5 results
Thailand
- Contestation, Polarization, and Democratic Regression
- Prajak Kongkirati
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- Published online:
- 23 April 2024
- Print publication:
- 30 May 2024
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- Element
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This Element aims to provide an overview of Thai politics with an up-to-date discussion of the characteristics of political regimes, political economy, and identity and mobilization that are grounded in historical analysis stretching back to the formation of the modern nation state. The thematic topics will focus on a) the chronic instability and ever-changing nature of political regimes resulting in the failure of democratic consolidation, b) the nexus of business and politics sustained by a patrimonial state structure, patronage politics and political corruption, and c) the contestation of identity and the causes and consequences of mass mobilization in the civic space and street politics.
1 - Introduction: Two Mainland Southeast Asian Militaries in Comparative Perspective
- Edited by Michael J. Montesano
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- Book:
- Praetorians, Profiteers or Professionals?
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 09 October 2021
- Print publication:
- 18 December 2020, pp 1-29
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Summary
In 1959, Aguedo F. Agbayani of Pangasinan introduced to the Philippine Congress a bill “designed to prevent the growth of the power and influence of the military in this country, in order to spare our country from the tragic experiences of our Asian neighbors, recently in Burma and Thailand, where military dictatorship has marred their beautiful history” (Republic of the Philippines, House Bill 2220 [1959], quoted in Berlin 2008, p. 97).
Congressman Agbayani evidently had the keen sense of connections between the Philippines and the rest of Asia not uncommon among his countrymen in the post-war period. His reference to Burma, today's Myanmar, concerned the military's non-violent assumption of power in the country in October of the preceding year and to Chief of the General Staff Ne Win's consequent service as premier at the head of a “caretaker government” (Nakanishi 2013, pp. 84–88). In Thailand, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat had staged coups d’état in September 1957 and again in October 1958 (Thak 2007, pp. 78–80). Of course, Agbayani could not know that, following elections in early 1960, Ne Win would return power to a civilian government in Rangoon, only to mount a coup of his own in March 1962 and thus to initiate long-term military control of Burma, or that military rule in Bangkok was destined to last another fourteen years, until October 1973. These developments and their legacies account for the publication of the present volume, treating the same two states whose examples troubled Aguedo Agbayani sixty years ago.
The late Donald Berlin called attention to the congressman's 1959 bill in his landmark study of civil-military relations in the Philippines during the decades preceding President Ferdinand E. Marcos's declaration of martial law in September 1972 (Berlin 2008). It was the contention of that study that—contrary to received wisdom, despite the absence of direct military control of the government in Manila, but very much as in other Southeast Asian states and societies—“military influence in Philippine state and society historically ha[d] been substantial” (Berlin 2008, p. 140). At the same time, the specific forms of that influence during the 1946–72 period proved varied.
8 - Murder and Regress: Violence and Political Change in Thailand
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- By Prajak Kongkirati, Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Political Science, Thammasat University
- Edited by Michael J. Montesano, Terence Chong, Mark Shu Xun Heng
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- Book:
- After the Coup
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 23 May 2019
- Print publication:
- 07 January 2019, pp 194-223
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Summary
Thailand's electoral politics has changed drastically in the past four decades, and these profound changes have ushered in a new type of political struggle. Since the democratization process began in the late 1970s, electoral politics in Thailand has been tainted by various forms of violent conflict. Apart from targeted assassinations, other forms of election-related violence have included attacks on polling stations on election day, bombing candidates’ and vote canvassers’ houses, threatening election-related personnel with harm, burning political parties’ headquarters, and mass protests following elections. Hundreds of people have died or been injured as a result of these various types of election-related violence. Arising from this history is an important question that calls for investigation: how have the patterns and degree of election-related violence shifted over time? Election-related violence first manifested itself in the 1975 and 1976 elections, during the turbulent period of democratic transition after the 1973 student uprising. The intensity and degree of electoral violence increased in the 1980s and remained relatively constant until the late 1990s. Thai society then observed a sharp rise in violence associated with the 2001 and 2005 elections. Despite predictions that the deep political polarization that occurred after the 2006 military coup would intensify electoral competition and produce higher levels of bloodshed during campaigning and polling, electoral violence actually declined in the 2007 and 2011 elections. Violence increased again, with a new pattern of mass mobilization, in association with the 2014 elections, polls that resulted in the paralysis of the country and eventually paved the way for the military coup of May 2014.
These trends in electoral competition and violence occurred in the context of dramatic political change in Thailand during the past four decades. This chapter aims to provide a broad overview and explanation of the changing landscape of electoral politics since the democratization process began in the 1970s by focusing specifically on political violence in Thai electoral politics. It aims to identify the primary factors, processes and actors that fomented electoral violence. By examining the changes in the characteristics of actors involved in electoral violence in particular, it reflects the shifting mode of electoral competition and terrain of struggle in Thai politics over time. During 1975–76, electoral conflict was a struggle between progressive forces, led by the student movement on the one hand and the conservative elite on the other.
The Prayuth Regime: Embedded Military and Hierarchical Capitalism in Thailand
- Prajak Kongkirati, Veerayooth Kanchoochat
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- Journal:
- TRaNS: Trans-Regional and -National Studies of Southeast Asia / Volume 6 / Issue 2 / July 2018
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 30 July 2018, pp. 279-305
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This paper explores the Prayuth regime, which began with a military coup in May 2014. Politically, we indicate how the junta has embedded its power in ways different from the past. It does not pursue a power-sharing governance as in the Prem and Surayud governments, but tries to militarise the cabinet, parliament, and even state-owned enterprises. The new constitution is designed to institutionalise the power of the military and the traditional elite vis-à-vis the electoral forces. Ironically, however, the junta's rule by military decree and discretionary power have weakened the bureaucratic polity, rather than strengthening it. Economically, the Prayuth regime forms a partnership with a group of Sino-Thai conglomerates to establish the Pracharath scheme, with an aim to differentiate its grass-roots development policy from Thaksin's populism (Prachaniyom). Nonetheless, it has become a platform through which the giant firms perform the leading role of ‘Big Brother’ in supervising small businesses in their sectors. Pracharath therefore reflects the collective endeavours of the conglomerates to replace competitive markets with hierarchy, rather than encouraging local firms to catch-up with them.
Haunted Past, Uncertain Future: The Fragile Transition to Military-Guided Semi-Authoritarianism in Thailand
- from THAILAND
- Edited by Daljit Singh, Malcolm Cook
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- Book:
- Southeast Asian Affairs 2018
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 08 June 2019
- Print publication:
- 06 April 2018, pp 363-376
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Summary
The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) junta led by General Prayuth Chan-ocha came to power on 22 May 2014 after it toppled the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra, sister of former prime minister Thaksin. This coup returned Thailand to military authoritarian rule similar to that of strongman Field Marshall Sarit Thanarat's in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Prayuth's premiership brought back the old model of “Thai-style democracy” in which the royal–military alliance dominates politics with an ultra-conservative discourse. Since the coup, the military has established itself as the new ruling elite by enhancing its scope of power, budget and size. It has also sought to maintain its dominance by weakening majoritarian democracy and undermining the influence of political parties and civil society through constitutional design. This chapter explains an attempt of the Prayuth administration at restructuring Thai political order through various institutional mechanisms in order to prolong military power.
During the Cold War period, military rule was the most common form of non-democratic regime. Between the end of the Second World War and the beginnings of the third wave of democratization, militaries have intervened in approximately two-thirds of the more than one hundred non-Western states. And in the late 1970s militaries controlled the governments in about a third of these countries. However, since the end of the Cold War, the phenomenon of military coup and military government has gradually disappeared and become anachronistic. Only a handful of poverty-stricken countries still encounter political intervention from the army and military coups. Thailand is currently the only country in Southeast Asia being governed under military rule. This striking fact points to the necessity of closely examining the roles and politics of the military in Thailand's transition.
Consolidating Military Power
Instead of pursuing a power-sharing mode like the previous coup governments in 1991 and 2006, the current ruling junta led by General Prayuth and General Pravit Wongsuwan aims to consolidate and entrench military power in the political system for the long term. They aim to re-centralize the state structure by increasing the duties and power of the military at the expense of civil society and elected forces. The new political structure is designed to control majoritarian democracy by blunting the power of political parties.