Scandal as Ambivalent Governance: Communication, Trust, and Legitimacy Beyond Liberal Models

Scandal is often theorized as rupture: the exposure of wrongdoing that mobilizes outrage and restores accountability. Yet this revelatory model, rooted in liberal-democratic contexts, struggles to explain why scandals frequently deepen ambiguity, entrench polarization, or recalibrate legitimacy without resolution. This article develops the concept of scandal as ambivalent governance through three Philippine cases: the Dengvaxia vaccine controversy, Philippine Offshore Gaming Operations (POGOs), and corruption in flood-control projects of the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH). Building on recent work on trust cultures, relational sovereignties, and constructivation, I argue that scandals are communicative arenas where publics simultaneously affirm and contest authority, extending and withdrawing trust through cultural grammars. Ambivalence is not a democratic deficit but a constitutive condition of communicative life. By theorizing from the Philippines, the framework challenges liberal-democratic models while offering concepts that travel outward, rethinking scandal as a constitutive practice of governance across both South and North.