy does a particularly excellent job of making connections between specific historical events (often police scandals), and larger historical and political questions. In particular, in Chapter 9, McCoy breaks from the Philippines temporarily to discuss policing in the US in the period of approximately 1905 - 1975. He illustrates how policing innovations in the US in fact have roots in the US policing of the Philippines - a historical aspect of US society that is by no means common knowledge. He also describes (in 9 and in other chapters), how the Philippines continues to be a testing ground for new US police and military strategies, and how US innovations in the Philippines are still filtering back into the US. Several aspects of recent history and current events (Iraq, Afghanistan, and the so-called War on Terror) are also analyzed from the viewpoint of surveillance advancements on the fringes of empire finding their way back to the US mainland.

Highly recommended.

Wow! Im was very impressed with this. An all round interesting read. Some of McCoys best work yet!

This was so compelling I could not put it down. I have recommended it to all my students. After reading this I have further insight into the US democratization and colonialization of the Phillippines. The modern day parallels between the Phillippines and our current wars are striking and McCoys book helps contextualize this.

Great book, just an awesome read. Written very well, I would recommend title to anyone that is intersted SE Asian Studies.

Well researched and written with a bold perspective. Historical and captivating. I've bought a couple copies to distribute to people who are well versed in the region and all said the same. This one will remain on my bookshelf for years to come and Mccoy earns 5 stars on this one. Bravo!!

A must read for anyone interested in not just Se Asian but America's presence elsewhere on the globe, now and in the future. Mccoy manages to craft his factual narrative to ensure compelling thoughts seem like they came from your own mind, just before he answers them succinctly for you not a second later.

This book gives a fair detailed analysis which i felt was well researched and thought provoking. I really do think its worth a read so if your considering it just go ahead and get it. It certainly is a must read as I was thoroughly impressed. The best compliment I can give it is this positive review.

"Policing America's Empire" is a distortion of U.S. history during occupation of the Philippines. The author promotes his radical political agenda, and then twists historical facts to serve them. He asks the reader to take enormous leaps of faith that our colonial period was antecedent to the political corruption and crime in the Philippines today, and to the internal "surveillance state" and imperialist that he says America has become. McCoy focuses on the Police Constabulary and its rudimentary information collection, collation and analysis system, fundamental to any intelligence program; and criticizes the PC as brutal and invasive, but makes no comparison to the dreaded Spanish Guardia Civil that had trampled the rights of Filipinos for 350 years. The U.S. began "filipinizing" the PC in 1913--that Hong Kong's China Mail newspaper called its "fatal flaw"--but by 1917, Filipino Rafael Crame had risen from its ranks to become Director General. McCoy paints Crame as a tyrannical American lackey while ignoring the fact that the Philippines National Police headquarters still bears the name of this revered General. And the author gives short shrift to the successes of PC intelligence in thwarting Japanese imperialism up until WWII. America set the Philippines on a course for independence from almost the day she purchased her from Spain, winning approval by a single vote in Congress--not exactly overwhelming support by the American public for America to become a colonial power. Many educated Filipinos today say the problem with the American colonial period, and the ensuing political turmoil, is that it ended too soon.