Duncan McCargo

Network monarchy and legitimacy crises in Thailand

Abstract This article argues that widely used ideas such as bureaucratic polity, constitutional monarchy, transitional democracy and political reform fail to characterize accurately the recent politics of Thailand. Instead, Thai politics are best understood in terms of political networks. The leading network of the period 1973–2001 was centred on the palace, and is here termed ‘network monarchy’. Network monarchy involved active interventions in the political process by the Thai King and his proxies, notably former prime minister Prem Tinsulanond. Network monarchy developed considerable influence, but never achieved the conditions for domination. Instead, the palace was obliged to work with and through other political institutions, primarily the elected parliament. Although essentially conservative, network monarchy also took on liberal forms during the 1990s. Thailand experienced three major legitimacy crises after 1992; in each case, Prem acted on behalf of the palace to restore political equilibrium. However, these interventions reflected the growing weakness of the monarchy, especially following the landslide election victories of prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001 and 2005. Thaksin sought to displace network monarchy with new networks of his own devising. This article suggests that conventional understandings of the power of the monarchy need to be rethought.

Political economy of tobacco control in Thailand

Thailand has some of the worlds strongest anti-tobacco legislation. This paper examines the political economy of tobacco control in Thailand, emphasising the identification of forces which have supported and opposed the passage of strong anti-tobacco measures. It argues that while a powerful tobacco control coalition was created in the late 1980s, the gains won by this coalition are now under threat from systematic attempts by transnational tobacco companies to strengthen their share of the Thai cigarette market. The possible privatisation of the Thailand Tobacco Monopoly could threaten the tobacco control cause, but the pro-control alliance is fighting back with a proposed Health Promotion Act which would challenge the tobacco industry with a hypothecated excise tax dedicated to health awareness campaigns.

CAMBODIA: GETTING AWAY WITH AUTHORITARIANISM?

What if a country holds an election but it proves not to matter? Cambodians voted nationwide in July 2003, only to see their polity’s three main political parties take almost a year to form a new administration. The long-ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) of Prime Minister Hun Sen won 47.4 percent of the popular vote but gained 59.3 percent of the seats in the National Assembly thanks to Cambodia’s unusual “highestaverage” system of proportional voting, which favors large parties. 1 The CPP’s two main rivals, the nominally royalist formation known by its French acronym of FUNCINPEC and the populist opposition Sam Rainsy Party (or SRP, named for its founder and leading personality) each won around about a fifth of the total vote and a similar share of seats in the 123-member National Assembly (the actual seat totals were 73 for the CPP, 26 for FUNCINPEC, and 24 for the SRP). Since Cambodia’s 1993 constitution stipulates that a two-thirds parliamentary majority is needed to form a government, the parties had to bargain in the election’s wake. Bargain they did, for 11 long months. All during this time Cambodia had no properly constituted government, but little changed. Power remained firmly in the hands of the CPP, which has ruled since the 1980s, initially under Vietnamese tutelage. It has such a tight grip that elections have become little more than a sideshow, helping to bolster the electoral-authoritarian regime that Hun Sen has built. In 1993, general elections overseen by the United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) helped to create the conditions for an end to the violence that had killed millions over the preceding Duncan McCargo is professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds. His latest book is The Thaksinization of Thailand (with Ukrist Pathmanand, 2005). His essay “Democracy Under Stress in Thaksin’s Thailand” appeared in the October 2002 issue of the Journal of Democracy.

Democracy Under Stress in Thaksin's Thailand

Thailand has often looked like an emerging democracy. While it is true that considerable political instability and numerous military interventions followed the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, by 1990 there had been no successful military coup since 1977, and Thai political scientist Chai-Anan Samudavanija felt able to write in the inaugural issue of this journal that his country was “gradually moving toward full membership of the new and larger comity of liberal democratic nations.” But this optimism was confounded by the February 1991 coup, which demonstrated residual military ambitions to dominate the political order. In the wake of the putsch came a popular uprising that ended with the fatal shooting of at least 50 unarmed civilians (May 1992), two new constitutions (1991 and 1997), and five general elections (March 1992, September 1992, July 1995, November 1996, and January 2001). Several of these events were setbacks for democratic change. Writing in 1999, Suchit Bunbongkarn hailed as a virtually unqualified success the political reform process that had culminated in the promulgation of the 1997 Constitution. Arguing that the onset of the Asian economic crisis in 1997 had boosted popular awareness of the need for greater democracy and good governance, he felt confident that the new institutions and procedures introduced that year would in the long run loosen the grip of money on politics and clean up the Thai political order. Yet the rapid pace of change in Thailand makes taking a long view extremely difficult; what appear to be robust processes of political liberalization can rapidly give way to crises of democratic confidence. Coupled with the rise to power of Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai (“Thais Love Thais,” or TRT) party, the Senate and lower house Duncan McCargo is professor of Southeast Asian politics at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom. His latest book is Media and Politics in Pacific Asia (Routledge, forthcoming).

Contesting Isan‐ness: discourses of politics and identity in Northeast Thailand

This paper discusses the idea of Isan (Northeastern Thai) ethnoregional identity, and its relationship with two major alternative ideas: Thai identity and Lao identity. Drawing on ethnolinguistic research, the paper argues that Isan identity is a problematic political construct, reflecting ambiguous self‐understandings and self‐representations on the part of Northeasterners. Northeasterners are engaged in a negotiation process about their relationships with Thai and Lao identities, relationships fraught with cultural, social and political ramifications. The study suggests a more nuanced appreciation of the ambiguities of Isan identity than has yet been proposed.

Thaksin and the resurgence of violence in the Thai South: Network monarchy strikes back?

Abstract Rather than viewing the recent violence in the Thai South largely as a product of long-standing historical and socioeconomic grievances, this article argues that the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has played a crucial role in provoking conflict in the region. Early in his premiership, Thaksin decided that the South was controlled by forces of “network monarchy” loyal to the palace and to former prime minister Prem Tinsulanond. Thaksin sought to reorganize political and security arrangements in the deep South in order to gain personal control of the area, but in the process he upset a carefully negotiated social contract that had ensured relative peace for two decades. As the violence increased, royal displeasure — articulated mainly by members of the Privy Council — forced Thaksin to make certain concessions, notably the creation of a National Reconciliation Commission to propose solutions for the growing crisis. Network monarchy had struck back, albeit from a position of weakness. This analysis seeks to demonstrate that the southern violence is actually inextricable from wider developments in Thailands national politics.

Populism and Reformism in Contemporary Thailand

This paper argues that two main strands of populist thinking emerged in Thailand in the wake of the 1997 economic crisis. One was a kind of resurgent nationalism, which sought to blame the West – particularly international institutions such as the World Bank and the IMF – for Thailands problems, criticizing globalization and the ‘imperialist designs’ of the G7 to subordinate Thailand to economic colonialism. A second form of populist sentiment was based on critiques of the Thai development path of capitalist industrialization, and of Thailands increasing integration into the world economy: the result was a discourse of localism, emphasizing the need for return to agrarian roots. Some populist arguments drew freely on both these dominant strains of discourse. The paper acknowledges that perhaps neither discourse was truly populist, in the sense that ‘the people’ were not clearly invoked, and that post-1997 Thai populism quite closely resembled official Thai nationalism, replete with élitist and statist rhetoric. Nevertheless, it is possible to make a strong case for the use of this term in the Thai context, stressing the extent to which localist responses to the crisis were traditional, conservative, and nostalgic, emphasizing agriculture, criticizing industrialization, and denouncing exploitation by outsiders. The power of these discourses lay in their syncretism, blending elements of standard official nationalism with an implicit, highly romanticized evocation of khon Thai (Thai people) as village-dwelling farmers, buffeted by the storms of global capitalism.

A Ministry for the South: New Governance Proposals for Thailand's Southern Region

The ongoing conflict in Thailands Muslim-majority southern border provinces has claimed more than three thousand lives since 2004. To date, successive governments have sought to control the violence mainly through the use of enhanced security measures, and by arresting and prosecuting insurgent suspects. Yet despite some limited successes in reducing the number of violent incidents, the underlying causes of the conflict have not been addressed. The Thai state suffers from a legitimacy deficit in the region, and many Malay-Muslims would like greater control over their own affairs. The insurgency is ultimately fuelled by political frustrations. Yet all suggestions that the region might be granted some form of special administrative status have been consistently rejected by the authorities. This article examines proposals in a recent report by a team of Thai academics based in the region, who have advocated the creation of a new ministry to oversee the administration of the Deep South. These controversial proposals offer a compromise political solution, one which recognizes the distinctive nature of the region while preserving the core principle of a unitary Thai state.

The Politics of Buddhist identity in Thailand's deep south: The Demise of civil religion?

This article sets out to criticise arguments by scholars such as Charles Keyes and Donald Swearer, who have framed their readings of Thai Buddhism through a lens of ‘civic’ or ‘civil’ religion. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in the southern border provinces, the paper argues that religious tolerance is declining in Thailand, and that anti-Muslim fears and sentiments are widespread among Buddhists. Some southern Buddhists are now arming themselves, and are creating militia groups in the face of growing communal violence. In the rest of Thailand, hostility towards Muslims, coupled with growing Buddhist chauvinism, is being fuelled by developments in the south.

Buddhism, democracy and identity in Thailand

Buddhism in Thailand has been characterized as a ‘revolutionary’ force, since rationalist Buddhist teachings offer considerable support for progressive and democratic political ideas. The reality, however, is that Thai Buddhism has been captured by the state, and its latent radicalism neutralized. The symbiotic relationship between the state and sangha has effectively limited Buddhism to the role of legitimating state power, and the universalistic teachings of Buddhism have been subordinated to nationalist ideology. While there is some interest in progressive ideas, overall numbers of monks are falling, and commercialized folk Buddhism has gained the upper hand. Monastic sexual and financial misdeeds are widespread. Thai Buddhism is also highly intolerant of those who deviate from mainstream teachings, making a mockery of ideas of freedom of religion. The Thai state strongly supports a conservative, orthodox and authoritarian mode of Buddhism. Insofar as Thailand has experienced processes of democratic transition and consolidation in recent decades, it has been in spite of the role of Buddhism.