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Sascha Helbardt, R├╝diger Korff and Dagmar Hellmann-Rajanyagam from the University of Passau have written a fascinating paper on authoritarianism in Thailand. It is available online, in draft form, for the interest and comments of New Mandala readers. Based on surveys in Yala and Narathiwat provinces they crunch some particularly instructive numbers.
And their conclusion?
Simply, those who do not share an authoritarian orientation are very few. We have shades of authoritarian orientations rather than different orientations altogether. However, the prevalence of an authoritarian orientation does not endorse the currently popular view among those who put forth semi-authoritarianism: that the people are not yet ready for democracy.
To read the full version click here.
Just because Thailand is/was recently visited by a whole ugly bunch of unprincipled, self-seeking corrupt ‘elected’ members of parliament (enough to form a majority btw) intent on shielding their maestro Thaksin Shinawatra from judicial prosecution under the guise of ‘defending’ Thai democracy, with that comic cook Samak Sundaravej in the lead, does NOT mean democracy cannot work here. Authoritarian orientation is very prevalent in Asian (and other non-Asian) cultures, so why only pick Thailand? In the boondocks and in the villages, yes, the people of Thailand easily bend to whoever is in authority, however corrupt or ill-meaning those in authority may be. But that is the more reason those in the fringes should be empowered by the vote, and,democratic representation in government to speak their voice.
It was wrong of PAD or anyone to presume that the educated and more privileged people of Thailand would prefer to ‘disenfranchise’ the villagers and dilute their vote (by some cockamine 70/30 or something formula). Ask any PAD leader to articulate their alternative(s) to full democracy and they start mumbling idiocies.
Thailand should continue with the path, despite the hurdles and face the challenges ahead to nurture its particular brand of democracy. Of particular challenge is how to diminish (if not fully eradicate) the ‘authoritarian’ influence of local political lords over their constituents weaned on (or corrupted by) patronage, cash handouts, and vote-buying.
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matty: you might like to read the literature on Asian Values. I’m sure you’d find it interesting.
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Two glaring omissions as far as I can see.
1. Where is the control group? Would people in the US (and Australia for that matter) given their tendency to vote for people like Presidents Reagan and Bush, have answered the same?
2. Where is the Thai language that was presumably used in the survey? Isn’t a detailed “methodology” section a standard feature of social “science” papers like this? (The meaning of words in particular contexts, such as a westerner asking the quesiton in an academic setting can make all the difference to results.)
Commend the author on remembering, unlike others, that the Thaksin administration was characterised by a “determination to maintain political power by using non-democratic means within the framework of a democratic constitution.” which indicates that “democracy requires more than constitutions” (The Iraq War since 2003 would certainly be a good example).
(Pasuk Phongphaichit and Chris Baker (2004) “Thaksin dismantles Thailand’s Opposition,” Far Eastern Economic Review, March 2005, is best explicit proof of the first, now forgotten, statement that I know of.)
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I agree with jonfernquest that there are flaws in the paper. However, his comments are dubious on other matters.
Again I question the tendency to single out foreigners and especially westerners. The words used in all surveying, irrespective of identity are critical. There are plenty of examples of poor surveys designed by non-westerners.
I disagree entirely that academic authors (and given that this is an academic report I assume the point is about academic works) have failed to remember that the Thaksin administration was characterised by tendencies that drew on authoritarian models. As jonfernquest likes to refer specifically to westerners, he can easily read the works of, for example, Connors, McCargo and Hewison which made this point many times and at considerable length.
The “revelation” that “democracy requires more than constitutions” is hardly earth-shattering – even communist states had and still have constitutions. I thought the mantra was that democracy was more than voting?
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I disagree that there are secure civil liberties in Thailand enough to discount totalitarianism as postured in this paper. Thai civil liberties depend largely on the benevolence of those in power. This undermines a liberal system in Thailand because civility is wholly dependent on authority being good… What if a monist authority happens to be bad? You cannot make an exception for lese majeste because it is the prime example for the authoritarianism you’re arguing is evident.
The paper doesn’t answer introductory questions at all in your conclusion. ie. “Why are civil rights not used for democratic ends, but by a few leaders who apply these rights for their authoritarian interests?” They’re not even answered with the loaded rhetoric in the introduction which seems more to be a rant than (not ‘then’ 🙂 ) a structured, objective analysis. The paper has many inconsistencies, ie discipline and individualism being entirely different things? Moreover, you’ve illogically discounted the psychological framework of the academic instruments you have used to analyze authoritarianism with, but use distinctly psychological aspects to categorize authority in the questions. This begins to look more like a series of value judgments than, perhaps, a position from which it is possible to address Thai fascism without a ‘control group’. Also, the paper initially mentions that the research can be used as a general indication for most Thai demographics, but then later contradicts this by mentioning that those surveyed are largely from a very specific demographic. You say “However, the results are quite clear in their general direction, so much so that we think that, combined with other data and current developments, these basic results are not only typical for these two southern provinces” — Presumably then, the other provinces have a greater proportion of women than men and 85% of people are civil servants?!
If this was an attempt to analyze the present situation in Thailand, it adequately reflects the confusion and disarray of Thai politics in it’s own confusion and disarray!
…Ed Norton, I don’t think Jon means anything particularly denigrating by singling our collective idiocy out over any other civilisations collective idiocy. Don’t you think, as a Westerner living in Northern Thailand (as he does) he is entitled to make whatever comparison he likes as is personal to him?
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‘As jonfernquest likes to refer specifically to westerners…”
I am talking specifically of post-coup commentary and of course there are western scholars who don’t fit the mistaken pattern of equating the Thaksin state with democracy.
Most of the repetitive post-coup commentary makes it seem like Thaksin was the fount of democracy which he clearly was not:
“He [Thaksin] argued that “destructive politics,”meaning the competitive model of plural democracy, was a Western import, wrong for Thailand, and due for abolition. He assured voters that he himself is “the fount of democracy.” Thus the prime minister worries those who believe in liberal democracy, because he clearly does not”
(Pasuk Phongphaichit and Chris Baker (2004) “Thaksin dismantles Thailand’s Opposition,” Far Eastern Economic Review, March 2005).
I also specifically remember how Thaksin attempted to deactivate the national human rights commission and prevent them from presenting their findings to the UN. I published a book review in that one issue of the human rights journal they managed to issue, that they had to fund privately, I believe.
Over time Thaksin’s electoral mandate seemed more and more to support a one party and one leader authoritarian state, that’s what the paper cited provides evidence of, and that’s why PAD is doing what it is doing, to prevent a rewriting of the constitution, stacking of state institutions, neutralization of the Auditor General’s office and the other institutions that have collected evidence against Thaksin (especially his manipulation of the telecommunications industry. Samak was a proxy acting to bring about Thaksin’s return and then we would have to repeat the whole thing over again. (Like some sort version of hell)
“The “revelation” that “democracy requires more than constitutions” is hardly earth-shattering – even communist states had and still have constitutions. I thought the mantra was that democracy was more than voting?”
Something that seems to have been forgotten in most post-coup commentaries on Thai politics, so as far as these commentaries and the public opinion that they create are concerned it is “earth shattering.”
Whatever democracy is, the Thai state under Thaksin didn’t have it, as the above cited paper proves so well. People need to remember that.
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jonfernquest has a selective memory. Post-coup commentators forget that the military junta and PAD have tried the same things. Look at all the agencies that the junta junked and their repression of various groups. Look at PAD’s true aims of a “new politics” which draws on exactly the logic of “Thai-style democracy” that you cite on Thaksin. And, I humbly suggest, the paper you cite was largely about a political trajectory under Thaksin and TRT that the authors were charting. It was not a call for an undemocratic politics. You might want to look beyond the journalism of these authors to their book for the fuller story. I’m sure you have read it already, but that provides the detail of an argument, which a short FEER article cannot do. And you were writing of academics and their work.
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