The 2014 Thai Coup and Some Roots of Authoritarianism

ABSTRACT

Thailand is the only country currently ruled by a coup-installed military government. The 2014 coup aimed not only to abolish the influence of Thaksin Shinawatra but also to shift Thailand’s politics in an authoritarian direction. While the army authored the coup, the professional and official elite played a prominent role in engineering the coup and shaping political reforms. This article examines some historical antecedents of this authoritarian turn, first in the broad trends of Thailand’s modern political history, and second in the emergence and political evolution of the Bangkok middle class.     

Rural Transformations and Democracy in Northeast Thailand

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the underlying economic, social and political processes that contributed to democratic progress in the rural areas of northeast Thailand. After the 2006 military coup villagers in the region played an important role in anti-coup activities and actively demanded for democratic rule. To defend democratic rule, villagers not only opposed military intervention but also challenged elites, who they considered had masterminded the coup. The coup was a landmark change in terms of the relationship between the highest authority in Thailand and the rural masses. According to the Thai hierarchical order, villagers are regarded as inferior who must obey the elite. Any action that does not conform to this rule is considered morally wrong and to be punished. Why did rural dwellers dare to engage openly in political action that defied the hierarchical order? To comprehend such actions the article examines structural changes in Thailand’s countryside that released villagers from traditional bonds and enabled them to engage in a new form of political mobilisation. It is argued that the emergence of a democratic movement in the rural northeast is a result of two important processes: rural socio-economic transformations and political democratisation.     

The Resilience of Monarchised Military in Thailand

ABSTRACT

This paper argues that conventional notions of Thailand’s military must be re-examined because they misrepresent the military’s role in politics. Instead of examining its material interests, one must also scrutinise the power and legitimacy of Thailand’s armed forces in terms of its connection to monarchy over time. The relationship between monarchy and military represents a “parallel state”, whereas the ideology, rituals and processes within this relationship result in what can be termed a “monarchised military.” The purpose of this nexus is to sustain a palace-centred order from which the military obtains legitimacy. From 1991 until 2014, the monarchised military mostly operated behind a defective democracy, although it occasionally carried out coups to re-assert the palace’s authority. Its more recent political intrusions have enhanced the military’s power on Thailand’s political stage. Civilian prime ministers have unsuccessfully sought to reign in the military, but to no avail owing to the armed forces’ close association with monarchy.     

Introduction: Understanding Thailand’s Politics

ABSTRACT

Thailand’s politics from the mid-2000s has seen considerable conflict and contestation, with seven prime ministers, two military coups, and scores of deaths from political violence. This article, as well as introducing the eight articles in the Special Issue, examines various aspects of this tumultuous period and the authoritarian turn in Thai politics. It does this by examining some of the theoretical and conceptual analysis of Thailand's politics and critiquing the basic assumptions underlying the modernisation and hybrid regimes perspectives that have tended to dominate debates on democratisation. While the concepts of bureaucratic polity and network monarchy shed light on important political actors in Thailand, they have not grappled with the persistence of authoritarianism. In theoretical terms, the article suggests that it is necessary to understand historically specific capitalist development as well as the social underpinnings that establish authoritarian trajectories and reinforce the tenacity of authoritarianism.     

Ironic political reforms: elected senators,party-list MPs,and family rule in Thailand

ABSTRACT

An elected Senate and the party-list system are two institutional innovations of the 1997 Thai Constitution designed to support political reforms. This paper sheds light on one unintended effect of these reforms: they have allowed scores of political families to maintain or even tighten their grip on Parliament. Combining aggregate data and case studies, this paper shows that a sizable number of elected senators and party-list parliamentary members are related, by birth or marriage, to other parliament members elected in the post-1932 period. The well-intended reforms have concentrated parliamentary power in the hands of these families, many of which represent the excesses of Thailand’s full-blown electoral democracy. The survival and resilience of these families diminish reform opportunities by further entrenching corruption, clientelism, violence, and electoral fraud, as well as by deepening dynastic rule that militates against political pluralism and inclusiveness.     

Hegemony and the politics of culture and identity in Thailand

Abstract

This article argues that the establishment of the Ministry of Culture in Thailand needs to be understood in a broadly historical perspective that relates to the role of culture in hegemonic strategies of the state. It presents an overview of broadly defined culture policy in Thailand from the 1930s before moving to a more detailed discussion of the period from the 1980s to the present. The principle contention, developed in the second half of the article, is that the current policies of Thailand's Ministry of Culture, and its role in hegemonic identity production, can only be understood by taking account of the variety of factors that shaped the Ministry's emergence. These factors include the influence of international development agencies, strategies of appropriation by the Thai state, and the role of progressive forces within Thailand that seek political and cultural reform. The circumstances under which the Ministry was formed have made it a site of contestation between conservative royalist-nationalist perspectives on Thai national identity and progressive localist and international understandings of Thai national identity.     

A Kingdom in Crisis – What’s All the Fuss About?

This article reviews Andrew MacGregor Marshall’s A Kingdom in Crisis: Thailand’s Struggle for Democracy in the Twenty-First Century, a book on how Thailand’s political challenges relate to the Thai monarchy. The review draws comparisons between the excitement surrounding the publication of the acclaimed book The King Never Smiles in 2006 and the recent reaction to the publication of A Kingdom in Crisis. It argues that the book is an important contribution because it informs a wide audience about the damaging political role of the monarchy, but it repeatedly ignores an already existing corpus of literature that deals critically with Thailand’s monarchy. Moreover, its focus on the succession as the key factor in the ongoing political crisis is unnecessarily narrow and should have been complemented by an analysis of structural forces as drivers of change.     

War on error and the Southern fire: How terrorism analysts get it wrong

Abstract

This extended, five-part critique of Conflict and Terrorism in Southern Thailand interrogates how terrorism experts have interpreted the recent escalation of violence in the Thai southern border provinces. It does so by questioning the authors' use of sources, and draws on a range of alternative Thai-and English-language sources to suggest that the authors have reached poorly founded conclusions. The first part considers the contemporary context of terrorism studies and argues that it is important to understand Conflict and Terrorism as a knowledge product influenced by that discipline. The second presents an overview of competing theories concerning events in Thailand, as background to the conclusions presented in Conflict and Terrorism. The third evaluates the book's conclusion that Thailand faces a renewed insurgency, largely driven by domestic factors and carried out by definable actors. The fourth part examines the authors' claim concerning the importance of a booklet titled Berjihad di Patani, which is said to have motivated insurgents involved in the 28 April 2004 “uprising.” The fifth will attend to some significant factual and interpretative errors that severely undermine the credibility of the book. Overall, the critique demonstrates that various interpretations of what is happening in the South of Thailand remain plausible, and the article concludes that the authors of Conflict and Terrorism were too poorly equipped to deal with these competing interpretations to offer any insights into the conflict.     

Pakistan: Crisis of a Frontline State

For more than 50 years, Pakistan has functioned as imperialism's “frontline state.” The military has remained the country's dominant political player and the basic precepts of bourgeois democracy remain conspicuous by their absence. Since the military coup in October 1999, the configuration of power in Pakistan has become subject to serious internal contradictions, in large part because of the “war on terror” and the loss of public prestige of the military. These contradictions have intensified in the wake of a lawyer-led street movement sparked by the military top brass' dismissal of the country's chief justice in March 2007. Since then the country's most well-known politician, Benazir Bhutto, has been assassinated and her Pakistan People's Party has swept to power in general elections held in February 2008. However, the crisis of the frontline state has not ebbed, and the oligarchic system of power remains subject to rupture.     

Political Finance Regimes in Southeast Asia: Introduction

ABSTRACT

The three articles in this themed collection investigate the interplay between political finance regimes and the quality of democracy in Southeast Asia. Andreas Ufen's piece on political finance in Malaysia and Singapore argues that the semi-authoritarian regimes in both states have blocked the reform of campaign and party funding regulations in order to keep their opposition in check. The article on Indonesia, authored by Marcus Mietzner, showcases the country's dysfunctional political finance system as a major hurdle toward further democratization. In their contribution on Thailand, Napisa Waitoolkiat and Paul Chambers show that weak political finance regulations have contributed significantly to the shallowness of Thai parties. Overall, the collection demonstrates that without meaningful political finance reforms, Southeast Asia's democratic stagnation is likely to persist for many years to come.     

Redefining Democratic Discourse in Thailand’s Civil Society

ABSTRACT

Thailand’s civil society has contributed to the country’s democratic regression. Underlying this political position are redefined meanings of democracy. This article seeks to shed light on these intriguing positions and processes by exploring the democratic discourses that prevail in Thailand’s civil society and their implications. The article does this by using a case study of a network of development actors associated with a public and influential Community Organisation Development Institution (CODI) organisation. It is found that democratic discourses are associated with a preoccupation with the sense of collective identity, defined through civil society’s communitarian vision. This preoccupation influenced their political emphasis on promoting “collective virtues.” It is argued that these discourses limit the democratic potential of Thailand’s civil society in a number of ways. First, they facilitate the building of connections between civil society and conservative elites. Second, the discourses endow civil society with an organisational culture that puts emphasis on promoting the roles of “good people” who are mostly selected by those at the top of the civil society organisations that are hierarchical.     

Sexual Slander and the 1965/66 Mass Killings in Indonesia: Political and Methodological Considerations

Indonesia has been haunted by the “spectre of communism” since the putsch by military officers on 1 October 1965. That event saw the country's top brass murdered and the military attributing this putsch to the Communist Party. The genocide that followed was triggered by a campaign of sexual slander. This led to the real coup and the replacement of President Sukarno by General Suharto. Today, accusations about communism continue to play a major role in public life and state control remains shored up by control over women's bodies. This article introduces the putsch and the socialist women's organisation Gerwani, members of which were, at the time, accused of sexual debauchery. The focus is on the question of how Gerwani was portrayed in the aftermath of the putsch and how this affects the contemporary women's movement. It is found that women's political agency has been restricted, being associated with sexual debauchery and social turmoil. State women's organisations were set up and women's organisations forced to help build a “stable” society, based on women's subordination. The more independent women's groups were afraid to be labelled “new Gerwani ” as that would unleash strong state repression. This article assesses the implications of these events for the post-1998 period of Reformasi and reviews some recent analyses of 1965, state terrorism and violence and reveals blind spots in dealing with gender and sexual politics. It is argued that the slander against Gerwani is downplayed in these analyses. In fact, this slander was the spark without which the bloodbath would not have happened and would not have acquired its gruesome significance.     

The Unruly Past: History and Historiography of the 1932 Thai Revolution

ABSTRACT

The monarchy and the country’s military dominate discussions of Thai political history. The country’s democratic history meanwhile is much less well known. To many people, historiography – the history of the writing of history – is a dull affair that only concerns academics. But the changing representations of the origins of democracy in the 1932 revolution that ended the absolute monarchy show the politics of history as a continuous problem that still shapes Thai society. The interpretations have been bound to the bitter partisanship that has accompanied a history of political instability. This article examines the changing interpretations of 1932 in their historical contexts and demonstrates the central antagonism towards the ideal of popular sovereignty, despite its long history in the country, that is still held by the military and monarchic elite.     

Branding Dissent: Nitirat,Thailand’s Enlightened Jurists

Abstract

This article examines the political role of a group of academic lawyers based at Thammasat University who have been seeking to reform various aspects of the Thai legal and judicial system. The seven-member group started out by criticising the illegality of the 2006 coup. After the 2010 crackdown against redshirt protestors, the group named itself Nitirat and started to hold seminars, draft legal proposals, and campaign to amend various laws. Nitirat has repeatedly challenged the legal and constitutional underpinnings of three key elements of the Thai state: the judiciary, the military, and the monarchy. In doing so, the group has gained a mass following, drawn mainly from those sympathetic to the “redshirt” movement which broadly supports former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Informally led by scholar Worajet Pakeerat, Nitirat has created a popular branding which is reflected in huge audiences for public events, and the sales of souvenirs. The article aims to answer the following questions: How does Nitirat combine the roles of legal academic and political activist? How does it differ from the traditional mode of Thai public intellectuals? How significant is the Nitirat phenomenon?     

From tragedy to comedy: Political reform in Thailand

Thailand's democracy has been profoundly influenced by mass struggle and tragic bloodshed. The political freedom now exercised by Thai citizens ia a direct result of continuous mass struggle against dictatorship, the high points of which were the 14th October 1973 and the May 1992 popular uprisings. Yet, at the same time, this freedom has also had its limits defined by the brutal crushing of Thailand's socialist movement on the 6th October 1976. This has meant that the present day parliamentary system is devoid of any element of class politics. It is this, more than anything else, which is responsible for the corruption and vote-buying in the electoral system. Recent attempts at political reform, culminating in the drafting of the 1997 Constitution, results from the work of a coalition between two separate and conflicting class factions in Thai society. On the one hand, “the People's Organisations” (N.G.O.s, campaigns for democracy, peasant and labour groups) demanded more rights and participation in decision-making. On the other hand, “the modernist liberal wing of the ruling elite” wished to see more efficient and stable government. The contradictions between these two political currents can be seen throughout the reform process and in Thai politics today. Attempts to cleanse Thai politics using a reformed Constitution, new election laws and newly established “independent bodies,” such as the Election Commission and Constitutional Court, are unlikely to succeed, since they fail to address the real basis of money politics in Thailand and rely on a narrow structuralist approach. A more realistic route to political reform would rely on the mobilisation of social groups on a class basis. Only when such groups organise to push for more social equality and justice inside and outside the confines of the present structures can there be true progress.     

Proxy agents,auxiliary forces,and sovereign defection: assessing the outcomes of using non-state actors in civil conflicts

Abstract

This article interrogates the role of non-state armed actors in the Ukrainian civil conflict. The aim of this article is twofold. First, it seeks to identify the differences between the patterns of military intervention in Crimea (direct, covert intervention), and those in the South-East (mixed direct and indirect – proxy – intervention). It does so by assessing the extent of Russian troop involvement and that of external sponsorship to non-state actors. Second, it puts forward a tentative theoretical framework that allows distinguishing between the different outcomes the two patterns of intervention generate. Here, the focus is on the role of non-state actors in the two interventionist scenarios. The core argument is that the use of non-state actors is aimed at sovereign defection. The article introduces the concept of sovereign defection and defines it as a break-away from an existing state. To capture the differences between the outcomes of the interventions in Crimea and South-East, sovereign defection is classified into two categories: inward and outward. Outward sovereign defection is equated to the territorial seizure of the Crimean Peninsula by Russian Special Forces, aided by existing criminal gangs acting in an auxiliary capacity. Inward sovereign defection refers to the external sponsorship of the secessionist rebels in South-East Ukraine and their use as proxy forces with the purpose of creating a political buffer-zone in the shape of a frozen conflict. To demonstrate these claims, the article analyses the configuration of the dynamics of violence in both regions. It effectively argues that, in pursuing sovereign defection, the auxiliary and proxy forces operate under two competing dynamics of violence, delegative and non-delegative, with distinct implications to the course and future of the conflict.     

The silence of the bullet monument: Violence and “Truth” management,Dusun-nyor 1948, and Kru-Ze 2004

Abstract

The so-called Dusun-nyor rebellion of April 1948 is a central and highly controversial episode in the history of southern Thailand. During the “rebellion,” Malay-Muslim villagers fought pitched battles with Thai police and soldiers. Drawing upon sources from a variety of perspectives, this article reviews these events in light of the Thai state's persistent attempts at “truth” management. What soon emerges is that the same events are understood quite differently by those of different perspectives. Using insights developed in other studies of the political usages of monuments, the article focuses on a rather mysterious “bullet monument” that commemorates the 1948 event. The bullet-shaped monument, which is located in the grounds of a police station in Narathiwat Province, has no accompanying text. Like the rebellion whose suppression it appears to celebrate, the bullet monument represents an ambiguous and confusing manifestation of collective memory. In various respects, the “Dusun-nyor rebellion” prefigures the controversy and ambiguity surrounding the storming of the Kru-Ze mosque in Pattani in April 2004. In this recent episode, thirty-two men were killed by Thai security forces inside one of the country's most sacred Muslim sites. Both the Dusun-nyor and Kru-Ze events point to the importance of looking beyond violence, and of thinking critically about the nature of “truth.”     

Allende in Athens: The Political and Cultural Impact of the Chilean 1970s in Greece during the Colonels' Dictatorship and the Metapolitefsi (1970–1981)

This article discusses how Greeks perceived Salvador Allende's overthrow, Pinochet's military dictatorship, and US interventionism in Chile. By the end of Greece's dictatorship (1967–1974), left-wing militants emotionally identified with the ‘Chilean tragedy’ through their own experiences of military authoritarianism. Indeed, the Greek Colonels' Junta amplified the 1973 Chilean coup's local impact. Subsequently, during the early Metapolitefsi period (1974–1981), a wide variety of Greek political, social, and cultural actors used the Chilean 1970s as a key reference in the crucial debates that ultimately redefined Greece's collective political and cultural identities.     

Cambodia and the United Nations - Legal Documents

ABSTRACT

This study examines the evolution of political party finance in Thailand, which has been crucial for party development. The nature of party finance cannot be examined separately from the country's democratization given that the military early on dominated political parties. At the same time, such financing traditionally depended upon either regional factions (for larger parties) or party leaders (for micro-parties), while state funding for parties was nonexistent. The 1998 and 2007 Organic Acts on Political Parties contained finance reforms to strengthen parties, making them more transparent and accountable. Yet these reforms have only been partly successful. Today party leaders, faction leaders, and the military continue to influence party finance. This study addresses the issue of party finance in Thailand by scrutinizing its historical evolution from the dawn of Thai parties and party laws in the 1950s to the present. The authors conclude, first, that the limited nature of party finance laws in the pre-1998 period legitimized military-backed parties while facilitating intra-party factionalism. Second, they contend that despite reforms in party finance laws in Thailand major flaws remain to be corrected.     

Bureaucratic Migration Politics: German Support for Common EU Policies on Labour Migration

As a macrostructure, this article uses a bureaucratic politics framework to understand the preference formation of the German federal government on liberalising economic migration policies. This allows unpacking the process of preference formation and linking it to a number of causal factors, which, by influencing the costs and benefits distribution of the relevant actors, shape the position of the government. The article argues that the misfit between the existing national regulations for economic migration and European-level policies has to be zero – otherwise the economic and political adaptation costs for the actors involved are too high. A heated national debate on immigration is negatively related to governmental support for such measures, as the political costs of support skyrocket. Conversely, if the decision-making process happens bureaucratically, this helps to attain governmental support, as the political costs of doing so are kept minimal.