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Monkish Politics in Southeast Asia: Religious disenfranchisement in comparative and theoretical perspective*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 August 2014

TOMAS LARSSON
TOMAS LARSSON*
Affiliation:
St John's College, University of Cambridge, UK Email: thl33@cam.ac.uk
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Abstract

In the Theravāda Buddhist polities on the mainland of Southeast Asia, abiding concerns about the proper structuring of the relationship between the ‘two wheels of dhamma’ (i.e. the realm of religion and the realm of politics) have had a profound influence on processes of state formation and political legitimation. This article explores one such religious ‘effect’ on the constitutions and electoral laws of modern Burma/Myanmar, Siam/Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos, namely the official disenfranchisement of Buddhist monks (and, in some instances, Buddhist ‘nuns’ as well as non-Buddhist clergy). The article traces the historical evolution of this Buddhist exception to the democratic principle of equal and universal suffrage, and assesses the extent to which dominant theoretical approaches in the social sciences help us to understand the politics of religious disenfranchisement in Southeast Asia. It finds that neither secularization theory nor the religious-economy approach can explain observed patterns. Instead, the article offers an account of the politics of religious disenfranchisement that emphasizes the role of ideas and historical context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , January 2015 , pp. 40 - 82
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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Footnotes

*

I thank Bénédicte Brac de la Perrière, Ian Harris, Astrid Norén-Nilsson, the two anonymous reviewers for Modern Asian Studies, and participants in the panel on ‘Constitutional Politics in Southeast Asia’ at the EuroSEAS conference in Lisbon and at the POLIS research seminar at the University of Cambridge for helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. I also thank Puli Fuwongcharoen for excellent research assistance. The usual caveat applies.

References

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3 Siam was renamed Thailand in 1939; Burma was renamed Myanmar in 1989. My usage will reflect these name changes.

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5 I discuss justifications for religious disenfranchisement in greater detail elsewhere: Tomas Larsson, ‘The Buddha or the Ballot: The Buddhist Exception to Universal Suffrage in Contemporary Asia’ (unpublished).

6 See Massicotte, Louis, Blais, André and Yoshinaka, Antoine, Establishing the Rules of the Game: Election Laws in Democracies (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004)Google Scholar. Although the clergy are restricted from standing for election to parliament and other representative institutions in a number of countries, including the United Kingdom and Israel, they are not denied the right to vote. See Temperman, Jeroen, State-Religion Relationships and Human Rights Law (Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff, 2010), pp. 327–328CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 One of the most commonly used datasets on politics and religion contains information on the clergy being restricted from holding political office, but not from voting. Unfortunately, a dataset that does provide data on the latter is rather inaccurate, at least as far as religious disenfranchisement is concerned; the PIPE dataset has the clergy in both Thailand and Myanmar incorrectly enfranchised in 2001. See Jonathan Fox, Religion and State dataset, <http://www.religionandstate.org>, [accessed 18 May 2014]; and Przeworski, Adam et al., Political Institutions and Political Events (PIPE) Data Set (New York: Department of Politics, New York University, 2013)Google Scholar.

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9 This is perhaps not entirely surprising; it has long been obvious to scholars that religiosity has proved stubbornly persistent. See Stark, Rodney, ‘Secularization, R.I.P.’ Sociology of Religion 60 (3) (1999), pp. 249–273CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Willford, Andrew C. and George, Kenneth M. (eds), Spirited Politics: Religion and Public Life in Contemporary Southeast Asia (Ithaca: Southeast Asia Programme Publications, Cornell University, 2005)Google Scholar.

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12 The centrality of the sangha in the Buddhist tradition is evident from the frequently recited formula: ‘I go for refuge in the Buddha; I go for refuge in the dhamma; I go for refuge in the sangha.’

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15 I use the term ‘monkish’ not in order to deny the fact that Buddhist ‘nuns’ and non-Buddhist clergy in some cases have been disenfranchised alongside members of the sangha. I would argue that this has essentially been a spillover from ‘monkish politics.’ Historically and presently, monks constitute the overwhelming majority of religiously disenfranchised persons in Southeast Asia.

16 This self-imposed moral imperative has shaped the basic rules of the political game in a number of ways. In this article, I will focus only on disenfranchisement. In addition, Southeast Asian states have sought to keep Buddhist monks out of ‘politics’ by denying them the right to stand for election, join political parties, and freely engage in political speech.

17 Paradoxically, when the sangha defines itself as being ‘outside’ or, rather, ‘above’ politics, this is of course in itself a political act.

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44 It should be noted that the Thai state's patronage and protection is not limited to Buddhism. It extends to all officially recognized religions.

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54 The Buddhist Church in Burma: Reform and remedy for indiscipline, IOR/M/3/531, BL. Nu, Burma under the Japanese, pp. 90–91. It is far from clear that banning monks from voting helped instil apolitical ‘discipline’ in the Burmese monkhood either in the shorter or longer term.

55 <http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1946/may/21/burma-legislature-bill-hl>, [accessed 20 May 2014].

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58 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1697.

59 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1705.

60 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1701.

61 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1692.

62 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1700.

63 House of Commons, Parliamentary Debates, p. 1701.

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83 During this period, one prominent monk reportedly ‘agitated for the right of monks to vote in elections’. Ian Harris, ‘Buddhism in Extremis: The Case of Cambodia’ in Harris, Buddhism and Politics in Twentieth Century Asia, p. 64.

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92 Vong Sokheng and Charlotte McDonald-Gibson, ‘NEC Trumpets 93 Percent Registration’, Phnom Penh Post, 28 February 2003.

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98 David Boyle and May Titthara, ‘Render Unto the CPP’, Phnom Penh Post, 15 May 2013.

99 An elderly abbot associated with the main opposition party was found beaten to death in his temple as the country was preparing for elections held in July 2013. Opposition leaders suspected that the timing of the murder might not have been a pure coincidence. But political intimidation of the monkhood appears to have been ineffective, at least in the capital, where many young monks threw their support behind the leading opposition party. See Richard Finney, ‘Cambodian Monk with Ties to Opposition Party Found Killed’, Radio Free Asia <http://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambodia/monk-05242013163936.html>, 24 May 2013, [accessed 20 May 2014]; and Hul Reaksmey and Alex Willemyns, ‘CPP's Popularity Challenged Among Phnom Penh's Monks’, The Cambodia Daily, 10 July 2013.

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101 See, for instance, New York Times, ‘Laotians Ballot for an Assembly: Vote in Indochinese Nation Boycotted by Reds’, 26 December 1955.

102 Constitution of the Kingdom of Laos, articles 7 and 8.

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123 The deposed king, Thibaw, lived on in Indian exile until his death in 1916.

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