While studies on Philippine elites have generally assumed that their political and economic power emanate from belonging to political dynasties, Philippine Politics and the Marcos Technocrats: The Emergence and Evolution of a Power Elite elucidates the emergence of the Philippine technocracy, not from their politico-economic backgrounds, but from their technical knowledge and expertise. Such technical skills were needed by then President Ferdinand E. Marcos and by multilateral lending institutions like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

This book traces the rise of technocrats who were part of President Marcos’s pre-martial law administration (1965–1972) and who segued into the martial law regime. It looks into their family and educational backgrounds and how these have shaped and developed the technocratic know-how which made them valuable to local businesses and multinational corporations in the 1950s to the 1960s. This ultimately led to their recruitment into government in the 1960s—a time when the state was increasingly expanding its economic activities in the public sphere. The book shows that precisely on matters of economic policy-making, there was that precarious dynamics between the technocrats on one hand, and a pre-martial law Congress and the business community on the other, both dominated by family economic interests. The book thus hopes to add to the scant existing literature that illustrates how power elites like technocrats transform into important players in policy-making.