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This is the first book in the English language to examine the tangled web of relationships linking newspaper owners, editors and reporters, with leading politicians and power-holders. Duncan McCargo has been granted unique access to the editorial meetings of Thailand's leading newspapers, and drawing on this, the book uncovers the contradictions and dichotomies which underlie political coverage in the Thai press.
When a populist movement elected Thaksin Shinawatra as prime minister of Thailand in 2001, many of the country’s urban elite dismissed the outcome as just another symptom of rural corruption, a traditional patronage system dominated by local strongmen pressuring their neighbors through political bullying and vote-buying. In Thailand’s Political Peasants, however, Andrew Walker argues that the emergence of an entirely new socioeconomic dynamic has dramatically changed the relations of Thai peasants with the state, making them a political force to be reckoned with. Whereas their ancestors focused on subsistence, this generation of middle-income peasants seeks productive relationships with sources of state power, produces cash crops, and derives additional income through non-agricultural work. In the increasingly decentralized, disaggregated country, rural villagers and farmers have themselves become entrepreneurs and agents of the state at the local level, while the state has changed from an extractor of taxes to a supplier of subsidies and a patron of development projects. Thailand’s Political Peasants provides an original, provocative analysis that encourages an ethnographic rethinking of rural politics in rapidly developing countries. Drawing on six years of fieldwork in Ban Tiam, a rural village in northern Thailand, Walker shows how analyses of peasant politics that focus primarily on rebellion, resistance, and evasion are becoming less useful for understanding emergent forms of political society.
Written by an established expert on Thailand, this is one of the first books to fully investigate the Thai media’s role during the Thaksin government’s first term. Incorporating political economy and media theory, the book provides a unique insight into globalization in Southeast Asia, analyzing the role of communications and media in regional cultural politics. Examining the period from the mid 1990s, Lewis makes a sustained comparison between Thailand and its neighbouring countries in relation to the media, business, politics and popular culture. Covering issues including business development, tourism, the Thai movie industry and the war on terror, the book argues that globalization as it relates to media, can be patterned on Thai experiences.
In the last few years, Thailand has emerged as one of the world's most dynamic economies. Yet Thailand is still little known and sparsely written about. This book is the first full-length overview of Thailand's economy and politics. It is based on a wide range of sources in both Thai and English. Its focus is on the second half of the twentieth century, set in a deeper historical context of Siam in the Bangkok era. It plots the transition from rice economy to emerging industrial power, and from absolutist monarchy to one of Asia's most open and lively democracies. The book will be useful for students, interesting for the general reader, and challenging for specialists.
Democracy in Thailand is the result of a complex interplay of traditional and foreign attitudes. Although democratic institutions have been imported, participation in politics is deeply rooted in Thai village society. A contrasting strand of authoritarianism is present not only in the traditional culture of the royal court but also in the centralized bureaucracies and powerful armed services borrowed from the West. Both attitudes have helped to shape Thai democracy's specific character. This topical volume explores the importance of culture and the roles played by leadership, class, and gender in the making of Thai democracy. James Ockey describes changing patterns of leadership at all levels of society, from the cabinet to the urban middle class to the countryside, and suggests that such changes are appropriate to democratic government--despite the continuing manipulation of authoritarian patterns. He examines the institutions of democratic government, especially the political parties that link voters to the parliament. Political factions and the provincial notables that lead them are given careful attention. The failure to fully integrate the lower classes into the democratic system, Ockey argues, has been the underlying cause of many of the flaws of Thai democracy. Female political leadership, another imported notion, is better represented in urban rather than rural areas. Yet gender relations in villages were more equitable than at court, Ockey suggests, and these attitudes have persisted to this day. Successful women politicians from a variety of backgrounds have begun to overcome stereotypes associated with female leadership although barriers remain. With its wide-ranging analysis of Thai politics over the last three decades, Making Democracy is an important resource for both students and specialists.
This book traces the roots of Thailand's political development from 1932 to the present, accounting for the intervening period's political turmoil.
Fighting for Virtue investigates how Thailand's judges were tasked by the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) in 2006 with helping to solve the country's intractable political problems—and what happened next. Across the last decade of Rama IX's rule, Duncan McCargo examines the world of Thai judges: how they were recruited, trained, and promoted, and how they were socialized into a conservative world view that emphasized the proximity between the judiciary and the monarchy. McCargo delves into three pivotal freedom of expression cases that illuminate Thai legal and cultural understandings of sedition and treason, before examining the ways in which accusations of disloyalty made against controversial former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra came to occupy a central place in the political life of a deeply polarized nation. The author navigates the highly contentious role of the Constitutional Court as a key player in overseeing and regulating Thailand's political order before concluding with reflections on the significance of the Bhumibol era of "judicialization" in Thailand. In the end, posits McCargo, under a new king, who appears far less reluctant to assert his own power and authority, the Thai courts may now assume somewhat less significance as a tool of the monarchical network.
A narration of the volatile period following the second world war in which coups and counter coups become the common occurrence of political manoeuvring. Includes the Sarit regime, and explains the nature of Thai despotic paternalism and the concept of democracy seen within this context.
Thailand’s 2023 election results energised some Thais and traumatised others. Voters and analysts alike were astonished that a youthful party aiming to transform the country won the most seats, though not a majority. The Move Forward party wanted to de-militarise society and politics, de-centralise government administration, de-monopolise the economy, and curb the ideological, political, and financial power of the monarchy. For decades, Thai politics had revolved around two big questions: Do you support the charismatic Thaksin Shinawatra and his populist Pheu Thai party? Do you support military supervision of politics? Thaksin and the military—once enemies—now had a common foe. Relying on military-appointed senators, they formed a coalition government that pushed Move Forward into the parliamentary opposition. Move Forward’s challenge is to broaden support for its progressive agenda before the next election. That’s a scary prospect for Thaksin and the military because, according to the current constitution, next time they won’t be able to rely on unelected senators to rescue them. The revised edition of this book describes the historical context of these momentous events and trends and shares insights into the social and cultural undercurrents that shape Thai politics. Informed by the latest research, it is an accessible introduction for the general reader, while also offering much to those who want to know more about Thailand’s political dynamics.