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This book is the result of a major research study on corruption, set in its political context. It covers estimates of the amounts involved; the roles of politicians, business people, bureaucrats, and police; the political background and impact; popular attitudes on corruption; and potential counter-measures. The publication of the original research prompted a political storm. Both inside and outside of Thailand, this work is recognized as a landmark study.
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.
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.
Comparative analysis of case studies across East Asia provides new insights into the relationship between state building, stateness, and democracy.
"The book will be fascinating reading for Southeast Asia specialists, and researchers on democratization, national identity and the politics of Thailand."--BOOK JACKET.
"Thailand Unhinged: Unraveling the Myth of a Thai-Style Democracy" offers a trenchant analysis of Thai politics and society over the tumultuous years that followed the ouster of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thailand's ongoing political crisis is explained through the prism of the country's painful post-absolutist history - a history marred by the systematic sabotage of any meaningful democratic development, the routine hijacking of democratic institutions, and the continued suffocation of the Thai people's democratic aspirations orchestrated by an unelected ruling class in an increasingly desperate attempt to hold on to its power. The book includes scathing critiques of both Thaksin's administration as well as the military-backed government that came to power in late 2008, following the week-long siege of the country's busiest airports staged by the "yellow shirts" of the People's Alliance for Democracy. The essays are written in a provocative, confrontational style - making "Thailand Unhinged" a decidedly unconventional mix of academic scholarship, literary journalism, and radical pamphleteering. About the Author FEDERICO FERRARA (PhD, Harvard University) works as Assistant Professor of Political Science at the National University of Singapore. He will be joining the City University of Hong Kong's Department of Asian and International Studies in 2010.
On May 19, 2010, the Royal Thai Army deployed tanks, snipers, and war weapons to disperse the thousands of Red Shirts protesters who had taken over the commercial center of Bangkok to demand democratic elections and an end to inequality. Key to this mobilization were motorcycle taxi drivers, who slowed down, filtered, and severed mobility in the area, claiming a prominent role in national politics and ownership over the city and challenging state hegemony. Four years later, on May 20, 2014, the same army general who directed the dispersal staged a military coup, unopposed by protesters. How could state power have been so fragile and open to challenge in 2010 and yet so seemingly sturdy only four years later? How could protesters who had once fearlessly resisted military attacks now remain silent? Owners of the Map provides answers to these questions—central to contemporary political mobilizations around the globe—through an ethnographic study of motorcycle taxi drivers in Bangkok. Claudio Sopranzetti explores the unresolved tensions in the drivers’ everyday lives, their migration trajectories, consumer desires, and political demands amidst the restructuring of Thai capitalism after the 1997 economic crisis. Reconstructing the entanglements between their everyday mobility and political mobilization, Sopranzetti reveals mobility not just as a strength of contemporary capitalism but also as one of its fragile spots, always prone to disruption by the people who sustain its channels but remain excluded from their benefits. In so doing, Owners of the Map advances an analysis of power that focuses not on the sturdiness of hegemony or the ubiquity of everyday resistance but on its potential fragility as well as the work needed for its maintenance.
'Perhaps the best introduction yet to the roots of Thailand's present political impasse. A brilliant book.' Simon Long, The Economist Struggling to emerge from a despotic past, and convulsed by an intractable conflict that will determine its future, Thailand stands at a defining moment in its history. Scores have been killed on the streets of Bangkok. Freedom of speech is routinely denied. Democracy appears increasingly distant. And many Thais fear that the death of King Bhumibol Adulyadej is expected to unleash even greater instability. Yet in spite of the impact of the crisis, and the extraordinary importance of the royal succession, they have never been comprehensively analysed – until now. Breaking Thailand's draconian lèse majesté law, Andrew MacGregor Marshall is one of the only journalists covering contemporary Thailand to tell the whole story. Marshall provides a comprehensive explanation that for the first time makes sense of the crisis, revealing the unacknowledged succession conflict that has become entangled with the struggle for democracy in Thailand.
This book explores the challenges and obstacles faced by dissident leaders in Asia seeking to introduce reforms into regimes that are either imperfectly democratic or frankly hostile to democratic practices and institutions.
This book traces the roots of Thailand's political development from 1932 to the present, accounting for the intervening period's political turmoil.