60 Chasing the Wind: Assessing Philippine Democracy groupings have persisted and the predicted outcomes of stable democratic systems remain problematic.15 Thus, in this context, state formation and democratization become complex and contentious processes of struggle, accommodation, and domination between two analytically separate but mutually linked spheres of activity: society and the state. One approach that captures this process well, says it thus:16 States are parts of societies. States may help mold, but they are also continually molded by, the societies within which they are embedded. . . . there is no getting around the mutuality of state-society interactions: Societies affect states as much as, or possibly more than, states affect societies. (Migdal 1994: 2) As further explained by Migdal, this process of struggles and accommodation between the state and social forces may yield at least four idealtypical outcomes: 1) total transformation by the state where its penetration leads to the “destruction, co-optation, or subjugation of local social forces;” 2) “state incorporation of existing social forces . . . in order to establish a new pattern of domination;” 3) “existing social forces' incorporation of the state . . . as to harm significantly the state's overall chances of achieving integrated domination in society;” and 4) state failure in its attempt at penetration resulting “in little transformative effect on the society --- and limited effects of the society on the state.” (Migdal 1994: 24-26) In its broad outlines, a “ state in society” framework for understanding state formation and democratization in the Philippines may be summed up as follows: The state and its central elites engage in a continuous, conflictual process of struggle and accommodation with various social forces to ensure public order and security, preserve territorial integrity, define cultural markers, and decide on the distribution of power and resources. In the Philippine context, such social forces necessarily include powerful political clans and local strong men, social classes such as landlords and capitalists, workers and peasants, the Catholic Church, various civil society organizations, and the armed movements. Among these social elements, this paper focuses on the role of political clans as the major social force in this state-society engagement. The historian McCoy provides an apt summary of the enduring salience of the family and its kinship network for the entire range of activities in the country's political, economic and cultural life: “In the century past, while three empires and five republics have come and gone, the Filipino family has survived. It provides employment and capital, educates and socializes the young, assures medical care, shelters its handicapped and aged, and strives, above all else, to transmit its name, honor, lands, capital, and values to the next generation” (1993: 7). But a state that is anchored on families and clans with narrow and