I think an opportunity has been missed here.As Paul Handley points out in his measured and restrained review there is certainly a case for a revised “Life and Times” but even leaving some of the issues relating to content aside, the book shows in its muddled structure all too clearly the evidence of having been produced by a committee.
I fear part of the problem is the editing by locally based foreign writers who are parti pris and perhaps even compromised for reasons that many Thailand based observers will be familiar.I do not blame them for this but their involvement in the project does send a signal.What was needed was an organising intelligence and a degree of courage that obviously someone like Chris Baker could have provided, but that perhaps is something that we cannot realistically have expected nor certainly what he would have sought.
I agree with A (#4) that this is a point that needs to be discussed.
Joe Gordon is in prison in Thailand for linking to and translating parts of The King Never Smiles. I have often thought about what I would do if somebody goes to jail in Thailand for sharing what I write. I am sure Paul must have thought about this even more, since it has already happened in his case.
At the end of his review he says: “But besides accepting that not all people are equal under the law, that fails to answer the question what about a Thai who republishes something written by one of these foreign academics or journalists? Is there any consistent and justifiable way to enforce this law that is not essentially political in nature?”
I’m not sure if that response is adequate. And I don’t know the answer but the question needs to be asked.
And still, Joe Gordon languishes in a Thai Prison charged with translating or linking to The King Never Smiles.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns repressive governments not to restrict internet freedom, saying such efforts will fail while ignoring Thailand in her criticisms.
U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, tweets to her tweethearts.
And a group of children sadly await the return of their beloved grandfather, Amphon Tangnoppaku, scheduled for release sometime in 2031 when he is 82 (if he survives untreated laryngeal cancer).
I should say this is all good news, but now I worry for those Burmese asylum seekers on the border.
Though repatriation may become more of a viable option for them (which may in the end be the best option anyway), I hope that the Thais don’t misread this as an excuse to whimsically start shutting down all camps along the border.
I can already imagine the Tak governor reiterating comments made last year…
Part 4 of #thaistory is not too far away, though I have learned to be as unspecific as possible on exactly when it will be published, given my problem with meeting deadlines (just as I have gone to the other extreme of the Reuters standard of 600-word stories, I have also enjoyed my freedom from Reuters “we need it NOW” deadlines a little too much…)
However, the project has changed a bit too. When I began publishing #thaistory, all but a dozen or so Thai cables had never been published, and I was putting exclusive material in the public domain. After the Guardian newspaper moronically put the password to the whole Cablegate file in an e-book, all quarter of a million cables were put on line, and have been there for several months. Ironically, because they are in the public domain, few people bother with them now, but in my view there are significant insights to be found there about many countries.
Anyway, now that those cables are available to all, I have started focusing my research on older US, British and Japanese cables from the 1940s to the 1980s, because they are freely available in the archives. I assume a lot of people have dug through them before but never published what they found because of 112 etc. As an outlaw already I have no such qualms.
So the final #thaistory will be rather more historical than initially planned.
But don’t be too quick to dismiss my little book review. It will contain an unusual amount of exclusive information. Just as KBAALW is not really a look at “Thailand’s monarchy in perspective”, my review of KBAALW is not really a review of KBAALW, although it does contain one, among other things.
All I can say is, Paul Handley was considerably more charitable to the abysmal KBAALW than KBAALW was about The King Never Smiles.
For those who missed it, KBAALW’s only mention of The King Never Smiles is this:
“The King Never Smiles, written by an American journalist, Paul Handley, and published by Yale University Press in 2006, was a harbinger of … more intense journalistic and academic scrutiny of the crown. The only critical biography of King Bhumibol ever printed, many in Thailand dismissed it for its gossipy content, inaccuracies and mean spiritedness. It was nevertheless a new departure in commentaries on Thai society and its workings. The book, which has not been distributed in Thailand, offers a stark counterpoint to any treatment of the monarchy hitherto seen.”
Let’s hope Paul is rewarded in his next incarnation for the admirable restraint he has shown here.
Hmm, as this came from Paul Handley, I expected a harsher review. Ah well, never mind. Anyways, just to address some of the points the book said:
Finally, there is lèse majesté. With so many people now facing charges or already in prison for lèse majesté, the palace can hardly avoid addressing it. The book acknowledges a “major spike” (p. 303) in cases, though without saying just why. The Computer Crimes Act just appeared. Charges are just made in a vacuum, get taken up by the bureaucracy, and are nearly impossible to dismiss. The odds against acquittal are “overwhelming” (p. 309).
KBAALW about lese majeste:
[the book KBAALW, hereafter, ‘the book’] explains why such a law is necessary, even if the king himself “has never sued any of his subjects, or for that matter initiated a lèse majesté charge” (p. 309).
-It does not matter that the K never charges anyone with LM. This is because he allows anyone to file a charge against anyone, and he allows the military to show Thai citizens propaganda to fanaticize the Thais several times a day on TV. This, in my opinion, pretty much equates to ‘direct action’, as they try to make Thais think the way they want them to think (ie. be fanatical to the Monarchy), then they give the opportunity for Thais to file a charge (arguably, on their behalf). So it is not a plausible argument that the K never files a charge, since he has created a system which ensures that his fanatics will do it on his behalf, willingly, and promptly.
“For one, the law is rooted in Thai culture and the Thai people’s “unique” (p. 312) relationship to the monarchy, royalist legal expert Bowornsak Uwanno explains.”
-There is nothing uniquely cultural about lese majeste, except that the elites themselves try hard to make Thais believe that worshipping the King is one of the unchangeable Thainess. In other words, they try to make this issue a cultural one themselves, so that Thai people will worship the King without question, believing that it is a tradition.
“Anand says: “I am sure that the king does not mind whether the law exists or not, but the Thai people never, never tolerate criticism of the king” (p. 313).”
– Again, this is false. The use of the word ‘never’ signifies that not a single Thai tolerates criticism of the King. This means if there is even one Thai who tolerates criticism, this statement would be immediately false. And I can immediately name many Thais, whether royalist, monarchist, or republican, who will be able to tolerate the criticism of the King. To allow such a blatantly untrue assertion to appear in this book pretty much speaks about the reliability of this book itself: it is bogus.
If you are so sensitive about reactions on your writing style, being adverse even to a small peace of advice about making what you want to say more understandable, why bother even calling up Marcuse to help defending you? I would just keep quiet instead.
About 4-5 years back I was invited to the ( _ _ _well-known bank) HQ in Bangkok for an interview as part of a selection process to hire a supervisor to head the bank’s then-to-be-established legal document translation unit. Apparently things were piling up, including disgruntled lawyers who felt they had better things to do than translation, and some organization was needed to whittle down the growing pile. I brought up the “foreigner bossing Thais” issue and was told it was nothing to worry about.
I was interviewed by a senior board member reporting directly to the bank chairman, Anand.
As I waited to be accompanied into the interview room, I was having a quiet cup of coffee. The poor devil who brought it to me was furtive looking, dressed in all-white, including gloves, and glancing left and right as if to avoid, upon sentence of death, any notion of having offended anyone.
What I saw there and after some four decades of personal Thailand experience, at least in my mind, was slavery and class division at its worst.
Prior to stepping in for the interview, then, I already had misgivings that I did not want to associate with wheelers and dealers who cultivated that kind of servitude. I was asking myself whether I really wanted to be part of that kind of team.
At it turned out, I did not get the job, but it was an interesting interview. When my age was brought up as a possible factor, I replied that someone in the company in a very senior position was even older than I. “Who?” my interviewer asked.
I replied, “Anand.”
Maybe that was why I was not hired…and I never did find out whether they actually created that unit.
Thanks for highlighting this. I want to emphasize a couple of points…
1. Cambodia is not China, and China is not Cambodia. I think we need to be very careful about the direct sort of comparison that you are attempting to make here, not only because of the problematic imaginative geographies invoked, but also because it should be clear that the contemporary and historical geopolitical circumstances of these two countries are very different in a whole host of ways. The implication is that neoliberalism is going to articulate and unfold in these contexts in unique ways that don’t lend themselves to conveying or contributing to a singular or paradigmatic neoliberalism.
2. Sheppard and Leitner (2010) conclude your selected quote with the sentence “Thus, Zhang and Ong characterize China as a distinct assemblage of neoliberalism and socialism rather than as variegated neoliberalism (Zhang and Ong, 2008).” Similarly, Gonzalez-Vicente (2011) writes, “certain strains of neoliberal ideology proliferate in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule.” Thus, rather than offering anything that unravels or contradicts my argument, you’ve actually complemented it. This is precisely the line I argue in my most recent paper ‘Articulated Neoliberalism: the Specificity of Patronage, Kleptocracy, and Violence in Cambodia’s Neoliberalization’, which explicitly refers to the assemblage between actually existing political economic circumstances and neoliberal imperatives, hence they are ‘articulated’. The proliferation of neoliberal ideology in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule is precisely the ‘articulation agenda’ that I attend to in this paper. Moreover, I think Sheppard and Leitner are splitting hairs when they refer to this assemblage between neoliberalism and socialist authoritarianism as something distinct from what could be considered a variegated form of neoliberalism. Perhaps my view of what constitutes ‘variegation’ is a little broader than theirs I’ll grant you that, but I feel I’m in good company (i.e., David Harvey, Jamie Peck, Neil Brenner, Adam Tickell, Nik Theodore etc.).
3. Drawing on Eric Sheppard to express your reservations is an interesting choice, not only because I think the article you have cited in many ways actually supports my arguments (even if Sheppard and Leitner have a narrower view of variegation than I do), but also for the fact that Sheppard actually acted as editor on my submission to ‘Environment and Planning A’. While I can’t claim that this means he necessarily or fully supports my argument, Sheppard evidently saw enough merit in it to accept it for publication in the journal.
4. I don’t work in certainties. If you’re inclined to read some of my theoretical work on anarchism, the fact that I’m all about processes rather than absolutes should become pretty obvious. I also have a paper coming out in the journal ‘Critical Discourse Studies’ called “Neoliberalism as Discourse: Between Foucauldian Political Economy and Marxian Poststructuralism” that makes my refusal to work in rigid certitudes clear. To the contrary, I simply happen to think that neoliberalism/neoliberalization is one of the best theoretical frames through which we can examine the unfolding circumstances of Cambodia’s contemporary political economy. When someone comes up with a more penetrating, robust and convincing analytical lens, I’ll be more than happy to get on board. Until then, dissensus and debate are welcome!
_______
Srithanonchai …
Your post brings a passage from Herbert Marcuse’s (1964: 196) ‘One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society’ to mind:
“The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do you mean when you say…? Don’t you conceal something? You talk a language, which is suspect. You don’t talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.”
If you’re so adverse to my style of writing that you don’t want to follow this debate, why even bother commenting here? Seems kind of pointless to me.
[…] promises. As Andrew Walker, professor at the Australian National University, wrote in a famous 2006 New Mandala post, this interpretation of sufficiency economy really means sufficiency […]
Even after quoting multiple HRW articles, yet an undeniable thorough representation of the statuses of refugees without overt biases that often accompanied such eposé.
The misery of the ~3 millions humanity, despite the ongoing changes, will not end soon.
Now imagine majority of 55 million within Myanmar having similar misery minus the Thai related factors.
Making Leigh Lehane and Mary J Ditton exposé on ~3 million just a tip of the iceberg.
CW dictate that the reversal of this misfortune will take as long.
It is miraculous to observe that after decades, of factors, that produce these misery, have not extinguished the hope, that might otherwise make Myanmar the first failed state.
Besides TBBC, Kudos to all those individuals and small groups few from the west but mainly from Countries of Asia that continue to maintain this hope.
Readers of this thread might note that the prolific Simon Springer has recently continued this debate, and his aggressive critique of Maylee Thavat’s original New Mandala column, in the pages of the academic journal “Environment and Planning A.”
In article entitled “Articulated Neoliberalism: the Specificity of Patronage, Kleptocracy, and Violence in Cambodia’s Neoliberalization” (volume 43, pages 2554- 2570), Springer writes:
“…to dismiss neoliberalism as a `bogeyman’ figure (Thavat, 2010), demonstrates a remarkable lack of understanding for the processes of articulation whereby existing economic circumstances and institu-
tional frameworks are reconstituted as variable societal influences circulate and thereby transform neoliberalism into its `actually existing’ circumstances of neoliberalization. Worse still, such a view simplistically retrogrades the theoretical gains that geographers have made over the past decade in returning neoliberalism to an ill-conceived and ageographical `bulldozer effect’ by insisting that it is a singular, monolithic, and static phenomenon. But most deleterious of all is that condescending accounts like that of Thavat (2010) make no consideration of how retaining the abstraction of neoliberalism as a `global’ project albeit one that bites down in particular locales with a high degree of contextually specificity enables spatially diffuse
phenomena like poverty and inequality to find a point of similarity.”
—
However, Springer might note that it is not only Maylee Thavat (or me) who see some problems with charactering fast-developing East Asian states like Cambodia as prime examples of variegated or articulated neoliberalism/ neoliberalization in action.
Some senior scholars in the fields of economic geography (e.g. Eric Sheppard) and anthropology (e.g. Aihwa Ong) also seem to hold some similar reservations concerning applying the concept of variegated neoliberalism, in their cases to theorizing the state in China.
Eric Sheppard and Helga Leitner (2010: 188), write:
“… we cannot conclude that any increased state intervention promoting the market conforms with Peck and Tickell’ s definition of neoliberalization. In China, economic reform has undoubtedly unleashed market forces under the aegis of the Communist Party, and questions of governance and poverty reduction are of high priority. Yet it is far from clear that China can be characterized as a variegated form of neoliberalism. In the most influential Chinese discussion of neoliberalism in China available in English, Wang Hui argues that the result has been as much the enrollment of privatized production in the reproduction of state power, as the enrollment of state power in bringing about neoliberalization. ‘‘The state and neoliberalism exist in a complete state of co-dependence” (Wang, 2003, p. 60). Moreover, the Chinese state continues to invest heavily in infrastructure and takes an authoritarian approach to national economic management, hardly characteristics that typically are associated with either the Washington or the post-Washington consensus. Thus, Zhang and Ong characterize China as a distinct assemblage of neoliberalism and socialism rather than as variegated neoliberalism (Zhang and Ong, 2008).”
Sheppard, E. and H. Leitner (2010) Quo vadis neoliberalism? The remaking of global capitalist governance after the Washington Consensus. “Geoforum.” 41: 185–194
Wang, H., (2003). “China’s New Order.” Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Zhang, L., Ong, A. (Eds.), (2008). “Privatizing China.” Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
—
In a recent review paper, Gonzalez-Vicente (2011: 404) also writes:
“There has been thus a tactical, contingent and selective appraisal of particular strategies and ideologies as a consequence of new international encounters, experiences learnt from previous cases of economic growth in East Asia, and an aim to preserve certain principles and power structures typical of the political culture of the Chinese state in the last 60 years. Ong and Zhang (2008: p. 4) characterize this as ‘socialism from afar’, by which certain strains of neoliberal ideology proliferate in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule.”
The Internationalization of the Chinese State. “Political Geography.” 30 (2011) 402-411.
————–
Despite Springer’s certainties, I would suggest that our understanding of the basic question regarding ‘how the Cambodian state governs’, is not quite resolved, yet.
Andrew. How about giving me Part 4 of “Thai Story” before starting on a 5-part review of “A Life’s Work”. You’re in danger of not completing your own life’s work!
lol, thank you for your response. I agree that to write concisely is somewhat an art form which requires much practice and skill. To write interestingly, cohesively, and engagingly is also difficult (and you have this ability in spades), but to be precise and concise is the most difficult skill of all.
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Review of A Life’s Work
I think an opportunity has been missed here.As Paul Handley points out in his measured and restrained review there is certainly a case for a revised “Life and Times” but even leaving some of the issues relating to content aside, the book shows in its muddled structure all too clearly the evidence of having been produced by a committee.
I fear part of the problem is the editing by locally based foreign writers who are parti pris and perhaps even compromised for reasons that many Thailand based observers will be familiar.I do not blame them for this but their involvement in the project does send a signal.What was needed was an organising intelligence and a degree of courage that obviously someone like Chris Baker could have provided, but that perhaps is something that we cannot realistically have expected nor certainly what he would have sought.
Review of A Life’s Work
I agree with A (#4) that this is a point that needs to be discussed.
Joe Gordon is in prison in Thailand for linking to and translating parts of The King Never Smiles. I have often thought about what I would do if somebody goes to jail in Thailand for sharing what I write. I am sure Paul must have thought about this even more, since it has already happened in his case.
At the end of his review he says: “But besides accepting that not all people are equal under the law, that fails to answer the question what about a Thai who republishes something written by one of these foreign academics or journalists? Is there any consistent and justifiable way to enforce this law that is not essentially political in nature?”
I’m not sure if that response is adequate. And I don’t know the answer but the question needs to be asked.
Andrew
Review of A Life’s Work
And still, Joe Gordon languishes in a Thai Prison charged with translating or linking to The King Never Smiles.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warns repressive governments not to restrict internet freedom, saying such efforts will fail while ignoring Thailand in her criticisms.
U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, Kristie Kenney, tweets to her tweethearts.
And a group of children sadly await the return of their beloved grandfather, Amphon Tangnoppaku, scheduled for release sometime in 2031 when he is 82 (if he survives untreated laryngeal cancer).
Out of the Burmese daze?
I should say this is all good news, but now I worry for those Burmese asylum seekers on the border.
Though repatriation may become more of a viable option for them (which may in the end be the best option anyway), I hope that the Thais don’t misread this as an excuse to whimsically start shutting down all camps along the border.
I can already imagine the Tak governor reiterating comments made last year…
http://australianetworknews.com/stories/201104/3185973.htm?desktop
Reviewing King Bhumibol’s life
Stuart #12
Part 4 of #thaistory is not too far away, though I have learned to be as unspecific as possible on exactly when it will be published, given my problem with meeting deadlines (just as I have gone to the other extreme of the Reuters standard of 600-word stories, I have also enjoyed my freedom from Reuters “we need it NOW” deadlines a little too much…)
However, the project has changed a bit too. When I began publishing #thaistory, all but a dozen or so Thai cables had never been published, and I was putting exclusive material in the public domain. After the Guardian newspaper moronically put the password to the whole Cablegate file in an e-book, all quarter of a million cables were put on line, and have been there for several months. Ironically, because they are in the public domain, few people bother with them now, but in my view there are significant insights to be found there about many countries.
Anyway, now that those cables are available to all, I have started focusing my research on older US, British and Japanese cables from the 1940s to the 1980s, because they are freely available in the archives. I assume a lot of people have dug through them before but never published what they found because of 112 etc. As an outlaw already I have no such qualms.
So the final #thaistory will be rather more historical than initially planned.
But don’t be too quick to dismiss my little book review. It will contain an unusual amount of exclusive information. Just as KBAALW is not really a look at “Thailand’s monarchy in perspective”, my review of KBAALW is not really a review of KBAALW, although it does contain one, among other things.
Bests
Review of A Life’s Work
All I can say is, Paul Handley was considerably more charitable to the abysmal KBAALW than KBAALW was about The King Never Smiles.
For those who missed it, KBAALW’s only mention of The King Never Smiles is this:
“The King Never Smiles, written by an American journalist, Paul Handley, and published by Yale University Press in 2006, was a harbinger of … more intense journalistic and academic scrutiny of the crown. The only critical biography of King Bhumibol ever printed, many in Thailand dismissed it for its gossipy content, inaccuracies and mean spiritedness. It was nevertheless a new departure in commentaries on Thai society and its workings. The book, which has not been distributed in Thailand, offers a stark counterpoint to any treatment of the monarchy hitherto seen.”
Let’s hope Paul is rewarded in his next incarnation for the admirable restraint he has shown here.
Review of A Life’s Work
Hmm, as this came from Paul Handley, I expected a harsher review. Ah well, never mind. Anyways, just to address some of the points the book said:
Finally, there is lèse majesté. With so many people now facing charges or already in prison for lèse majesté, the palace can hardly avoid addressing it. The book acknowledges a “major spike” (p. 303) in cases, though without saying just why. The Computer Crimes Act just appeared. Charges are just made in a vacuum, get taken up by the bureaucracy, and are nearly impossible to dismiss. The odds against acquittal are “overwhelming” (p. 309).
KBAALW about lese majeste:
[the book KBAALW, hereafter, ‘the book’] explains why such a law is necessary, even if the king himself “has never sued any of his subjects, or for that matter initiated a lèse majesté charge” (p. 309).
-It does not matter that the K never charges anyone with LM. This is because he allows anyone to file a charge against anyone, and he allows the military to show Thai citizens propaganda to fanaticize the Thais several times a day on TV. This, in my opinion, pretty much equates to ‘direct action’, as they try to make Thais think the way they want them to think (ie. be fanatical to the Monarchy), then they give the opportunity for Thais to file a charge (arguably, on their behalf). So it is not a plausible argument that the K never files a charge, since he has created a system which ensures that his fanatics will do it on his behalf, willingly, and promptly.
“For one, the law is rooted in Thai culture and the Thai people’s “unique” (p. 312) relationship to the monarchy, royalist legal expert Bowornsak Uwanno explains.”
-There is nothing uniquely cultural about lese majeste, except that the elites themselves try hard to make Thais believe that worshipping the King is one of the unchangeable Thainess. In other words, they try to make this issue a cultural one themselves, so that Thai people will worship the King without question, believing that it is a tradition.
“Anand says: “I am sure that the king does not mind whether the law exists or not, but the Thai people never, never tolerate criticism of the king” (p. 313).”
– Again, this is false. The use of the word ‘never’ signifies that not a single Thai tolerates criticism of the King. This means if there is even one Thai who tolerates criticism, this statement would be immediately false. And I can immediately name many Thais, whether royalist, monarchist, or republican, who will be able to tolerate the criticism of the King. To allow such a blatantly untrue assertion to appear in this book pretty much speaks about the reliability of this book itself: it is bogus.
Review of A Life’s Work
A mercifully focused and concise review. How refreshing.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
I can’t believe people are still stuffing their work with Sokalisms and getting away with it.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Simon,
If you are so sensitive about reactions on your writing style, being adverse even to a small peace of advice about making what you want to say more understandable, why bother even calling up Marcuse to help defending you? I would just keep quiet instead.
There is no question…
About 4-5 years back I was invited to the ( _ _ _well-known bank) HQ in Bangkok for an interview as part of a selection process to hire a supervisor to head the bank’s then-to-be-established legal document translation unit. Apparently things were piling up, including disgruntled lawyers who felt they had better things to do than translation, and some organization was needed to whittle down the growing pile. I brought up the “foreigner bossing Thais” issue and was told it was nothing to worry about.
I was interviewed by a senior board member reporting directly to the bank chairman, Anand.
As I waited to be accompanied into the interview room, I was having a quiet cup of coffee. The poor devil who brought it to me was furtive looking, dressed in all-white, including gloves, and glancing left and right as if to avoid, upon sentence of death, any notion of having offended anyone.
What I saw there and after some four decades of personal Thailand experience, at least in my mind, was slavery and class division at its worst.
Prior to stepping in for the interview, then, I already had misgivings that I did not want to associate with wheelers and dealers who cultivated that kind of servitude. I was asking myself whether I really wanted to be part of that kind of team.
At it turned out, I did not get the job, but it was an interesting interview. When my age was brought up as a possible factor, I replied that someone in the company in a very senior position was even older than I. “Who?” my interviewer asked.
I replied, “Anand.”
Maybe that was why I was not hired…and I never did find out whether they actually created that unit.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Keith…
Thanks for highlighting this. I want to emphasize a couple of points…
1. Cambodia is not China, and China is not Cambodia. I think we need to be very careful about the direct sort of comparison that you are attempting to make here, not only because of the problematic imaginative geographies invoked, but also because it should be clear that the contemporary and historical geopolitical circumstances of these two countries are very different in a whole host of ways. The implication is that neoliberalism is going to articulate and unfold in these contexts in unique ways that don’t lend themselves to conveying or contributing to a singular or paradigmatic neoliberalism.
2. Sheppard and Leitner (2010) conclude your selected quote with the sentence “Thus, Zhang and Ong characterize China as a distinct assemblage of neoliberalism and socialism rather than as variegated neoliberalism (Zhang and Ong, 2008).” Similarly, Gonzalez-Vicente (2011) writes, “certain strains of neoliberal ideology proliferate in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule.” Thus, rather than offering anything that unravels or contradicts my argument, you’ve actually complemented it. This is precisely the line I argue in my most recent paper ‘Articulated Neoliberalism: the Specificity of Patronage, Kleptocracy, and Violence in Cambodia’s Neoliberalization’, which explicitly refers to the assemblage between actually existing political economic circumstances and neoliberal imperatives, hence they are ‘articulated’. The proliferation of neoliberal ideology in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule is precisely the ‘articulation agenda’ that I attend to in this paper. Moreover, I think Sheppard and Leitner are splitting hairs when they refer to this assemblage between neoliberalism and socialist authoritarianism as something distinct from what could be considered a variegated form of neoliberalism. Perhaps my view of what constitutes ‘variegation’ is a little broader than theirs I’ll grant you that, but I feel I’m in good company (i.e., David Harvey, Jamie Peck, Neil Brenner, Adam Tickell, Nik Theodore etc.).
3. Drawing on Eric Sheppard to express your reservations is an interesting choice, not only because I think the article you have cited in many ways actually supports my arguments (even if Sheppard and Leitner have a narrower view of variegation than I do), but also for the fact that Sheppard actually acted as editor on my submission to ‘Environment and Planning A’. While I can’t claim that this means he necessarily or fully supports my argument, Sheppard evidently saw enough merit in it to accept it for publication in the journal.
4. I don’t work in certainties. If you’re inclined to read some of my theoretical work on anarchism, the fact that I’m all about processes rather than absolutes should become pretty obvious. I also have a paper coming out in the journal ‘Critical Discourse Studies’ called “Neoliberalism as Discourse: Between Foucauldian Political Economy and Marxian Poststructuralism” that makes my refusal to work in rigid certitudes clear. To the contrary, I simply happen to think that neoliberalism/neoliberalization is one of the best theoretical frames through which we can examine the unfolding circumstances of Cambodia’s contemporary political economy. When someone comes up with a more penetrating, robust and convincing analytical lens, I’ll be more than happy to get on board. Until then, dissensus and debate are welcome!
_______
Srithanonchai …
Your post brings a passage from Herbert Marcuse’s (1964: 196) ‘One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society’ to mind:
“The intellectual is called on the carpet. What do you mean when you say…? Don’t you conceal something? You talk a language, which is suspect. You don’t talk like the rest of us, like the man in the street, but rather like a foreigner who does not belong here. We have to cut you down to size, expose your tricks, purge you.”
If you’re so adverse to my style of writing that you don’t want to follow this debate, why even bother commenting here? Seems kind of pointless to me.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Springers’ insistence on using heavy jargon does not make me feel I should read his text.
Sufficiency democracy
[…] promises. As Andrew Walker, professor at the Australian National University, wrote in a famous 2006 New Mandala post, this interpretation of sufficiency economy really means sufficiency […]
Name games and Myanmar
Nich
Talk about name games
Our own ‘Moe Aung’ is indeed mirror image of ‘Aung Moe’ written English or otherwise.
We @ New Mandala need to be aware of the similarity yet isomeric nature?
There are innumerable other example as such.
Nevertheless in Burmese the tittle Ko will always be accorded or Ma for the opposite sex.
Where China meets India
Nich
Just Finish the book. Definitely a MUST read for those who care about Myanmar.
Especially in light of this query by Ko Moe Aung #20 here:
http://www.newmandala.org/2010/07/28/burma-in-limbo-part-1/#comment-915413
Just read the last 2 pages p 325-326.
Health challenges for Burmese migrants in Thailand
Thank you Leigh Lehane and Mary J Ditton.
Even after quoting multiple HRW articles, yet an undeniable thorough representation of the statuses of refugees without overt biases that often accompanied such eposé.
The misery of the ~3 millions humanity, despite the ongoing changes, will not end soon.
Now imagine majority of 55 million within Myanmar having similar misery minus the Thai related factors.
Making Leigh Lehane and Mary J Ditton exposé on ~3 million just a tip of the iceberg.
CW dictate that the reversal of this misfortune will take as long.
It is miraculous to observe that after decades, of factors, that produce these misery, have not extinguished the hope, that might otherwise make Myanmar the first failed state.
Besides TBBC, Kudos to all those individuals and small groups few from the west but mainly from Countries of Asia that continue to maintain this hope.
The straw man critique of neoliberalism in Cambodia
Hi:
Readers of this thread might note that the prolific Simon Springer has recently continued this debate, and his aggressive critique of Maylee Thavat’s original New Mandala column, in the pages of the academic journal “Environment and Planning A.”
In article entitled “Articulated Neoliberalism: the Specificity of Patronage, Kleptocracy, and Violence in Cambodia’s Neoliberalization” (volume 43, pages 2554- 2570), Springer writes:
“…to dismiss neoliberalism as a `bogeyman’ figure (Thavat, 2010), demonstrates a remarkable lack of understanding for the processes of articulation whereby existing economic circumstances and institu-
tional frameworks are reconstituted as variable societal influences circulate and thereby transform neoliberalism into its `actually existing’ circumstances of neoliberalization. Worse still, such a view simplistically retrogrades the theoretical gains that geographers have made over the past decade in returning neoliberalism to an ill-conceived and ageographical `bulldozer effect’ by insisting that it is a singular, monolithic, and static phenomenon. But most deleterious of all is that condescending accounts like that of Thavat (2010) make no consideration of how retaining the abstraction of neoliberalism as a `global’ project albeit one that bites down in particular locales with a high degree of contextually specificity enables spatially diffuse
phenomena like poverty and inequality to find a point of similarity.”
—
However, Springer might note that it is not only Maylee Thavat (or me) who see some problems with charactering fast-developing East Asian states like Cambodia as prime examples of variegated or articulated neoliberalism/ neoliberalization in action.
Some senior scholars in the fields of economic geography (e.g. Eric Sheppard) and anthropology (e.g. Aihwa Ong) also seem to hold some similar reservations concerning applying the concept of variegated neoliberalism, in their cases to theorizing the state in China.
Eric Sheppard and Helga Leitner (2010: 188), write:
“… we cannot conclude that any increased state intervention promoting the market conforms with Peck and Tickell’ s definition of neoliberalization. In China, economic reform has undoubtedly unleashed market forces under the aegis of the Communist Party, and questions of governance and poverty reduction are of high priority. Yet it is far from clear that China can be characterized as a variegated form of neoliberalism. In the most influential Chinese discussion of neoliberalism in China available in English, Wang Hui argues that the result has been as much the enrollment of privatized production in the reproduction of state power, as the enrollment of state power in bringing about neoliberalization. ‘‘The state and neoliberalism exist in a complete state of co-dependence” (Wang, 2003, p. 60). Moreover, the Chinese state continues to invest heavily in infrastructure and takes an authoritarian approach to national economic management, hardly characteristics that typically are associated with either the Washington or the post-Washington consensus. Thus, Zhang and Ong characterize China as a distinct assemblage of neoliberalism and socialism rather than as variegated neoliberalism (Zhang and Ong, 2008).”
Sheppard, E. and H. Leitner (2010) Quo vadis neoliberalism? The remaking of global capitalist governance after the Washington Consensus. “Geoforum.” 41: 185–194
Wang, H., (2003). “China’s New Order.” Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
Zhang, L., Ong, A. (Eds.), (2008). “Privatizing China.” Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY.
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In a recent review paper, Gonzalez-Vicente (2011: 404) also writes:
“There has been thus a tactical, contingent and selective appraisal of particular strategies and ideologies as a consequence of new international encounters, experiences learnt from previous cases of economic growth in East Asia, and an aim to preserve certain principles and power structures typical of the political culture of the Chinese state in the last 60 years. Ong and Zhang (2008: p. 4) characterize this as ‘socialism from afar’, by which certain strains of neoliberal ideology proliferate in symbiosis with socialist authoritarian rule.”
The Internationalization of the Chinese State. “Political Geography.” 30 (2011) 402-411.
————–
Despite Springer’s certainties, I would suggest that our understanding of the basic question regarding ‘how the Cambodian state governs’, is not quite resolved, yet.
Reviewing King Bhumibol’s life
Andrew. How about giving me Part 4 of “Thai Story” before starting on a 5-part review of “A Life’s Work”. You’re in danger of not completing your own life’s work!
Reviewing King Bhumibol’s life
@Andrew,
lol, thank you for your response. I agree that to write concisely is somewhat an art form which requires much practice and skill. To write interestingly, cohesively, and engagingly is also difficult (and you have this ability in spades), but to be precise and concise is the most difficult skill of all.