The Necessity of Enemies in Thailand's Troubled Politics

Chachavalpongpun, Pavin

doi:10.1525/as.2011.51.6.1019

Cited by 12 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…This was more evident the second time around, that is, when the PDRC came together, given that it was primarily led by key figures from the main opposition party, the Democrats. The conflict between the new business elites under Thaksin's leadership and the old powerhouses under monarchical and military tutelage, as a contributing factor in the coups of both 2006 and 2014, is well documented in the literature (McCargo 2005;Pongsudhirak 2008, Chachavalpongpun 2011Chambers and Waitoolkiat 2016). However, elite-centered explanations tend to downplay the agency of the masses in impacting the elite's strategic calculations and overlook the masses-elite tensions in antidemocratic mobilization.…”

Section: Explaining Opposition To Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age

Sinpeng¹

2021

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Preface xv allowing democratic rights to be curbed. Second, procedural democracyfair elections, real power for elected officials, and basic human and civil rights-is worth pursuing. By deterring the abuse of power, by allowing the exercise of popular sovereignty, and by making it easier for the disadvantaged to influence and benefit from public policy, democracy promotes the free development of human capabilities. The third conviction is that social structures, historical legacies, and political arrangements can be changed by acts of human will. Political choices matter, and they will matter even more if those who make them understand the opportunities and constraints their predecessors have faced. A grasp of these opportunities and constraints can help such actors identify, and thus more easily overcome, obstacles that otherwise overwhelm them.While this book examines the emergence and development of the PAD and the PDRC movements between 2005 to 2014, its implications remain relevant to understanding the future of democratic politics in this Southeast Asian country. The contribution of this empirical work will not only help us to understand why democracy collapses, but it also lends insights into the flaws of democratic regimes more generally.The failure of democracy in Thailand, despite decades of trial and error, provides some key lessons to newly democratizing states and warns us that institutionalizing procedural forms of democracy provides no guarantee for democratic survival. Extraconstitutional institutions ought not to be strong enough that they compete for political legitimacy with democratic institutions. In the Thai case, both the military and the monarchy have been institutionalized as powerful sources of authority and legitimacy both in politics and society to remain crucial power brokers in Thai politics. It is not that democracy cannot thrive as long as the monarchy and the military remain on stage. More problematic is that their authority is able to contend with that of democratic institutions. In the digital age of politics, we also cannot expect tools like social media to democratize us if we do not believe in democracy ourselves. PART I* World Bank, GNI PPP per capita (current International) Note: "Successful coups" refers to ones that result in a regime change and transfer of power.

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Section: Explaining Opposition To Democracymentioning

confidence: 99%

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age

Sinpeng¹

2021

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“…This trinity however, gained new meaning and achieved its centrality in the officially endorsed construction of Thai national ideology from late 1950s onwards, after Sarit Thanarat's coup and the subsequent reinvigoration of the monarchy under his rule. Under Sarit's rule anti-communism became one of the main pillars of the state ideology (Chachavalpongpun, 2011(Chachavalpongpun, , p. 1024. Just like in South Korea, the notion of democracy was re-interpreted and adjusted to fit the authoritarian style of governance.…”

Section: Why South Korea and Thailand?mentioning

confidence: 99%

The productive power of rising China and national identities in South Korea and Thailand

Bukh

2021

The Pacific Review

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Drawing on the insights of the constructivist school approach, this article joins the debate on the effects of rising China in Asia. The existing scholarship devoted to no-material aspects of China's rise focused either on China's 'soft power' initiatives or their reception by certain audiences. In this article, rising China and its governance model, are construed as a form of productive power, one that is expected to bring about not only shifts in material relations and perceptions but also transformations in the national identities of countries in the region. This article focuses on South Korea and Thailand, two countries with fundamentally different political systems but a similar pattern of recent interactions with China. It analyzes the policymaking elites' discourse and public attitudes and explores the productive effects of China's rise on national identities in the two countries. This article argues that the impact of China's rise on elites' discourse has been largely negligible with narratives on kinship and historical ties being used by the elites mostly for instrumental reasons. At the same time, this article suggests that the recent shifts in public attitudes towards greater acceptance of authoritarian values observed in South Korea and Thailand, may be indicative of the productive effect of rising China on national identities in both countries.

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“…Their opponents had rendered the Red Shirts “un‐Thai” because they deemed their call for equality and justice a challenge to the monarchy, one of the three pillars of Thainess (Ferrara 2015, 250–52). Although Red Shirt supporters had varying views on the monarchy, the Yellow Shirts accused them of wishing to subvert the royal establishment and so becoming an enemy of the Thai nation (Chachavalpongpun 2011). “If they shoot me, so be it,” Ta once told me, admitting that she was afraid that one day some vehement Yellow Shirt supporters would come to her house and attack her.…”

Section: Hot Blood and Dispirited Heartmentioning

confidence: 99%

Populist Becoming: The Red Shirt Movement and Political Affliction in Thailand

Seo

2019

Cult. Anthropol.

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In this article, I explore the ways in which political subjectivities take shape through populist mobilization and dissipation. While the rise and increasing electoral success of populist movements across the world are largely attributed to charismatic leadership that conjures the will of “the people,” much less known is how people become populist subjects at a particular historical juncture. By attending to personal accounts of participation and detachment in a mass movement known as the Red Shirts in Thailand, I explore how the politics of becoming that emerges from this movement obfuscates the conventional distinction between populist and democratic identification. The articulation of populist subjects' aspiration and affliction provides a window into the undetermined aspects of political mobilization from the realm of the ordinary.

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The Necessity of Enemies in Thailand's Troubled Politics

Cited by 12 publications

References 0 publications

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age

Opposing Democracy in the Digital Age

The productive power of rising China and national identities in South Korea and Thailand

Populist Becoming: The Red Shirt Movement and Political Affliction in Thailand

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