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.     

Development impact fees: Modeling future growth and economic development in a south Carolina community

User fees are an attractive alternative to general taxes, especially property taxes, insofar as they are stable and appropriate. The development impact fee is sometimes used in growing communities, and can relieve the service cost burden of new development to existing residents in the short term. Their proper use demands forecasting development trends, population growth and economic conditions. The city of Mount Pleasant, South Carolina - a suburb of Charleston - has used simple models to assess impact fees for the past seven years. This paper will describe the models used to determine impact fees and also describe a more filly developed revenue model used to predict future growth of impact fees as one category of local revenue.     

Gerald Fitzmaurice (1865–1939), Chief Dragoman of the British Embassy in Turkey by Berridge,G.R

Nixon was one of the first American politicians to advocate the building of a strong US‐Japan economic alliance and the Nixon administration laid the foundation for the healthy post‐Vietnam dialogue that the Carter and Reagan administrations cultivated with Tokyo. This article examines that foundation, and its contribution to the general post‐World War II US‐Japan relationship. Vietnam changed America, and it even changed the way a once arch‐cold warrior, Nixon, viewed the significance of US‐Japan relations. After years of Washington's scoffing at or ignoring Japanese interests, this American ‘discovery’ of Japan was an important development in itself. Hence, this article also examines a relationship in transition which, for Nixon's America, was an important first step in the construction of a post‐Vietnam view of Asian/Pacific cooperation.     

COMMENTARY ON "FAMILY BRIDGES: USING INSIGHTS FROM SOCIAL SCIENCE TO RECONNECT PARENTS AND ALIENATED CHILDREN" (WARSHAK, 2010)

This commentary reviews the goals, structure, and content of the intensive educational intervention described by Warshak (2010); raises concerns; considers the meaning of "success" in child alienation cases; and makes suggestions for future research. Titled Family Bridges: A Workshop for Troubled and Alienated Parent-Child Relationships, the program is a rigorous and disciplined approach designed to help participants repair severely derailed parent–child relationships. Family Bridges uses evidence-based instruction principles to maximize learning and create a safe atmosphere enabling the alienated child(ren) and rejected parent to be, and work, together. The multimedia materials selected for the 4-day program draw from social science research and focus on multiple and universal processes by which distortions of perception, memory, and thinking occur; negative stereotype formation; the impact of high conflict on children and parent–child relationships; effective communication and dispute resolution; and parenting skills training. Based on a small and diverse sample of families, Family Bridges demonstrates considerable promise as one type of intervention designed for these severely troubled relationships. Concerns include the cost of the intensive intervention, the absence of a parallel program for the favored parent, and whether the program can be replicated effectively. The family psychology and law fields would benefit significantly from research that evaluates Family Bridges and other educational and therapeutic interventions designed to help alienated children repair and strengthen balanced relationships with both parents.     

No ‘return to the state’: dependency and developmentalism against neo-liberalism

In the emerging ‘post-Washington Consensus’ era, neo-liberalism is searching for alternatives that once again emphasise the state. Yet neither Latin American dependencia nor East Asian developmentalism – two development models actually practised ‘on the ground’ – shares the basic assumptions of the liberal, rationalist state. First, there persists a significant ontological divide over the purpose of the state. Developmentalists and dependentists advocate deep, dynamic state agency rather than the hands-off, liberal, ‘night-watchman’ state. Second, development theory has unfolded within a modern liberal framework of science, democracy, the interests of US foreign policy, and increasingly a commitment to poverty alleviation. Dependency and developmentalism reject these neo-liberal benchmarks in the interests of state consolidation and autonomy. The persistence of dependentist and developmentalist understandings of the state precludes a uniform, post-neoliberal reversal in development theory back to the state.     

Trauma Systems Therapy in Residential Settings: Improving Emotion Regulation and the Social Environment of Traumatized Children and Youth in Congregate Care

Although abundant evidence exists indicating the prevalence of trauma exposure among youth in residential care, few models exist for creating trauma-informed milieu treatment. This article outlines the problem and describes the implementation of Trauma Systems Therapy (TST) in three residential centers. TST is unique in emphasizing youth emotions and behaviors as well as the role a distressed or threatening social environment may play in keeping a traumatized youth in a dysregulated state. This dual emphasis makes TST specifically appropriate to implementation in congregate care, focusing assessment and intervention strategies on both clinical treatment and the functioning of the therapeutic milieu itself. Data are reported on incidents of the use of physical restraint; numbers of disrupted foster care placements following discharge from residential treatment; and scores on psychometric measures of children’s functioning and emotion regulation capacity. Knowledge gained through TST implementation in these three residential centers has important implications for developing a model of trauma-informed congregate care.