Democracy's Quality and Breakdown: New Lessons from Thailand

Abstract

In what may amount to a new phase in the study of democratization, assessments of democracy's quality have become quite common. This article attempts to assess democracy's quality in Thailand under the recent Thai Rak Thai government. It begins by enumerating some of the conceptual difficulties that bedevil these measuring exercises. The account makes use of a 'sequenced' framework involving electoral mandates, policy responsiveness, and accountability. Analysis reveals a 'mixed' record under Thai Rak Thai, one in which the government's strong mandates and high levels of responsiveness were offset by executive abuses, corrupt practices, limits on civil liberties, and gross violations of human rights, behaviours in which many elites and mass-level constituents acquiesced. It shows also, however, that when these elites and constituents sought later to impose accountability, they resorted to direct action, further eroding the quality of democracy. Thus, the article demonstrates too that democracy's quality can be diminished in ways that, far from placating rival elites, so inflame tensions that it can finally break down.The major aims of this article are twofold. First, it tries to assess democracy's quality under the Thai Rak Thai government in Thailand, an analytically important case that poses some conceptual puzzles. Second, it tries to show that, contrary to arguments about new democracies persisting, even 'consolidating', because their quality is low, in Thailand low quality contributed to democracy's breakdown. This article begins by outlining a framework with which to gauge the quality of democracy, while noting some of the conundrums that afflict such attempts at measurement. Next, it enumerates briefly some historical, structural, and attitudinal features that appear to brighten democracy's prospects in Thailand. It then demonstrates how, under the Thai Rak Thai government, the quality of democracy was raised in terms of electoral mandates and policy responsiveness. At the same time, though, the article shows how the government eroded democracy's quality through executive abuses, corrupt practices, curbs on civil liberties, and severe human rights violations, behaviours in which many elites and constituents were long acquiescent. The quality of democracy was only further diminished, however, when some of these elites and constituents sought later to impose accountability through street William Case is Director of the

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“…Case (2007) goes one step further, stating: ''Thaksin's populist programmes-astutely researched and promoted, competently implemented, and adequately funded-fulfilled to perhaps an unexpected extent the campaign promises through which his government had gained its mandate'' (p. 630). Thitinan (2008) provides perhaps the most glowing assessment: ''He had put Thailand on the world's emerging-markets map with impressive rates of economic growth, bold leadership, clear policy directions, and apparent democratic consolidation that seemed to promise a future in which Thailand would be politically stable, effectively governed, and highly attractive to investors' ' (p. 142-143).…”

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“…14 14 On the causes of the coup, see Keyes (2006), Rowley (2006), Pattana (2006), Tejapira (2006), Hill and Warr (2006), Nelson (2007), Case (2007), Kazmin (2007), Surin (2007). …”