Kevin Hewison

Resisting globalization: a study of localism in Thailand

Recent work has suggested that the discontent over perceived negative impacts arising from liberalization and globalization need to be more carefully considered. The critiques emanating from non-governmental organizations and social movements are considered to be amongst the most significant. This paper examines one example of such criticism – localism – that emerged during the economic crisis in Thailand. This example is found to be a variety of populist reactions to the changes and inequalities generated by capitalist industrialization. The paper assesses this critique, its political strength and its potential to provide an alternative economic model for Thailand. While populist localism develops a useful moral argument regarding the impact of neoliberal globalization, it is unable to develop a sound alternative model.

Precarious Work and the Challenge for Asia

This article discusses the social, economic, and political factors that led to the rise and consolidation of precarious work in various countries in Asia. We first define what we mean by “precarious work” and its utility for describing the growth of work that is uncertain and insecure and in which risks are shifted from employers to workers. We then provide an overview of the factors that generated precarious work in industrial nations, notably the spread of neoliberalism as a political and economic perspective, the expansion of global competition, and technological development. These macro structural influences created an impetus for greater flexibility among both states and employers, which in turn led to more precarious work in both formal and informal sectors of the economies of many Asian countries. This, in turn, has provoked various types of resistance on the part of workers against the negative consequences of precarious work.

Neo-liberalism and Domestic Capital: The Political Outcomes of the Economic Crisis in Thailand

The 1997 economic crisis in Thailand provided an opportunity for a reinvigoration of neo-liberal economic policies. International financial institutions, together with Thailands Democrat-led government, emphasised further market reforms, liberalisation, deregulation, decentralisation, privatisation and a reduced role for the state. The deep economic downturn saw a popular rejection of such policies, meaning that the neo-liberal interregnum was short-lived. The 2001 landslide electoral victory of the Thai Rak Thai Party symbolised the intensity of opposition to neo-liberalism. It also showed that national governments remain critical in shaping markets and that domestic economic actors continue to have significant political roles. In Thailand, far from neutering domestic capitals political capacity, the crisis and opposition to neo-liberalism saw this enhanced. One reason for this was that neo-liberal restructuring was not simply about the efficient operation of the market. Rather, it demanded a fundamental transformation of the operations of government and of the ways that business was organised and conducted. This threatened domestic capital. Its economic survival required that it seize the state so that it could control economic policy-making. This was achieved through the Thai Rak Thai electoral victory and its subsequent rule, where the protection of domestic capitals interests was achieved through a re-negotiation of its social contract with other classes.

Crafting Thailand's new social contract

Abstract This paper assesses the rise of the Thaksin Shinawatra government in Thailand. It examines this in terms of the social impacts and political ramifications of the Asian economic crisis. It is argued that the economic crisis threatened the economic and political power of domestic capital and smashed the developmental social contract that had underpinned growth since the 1960s. The social and economic policies of Thaksins government are intimately related to domestic capitals struggle to re-establish its competitiveness and profitability. In order to ‘buy’ the social and political order required for this restructuring, the Thaksin government saw the need to construct a new social contract involving a number of policies that establish a higher level of social protection than ever considered possible in the past. The cases of soft loans to villages and a universal healthcare scheme are considered.

A book, the king and the 2006 coup

Abstract This article involves an assessment of Paul Handleys important book, The King Never Smiles. A Biography of Thailands Bhumibol Adulyadej. The article begins with a discussion of the supposed threat the book posed to the monarchy and outlines the attempts to prevent publication. It then outlines Handleys evaluation of the involvement of King Bhumibol Adulyadejs palace in Thailands modern politics. It uses this approach as a way to examine the clash of elites within Thailands ruling class that led to a royalist campaign against the Thaksin Shinawatra government and the 2006 military coup.

Social movements and political opposition in contemporary Thailand

Abstract There is an underlying optimism in much of the literature that considers the emergence of social movements as being associated with deepening processes of democratization. The expansion of civil society is seen to expand political space. This paper takes a critical lens to this perspective, using recent political events in Thailand as a case study of the political strategies and alliances of social movements. We examine the debates that saw many social movements and their leaderships initially support elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai Party only to see this support drain away as these same movements called on their followers to bring down the government. More importantly, we examine how these movements came to ally with conservative forces associated with the palace and military. Based on the Thai case study, we suggest that these seemingly unlikely outcomes result from the very nature of social movements. Leadership by middle-class activists, the need for alliances, the development of networks, and a focus on single issues and identities leads social movements to make substantial political compromises. The consequences can be negative for democratic development.

Introduction: Thailand and the “good coup”

The last time the Journal of Contemporary Asia produced a special issue on Thailand, in 1978 (Volume 8, No. 1), it was a response to the events surrounding the military coup on 6 October 1976. That coup marked the bloody end of an important threeyear democratic interlude that has come to be seen as a prelude to the democratisation of Thailand’s politics over the following three decades. At the time – and this was reflected in the special issue – the focus was on the destruction of democratic politics and the remarkable divisions in Thai society as rightists sought to crush the left. The 1973-76 period, while one where participatory political practices re-emerged, was also one of great instability, with elections failing to produce stable governments. As governments came and went, politically motivated murders and intimidation became increasingly common and the downward spiral of political conflict became a whirlpool. But there were also some achievements during this turbulent period which left their mark on future political activity. Politics came to be defined more widely as both workers and the rural majority acquired a political voice, at least for a time. In addition, the problems of rural development were addressed seriously for the first time in decades. Many of those who were to become significant in the 1980s and 1990s gained valuable experience in the struggles of 1973-76. Some were students and academics, others former civil and military bureaucrats who attained positions in political parties, while others were from business, testing the political waters. Many of those politicised in 1973 were radicalised by vicious attacks from increasingly ruthless rightists. In the Cold War atmosphere of the time, Thailand’s elite was greatly concerned by communist victories in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. In particular, the collapse of the monarchy in Laos alarmed Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej, causing him to support rightists. Groups of right-wing thugs, the military and the police violently opposed reform and attacked those they saw as radicals, forcing many to seek refuge with the Communist Party of Thailand (CPT).

The antipolitics of good governance

This article sets out to understand the relationship between the complex process of structural change and the proliferating political strategies and programs implemented to manage the process of political and social change. More particularly the authors examine how in the wake of the Asian economic crisis international financial institutions advocated a new global policy through programs such as Social Investment Funds. The thread that runs through the global social policy is a distinctly political project that uses the liberal language of participation and empowerment as a strategy of “antipolitics” that marginalizes political contestation. The authors argue, however, that the antipolitics of technocratic social policy gave way to a more populist form of antipolitics of a new government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. This article examines the nature of governance projects and seeks to explain the shift between them. This new populism may be a precursor to a new “authoritarian statist” mode of political regulation that could come to dominate Southeast Asia, buttressed by the requirements imposed by the “war on terrorism.”

Introduction: East Asia and the Trials of Neo-liberalism

In this collection we seek to understand further the outcomes of the Asian Economic Crisis that began in 1997 and the extent to which it opened the door for neo-liberal policy agendas to transform the economic and political regimes of East and Southeast Asia. At another level, we will be exploring ways in which the extraordinary events of the Asian economic crisis have provided a window into larger questions about economic and political change and the influence of global markets upon such processes. It is clear that the region has seen a dramatic restructuring of state and economic power in recent decades. In many states, this restructuring was accelerated by the economic crisis. In the new circumstances, elements of domestic elites have been decimated, some are reinventing themselves, while important new elements are also being constituted. What is critical is how these shifts have reinforced, subverted or hijacked neo-liberal agendas for policy and institutional change. In other states, where crisis-driven neo-liberal agendas were not so intense (for example, China and Vietnam), we must explain the ways in which neo-liberalism has still had considerable impacts and market reforms are pursued. In each of the cases examined in this collection, it is clear that the initial hopes of neo-liberal reformers have been frustrated or at least substantially revised. Many neo-liberals had hoped that the Asian crisis would be a precursor for a vast convergence towards liberal market economics. In each of the countries examined, it is evident that neither the economic crisis itself, direct intervention by the IMF (in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea) nor

Precarious Work and Flexibilization in South and Southeast Asia

This article briefly recapitulates the social, economic, and political factors that led to the rise and consolidation of precarious work in various countries in Asia and the definition of “precarious work.” The article then considers the utility of precarious work for describing the growth of work that is uncertain and insecure and in which risks are shifted from employers to workers for several countries in South and Southeast Asia, namely, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and India.