Persuasive agenda-setting: Rodrigo Duterte’s inauguration speech and drugs in the Philippines

Exploring the elusive agenda-setting hypothesis pertaining to democratically-elected leaders, we test whether Duterte’s 2016 inauguration speech systematically shifted Filipinos’ policy agenda towards prioritizing illegal drugs. To do this, we examine daily Google searches (in a country that tops internet usage worldwide) and identify a large increase in drug-related searches right after the speech, both in absolute terms and relative to other prominent policy topics. We find no similar increase in neighboring countries, for potentially confounding topics, or after other key events (like his declaration of candidacy). Complementing this analysis, individual-level surveys reveal an increase in the share of respondents considering crime reduction the top national priority. To better identify causality, we exploit the historical timing of local festivals, which left some provinces less exposed to the speech. Results show less-exposed provinces exhibit smaller increases in drug-related Google searches and survey-elicited crime prioritization.