Thaksin's Achilles' Heel: The failure of Hawkish approaches in the Thai South

Abstract

Many scholars voice approval for the political strategies and approaches that businessman-turned-politician Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has borrowed from the business world. His CEO management style is regarded as a key political asset. Moreover, his populist policies such as the “one village–one tambon” village fund and the “bank for the poor” show him to be full of concern for grass-roots Thais. In this article I argue that Thaksin's handling of the South reveals another side of his character, his preference for the use of violence to tackle problems and his disdain for “softer” methods such as discussion and negotiations. Thaksin pays very little attention to peaceful solutions offered by academics, the National Human Right Commission, and even the government-appointed National Reconciliation Commission. Unfortunately, this hawkish approach has widened distrust and discrimination among Thais and non-Thais. Thaksin's draconian methods have had serious consequences both on himself and the country. The volatile conflict in Thailand's far South is Thaksin's Achilles' heel.     

Thai social movements and the anti-ADB campaign

This article examines the desacralisation of royal charisma in contemporary Thailand. Over the past few years an underground discourse has emerged among critics of royal ideology and supporters of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra that directly confronts the power of the monarchy. The images, metaphors and linguistic devices used in the process are difficult to study because they rarely appear in public. This article focuses on an unprecedented demonstration of rage against the monarchy on September 19, 2010, when red-shirted demonstrators painted anti-royal graffiti on a construction hoarding at Ratchaprasong intersection in downtown Bangkok. In analysing the Thai political crisis as a battle of different charismatic groups, the article will present the September 19 event as the first open strike against the sacred charisma of the Thai monarchy. This charisma has hitherto been protected by royalists from all walks of life who were “working towards the monarchy.” With their attacks on the monarchy the red-shirts were challenging a legitimacy-conferring system which had benefited wide sections of the Bangkok populace in the past. At the same time, a competing charismatic movement has emerged around Thaksin, who himself has to take into account the charisma he conferred upon his followers.     

Voices from Pattani: Fears,suspicion, and confusion

Abstract

By December 2005, violence in the South of Thailand had taken the lives of more than one thousand people. In this article, the voices of southerners are presented as they were recorded during the author's two-year stay in Pattani Province and various Malay-Muslim villages in southern Thailand. Verbatim excerpts from tok imams (religious teachers), overseas scholars, academics, fisherfolk, and locals of various ethnicity and religious groups illustrate perspectives and frustrations about the violence. Fears, suspicions, and confusion are the most prominent emotions embedded in these conversations. These excerpts illustrate the foremost concerns of the common people in the South, among them, impertinent threats to livelihood security and peaceful ethnic coexistence in the region.     

The Prisoner Dilemma: Britain,Germany, and the Repatriation of Indian Prisoners of War

Abstract

Between October 1914 and December 1915, nearly 135,000 Indian riflemen—known as sepoys—fought in the trenches of France and Belgium at the battles of Ypres, Festubert, Givenchy, Neuve Chapelle, Second Ypres and Loos, suffering some 34,252 casualties. At a prisoner of war camp outside Berlin, Indian revolutionaries and emissaries from the Ottoman Empire attempted to convert the allegiances of the sepoys in their custody with a combination of pan-Islamic and nationalist appeals. Although this campaign ultimately failed, it profoundly shaped British repatriation policy at the end of the war when, cautioned Secretary of State for India Austen Chamberlain, the British could not allow men who had been exposed to ‘strongly hostile influences’ to return home unmonitored. The 1918 armistice and British repatriation policy therefore presented a host of new challenges to Britain’s colonial subjects from South Asia as they navigated the post-war imperial landscape and secured what was most important to them—safe transportation home.     

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?     

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.     

Le Parlement en temps de crises politiques dans le royaume de Portugal (XIV-XVe siècles)

SUMMARY

This article focuses on the role of the Cortes in the course of two decisive moments of the Portuguese monarchy: the choice of a king on the one hand and the decision to accept a regency on the other. The Cortes of Coimbra (1385) are first analysed in the context of the political events that preceded them, in terms of the novelty of being summoned by the social forces of the kingdom, and in terms of their ideology and innovative measures. As a result, a king was chosen—King John I, the founder of the House of Avis—and reforms of a noticeable ‘constituent’ tendency were proposed. Attention is then focused on the Cortes of Lisbon (1439), which were equally unusual in their summoning and performance. There, it was decided that the infant Don Pedro, brother to the late king Don Duarte, would be in charge of the regency while the heir to the throne, Don Afonso V, was not yet of age. This prevented the queen from occupying the role the monarch had intended for her. In both cases these Cortes are very special given that they legitimated revolutionary acts which had previously taken place. This behaviour reinforces the idea that by comparison with other kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula, the Portuguese Cortes had a strong leadership role in moments of political crisis and in the assertion of the power and social formation of the monarchy.     

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.     

Le pouvoir et la guerre dans le discours parlementaire (1914–1918)

SUMMARY

In 1914 the political situation in Portugal was driven by feelings of insecurity, following the revolution of 1910 which had replaced the monarchy by a republic. In this article, Maria Ribeiro illustrates the state of public opinion and its reaction to the European war. The article uses the speeches of the party spokesmen in debates in parliament down to the final decision to enter the war on the side of the Entente powers in February 1916. It argues that public opinion was driven by three perceived sources of insecurity: fear that the great powers had designs for the taking over of Portugal's African colonies; the fear that since the establishment of the republic, the Spanish monarchy might be contemplating intervention in Portuguese internal affairs and sought to compromise her independence; and a general perception that the new republic needed to assert its international status. This last consideration, the desire to establish firm international recognition of the sovereignty of the Portuguese Republic, was probably the principal factor which moved the Portuguese political leaders to intervene in the war.     

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.     

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.     

“What is it that We Call the Nation”: Cecilia Lillian Tshabalala’s definition,diagnosis, and prognosis of the nation in a segregated South Africa

Abstract

This paper examines the ideology of Cecilia Lillian Tshabalala who spent 18 years in the United States from 1912 to 1930. Within two years of returning to South Africa, she founded the self-help group, the Daughters of Africa in 1932. Tshabalala used the Daughters and the widely read newspapers—Bantu World and Ilanga laseNatal—to define, construct, and diagnose the African nation she found materially and socially wanting upon her return. Tshabalala’s experience abroad and her exposure to African-American women’s clubs and her participation at the annual Chautauqua conferences in upstate New York provided the platform for her to conduct her own social service gospel in segregated South Africa. This essay, which argues that religion served as Tshabalala’s antidote to all the social ills plaguing the African nation, traces the evolution of her ideology by discussing how she was in conversation with African-American and South African male movements, and also women on the African continent.     

The land question,land grabbing and agriculture in Africa

Abstract

Land grabbing has emerged as a form of production and export of food and biofuels in the Third World by enterprises owned by foreign governments and business entities. Large tracts of land are either leased or sold to these enterprises cheaply by the state, usually with the argument that such land is empty and needs to be put to good use. But land grabbing dates back to colonial times, thus substantially shaping the political economy of such countries as South Africa, Kenya and Zimbabwe. It is therefore fitting at this conjuncture to discuss land grabbing in its holistic and historical context, noting that smallholding agriculture juxtaposed against large scale commercial farming will for a long time define agrarian class struggles, the character of the state and the project of nation building.

Over the last decade or so land distribution in Zimbabwe by the Mugabe government was assumed to be heading for disaster. Recent information, however, reveals that productivity has improved, tobacco exports are improving and smallholders accessing affordable farm input and markets while getting a fair reward for their labour behave no differently from large scale commercial farmers. In the final analysis the issue of equity and poverty elimination needs to be central in addressing the land and agriculture question in Africa.     

Intercepting Disgrace: Lacuna and “Letter to John Coetzee”

ABSTRACT

This review article examines two palimpsest rewritings of J. M.Coetzee’s canonical but controversial novel, Disgrace (1999). Both rewritings are by women: Lacuna, a novel published in 2019, is by a white South African woman, Fiona Snyckers, and “Letter to John Coetzee” takes the form of a short story by Michelle Cahill, a woman of color living in Australia, published in Cahill’s collection Letter to Pessoa (2016). The article uses Cahill’s coinage of “interceptionality” to discuss how dominant narratives may be disrupted and subverted, particularly when it comes to representing gender-based violence in the arts. It concludes with a discussion of South African artist Gabrielle Goliath’s exhibition, “This song is for … ” (2019).     

Family history,identity, and public history: writing a history of The Benevolent Society in its 200th year

Abstract

Since 2011, the authors have worked together on outputs associated with the bicentenary of The Benevolent Society of New South Wales, Australia's oldest charity, established in 1813. This article focuses on one of those outputs—a project making use of family histories of clients of The Benevolent Society's Asylum, in the second half of the nineteenth century, to reveal the histories of these families in colonial New South Wales. The project also involves an exploration of the many different ways in which contemporary Australians are active agents in the creation of historical knowledge when practicing family history.     

Thailand’s Deep State,Royal Power and the Constitutional Court (1997–2015)

ABSTRACT

This article challenges the network monarchy approach and advocates for the use of the concept of Deep State. The Deep State also has the monarchy as its keystone, but is far more institutionalised than the network monarchy accounts for. The institutionalised character of the anti-democratic alliance is best demonstrated by the recent use of courts to hamper the rise of electoral politics in a process called judicialisation of politics. This article uses exclusive material from the minutes of the 1997 and 2007 constitution-drafting assemblies to substantiate the claim that the Deep State used royalists’ attempts to make the Constitutional Court a surrogate king for purposes of its own self-interested hegemonic preservation.     

Studies presented to the international commission for the history of representative and parliamentary institutions 1980 — 1985

SUMMARY

In this article Joseba Agirreazkuenaga continues his account of the development of the Basque political institutions to the period following the settlement of the first Carlist war by the Convention of Bergera in 1839. This laid down a process for incorporating the Basque foral institutions into the framework of the new liberal constitution of the Spanish monarchy. It required negotiations between the Spanish Cortes and Basque representatives, which produced the institution of the Basque Conferencias to speak for the three Basque provinces. Once established these developed into the main institutional voice for the developing Basque national movemebt. By the 1860s the Conferencias had virtually acquired the function of a Basque provincial government.     

Mbeki and the peace process in Africa: A contribution to Africa's renaissance

Abstract

Critics of South African President Thabo Mbeki's constant, consistent and continuous involvement in the continental wars and conflicts insist that the president's prime focus should be South Africa, and solving its basic problems of poverty and unemployment. However, it is important to highlight the duel relationship between South Africa and the continent during the long struggle against apartheid. Mozambique, Angola, and in part Zimbabwe, Zambia, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland are what they are now because of the reign of terror unleashed on them as a result of their direct support to the South African liberation movements. The poverty and starvation apparent in Angola and Mozambique were perpetrated by the white minority regime's constant bombing of, and acts of violence against these two countries, and direct support of the anti‐government forces. As for the South African liberation movements, they continued to exist and function mainly because of the support offered to them by their independent African brothers. It must be realised that without this support, which for some countries was very costly (i.e., economically, socially and psychologically), liberation would not have come when it did. It has fallen on the shoulders of the newly liberated South Africa to try and intervene in the wars that cause instability on the continent and to try to bring about peace.     

Les comites permanents de l'assemblee nationale constituante française mai 1848 — mai 1849

Summary

For most of this century the history of the Elizabethan and Jacobean parliaments was dominated by the interpretations of Sir John Neale and Wallace Notestein. They argued that the major feature of these parliaments was the emergence of an organized opposition which contributed greatly to the constitutional development of England through their conflicts with the monarchy. This view has recently been challenged by a number of historians who stress parliament's role as a legislative body, arguing that there was a high degree of co‐operation and agreement, and that there was no organized opposition.

This paper suggests that these two alternative models — political arena/ conflict and legislative body/co‐operation — are overstated and that a better model is to consider parliament as an arena in which different ‘interest groups’, ‘factions’ or ‘lobbies’ operated. It investigates a number of lobbies which are discernible from parliamentary, state and local archives and concludes that such a model enables us to return the organized puritan opposition to the history of these parliaments without their becoming the dominant feature. It allows for the interpretation that the primary function of parliament was legislative, and that this was achieved through co‐operation and consensus, while not under‐estimating the conflicts that legislation could provoke.     

Explaining South Africa’s land reform policy failure through its instruments: the emergence of inclusive agricultural business models

ABSTRACT

This paper seeks to explain the emergence of South African inclusive agricultural business models in relation to the land reform policy. We demonstrate that in South Africa such policy instruments linking small-scale and large-scale farmers respond to endogenous dynamics linked to the failure of its land reform policy. We study the land reform policy change induced by its policy instruments. Indeed, introducing the market as the preferred means to implement land reform caused unanticipated side effects, creating constant pressure for change that such inadequate instrument exerted on the set policy objectives during the first phase of policy implementation. After cohabitating uneasily with rather antagonistic policy goals, policy instruments ultimately led to a change in policy objectives, shifting from supporting small-scale black subsistence agriculture to targeting a class of emerging farmers committed to commercial agriculture. Inclusive Business Model’s policy instruments were subsequently identified as the best fit to achieve the re-adjusted policy goal.