If I recall correctly, Thanong was targeted by Thaksin with the AMLO investigations of people at the Nation and seems to have taken a personal hatred to remarkable levels. He has taken to baying for blood. More than any other journalist writing in English, he has been calling for confrontation and violence in order to rid the country of Thaksin and his cronies. He saw long ago that a battle was required if the man he hates so much is to be crushed.
Of course, it is not all personal. Thanong probably considers that the palace for not preparing well enough for succession, and like some others he has come to the conclusion that a succession with Thaksin around would be a disaster for the conservative elite.
believe that if you look you’ll find other examples that this editor of a major newspaper is no friend of free speech when it doesn’t follow his party line. Sadly, the mass layoffs of recent months at The Nation have gotten rid of most (not all) the countervailing voices there.
Ginsborg’s book on Berlusconi and ours on Thaksin were reviewed in tandem in a couple of journals. In 1966, he had supervised me in my first term in Cambridge when he had just finished his PhD and was not yet the famous historian of Italy that he has since become. He was a superb teacher. After the reviews, I sent him the Thaksin book and we talked about something collaborative but it came to nothing.
I haven’t read this essay, but I’ve read several of his books on Italy. He’s brilliant at combining national-level political and economic analysis along with evocations of everyday individual and family life – a sort of leftist-humanistic historiography which draws on Gramsci but also on Habermas and similar thinkers. As with most modern historians of Italy, the issue of Fascism is never very far from the surface of his writings, especially the question of conformity – how Fascist regimes thrived on the passive conformity of so many ordinary citizens. Remember Bertolucci’s wonderful film The Conformist. Ginsborg’s yearning for an active citizenry should probably be seen in this context.
He’s not the first to write about Europe on this theme. There’s now a big literature about the domination of formal politics by business and technocracy, and the eruption of wayward movements of popular and populist protest in reaction. What seems interesting from Andrew’s short summary is Ginsborg’s attempt to expand this theme to the globe.
It’s difficult to think of Thai politics being “hollowed out” since that assumes that it was once “filled in” or “solid” in the past, whereas what seems to me to be happening right now is exactly such a process of “filling in” something that was earlier rather sparse and empty. People are being mobilized to contest for rights, budgets, and other political goods in ways that are quite new.
Thanks for this, Andrew. I look forward to reading it.
If the excerpt didn’t mention the People Power Party, I would have thought this was the blog editor’s trick, and he was quoting one of Thanong’s columns from before the September 2006 coup. This year, Thanong has been writing this sort of thing every two weeks.
That’s not to say his prediction is wrong, though the purpose of such pronouncements seems to be to encourage a coup.
At the same time, The Nation’s many apocalyptic stories and headlines (other Thai newspapers as well) have done much to ramp up the atmosphere of fear and confrontation.
Thanong is also one of those opinion leaders who spread the idea that members of the foreign press who publish stories unsympathetic to his viewpoint are probably in the pay of Thaksin. Publicly he stops just short of saying this, privately he crosses the line.
I believe that if you look you’ll find other examples that this editor of a major newspaper is no friend of free speech when it doesn’t follow his party line. Sadly, the mass layoffs of recent months at The Nation have gotten rid of most (not all) the countervailing voices there.
Sidh: I did try to open a broader question and to move beyond the pro-/anti-Thaksin mindset. Seems I failed.
You should read Suriyasai’s interview in the Nation on the 20th. His position is not that dissimilar to yours on the need to put Thaksin in jail. He then says that Thaksin might then be able to legitimately claim that he is in the mould of Nelson Mandela. That suggests a remarkably narrow knowledge base. What is more likely to happen if Thaksin is put in jail (or assassinated) is that the big war will be on for all. I suspect that is what some in the PAD leadership crave.
I had a chance to listen to a lecture by Paul Ginsborg a while back at Sydney Uni. He discussed two concepts of freedom: positive and negative freedom and argued that what is lacking in Italian democracy is the promotion of positive freedom (by positive freedom, he means the people ‘s capacity to participate in setting up rules or system that work for the benefit of the people as a whole, and the ability to adhere to this agreed upon rules or laws. Negative freedom, on the other hand, is the ‘freedom from’– or in other words, the freedom to do what one pleases– a privilege, in short, and clientism (patron-client relationship) can enhance negative freedom, but damage positive freedom). I think these two concepts of freedom have relevance to the Thai political life. Thailand also has a long history of clientism, and poor development of ‘positive freedom” ( grassroots people are not familiar with decision-making or genuine democratic process, democratic ideals are not made part of everyday life). I tend to agree with Sindh s. — that Taksin didn’t try to promote positive freedom but rather undermine it. On the other hand, the one who has consistantly tried to promote ‘positive freedom’ or participatory democracry at the local level is Dr Prawese Wasi. I see so many parallels in Dr Prawase’s concepts of grassroots democracy and Paul Ginsborg’s idea of positive freedom.
Thaksin above the law, PAD above the law, declared desire to overthrow govt not illegal, demonstrations with armed guads and bombs not illegal.
Seems like everyone in Thailand is above the law. Police have to ‘ask” permission from PAD for access to govt house to investigate bombing.
My question is – is the govt house now under a different country’s jurisdiction? Since when does the PAD or Sondhi “own” the govt house?
Anyway, too many questions and not enough answers as everyone seem NOT to want to “SEE” the obvious.
My personal take on the bombing – just figure who benefits from the act? PAD support is waning, Chambron said it himself when he laments the dwindling numbers at PAD marches. This bomb can re-ignite the PAD cries – smells like conspiracy and burnt flesh of sacrificial lambs
Let’s see how the renewed “Thai democracy” will look like after the PAD’s attempt this Sunday to bring down not only the “puppet government of tyrants” but also the “Thaksin-system slave assembly” (aka the “democratically elected House of Representatives”).
The good news is that the ECT can limit its role to overseeing local elections, while it can save about two billion baht for national elections, because the PAD will appoint members of their bed-fellow Democrat party, and some sympathetic members of the Bangkok elite, to the House. That’s what the PAD calls “Thai-style People’s Democracy.”
Anybody for making the North and the Northeast independent from Bangkok and the South?
What ‘democracy’? Surely what we have here in Thailand is a kind of mentality of governaning through interminable crisis-Thai-ness, civility under attack- and emergency whereby the norm of Thai insecurity and politicsis a state of exception, exceptional state wherein he who ‘defines’ the emergency is sovereign’ which rather expends those candidates liable to ‘lese majeste’ accusations?
This June, I happened to have bought and read the German translation of this essay (on the recommendation of a left-leaning German friend). It is well written, but idealistic and intellectually thoroughly uninspiring. So, I still regret having spent the Euro 9.90 it cost me.
Dog Lover, thanks for your optimism. And yes, we can just conveniently blame yesterday’s bombing on the “Third Hand”. However I don’t think the criminals are that anonymous – as there are people in the know, from PMSomchai to MajGenKhattiyaa Sawadipol (both closely linked to PMThaksin), who has mentioned that heavy arms will be used against the PAD protestors. As they are people in power, it is unlikely we’ll get to the bottom of this as is the case of Oct7th (where there are video footages in the internet as evidences)…
On the other hand, for the immediate future, there’s not much to be optimistic about. As long as a former prime minister who is also a convicted fugitive refuses to submit to the Thai judiciary system and who can still commands significant respect and influence over Thai politics. Regardless of whether the cases against him are “politically motivated” as he alleged or not, this is very fundamental – otherwise where would this conflict end? Amnesty to all factions involved? What precedents does this set for Thai Democracy? As long as you are popular and win elections by big margins, the rule of law does not matter?
PMThaksin must remember that in his 2001 assets concealment case, his actions were clearly illegal. However, the judges made their decision and his enemies accepted it.
Just as the US Supreme Court decided the 2000 US election, which was clearly politically biased and unfair to Al Gore who won the popular vote, he had to accept it. At times, true leaders has to sacrifice themselves for bigger principles that benefits society.
The troubles will continue as long as PMThaksin thinks he is above the Thai judiciary system and his supporters only think of self-preservation…
I don’t see any need to choose sides here: the NGO law will certainly be used to silence critics of the regime, some of which do find homes in NGOs, and the most radical of which would never be able to complete the stringent new registration requirements. The regime will never reform itself in a participatory fashion (what regime does?), but NGOs have had little sway on government policy thus far anyway, so I fail to see a real threat here. Similarly, the NGO sector as a sector is a mess, full of predatory experts living high on the hog in Cambodia in a way they never could at home, all the while patting themselves on the back for ‘doing well by doing good,’ when in fact they are only doing the former.
Thanks to Maylee for writing about the great cloggers and noting this story from FEER, and for linking to my own page at the end. Thanks also to Jon F. for the nice comment.
I’d like to point to a few other blogs that I check on a regular basis (a few haven’t been updated in a month or so), and which may also prove interesting/useful to those curious about Cambodia:
Phnomenon is a ‘dead’ blog; the excellent Phil Lees, who wrote Phnomenon, now writes (occasionally about Cambodia food) over at The Last Appetite.
The Mirror is an excellent news site, which translates one article from the Khmer language press into English on a weekly basis, along with a roundup of Khmer language press headlines from the week.
Cambodge Soir is a long-running French-language news site about Cambodia. Ka-Set is a French-language news site started by ex-Soir reporters. Both do very good reporting and analysis.
Sidh: These were not exactly Nick’s words and I wondered if you had slipped up, considering that there were such politicians and were keeping them to yourself. Now I see that you can find none and seek others views on who are the appropriate leaders and political players hoping to become more optimistic.
I tend to think that if you draw back from the minute-to-minute then you might see a more optimistic perspective. In other words, one may not need to blame Thaksin for an event for which there is no evidence only supposition. Equally, no particular need to think that PAD might be responsible for these attacks on their own supporters/pawns. One may not have to read too much into Suriyasai seeming to call for civil war and carping about the military’s failure to intervene by way of a coup.
Rather, one might see these political troglodytes and dinosaurs in their death throes or being significantly transformed. To what, we may not be sure. However, we know that the monarchy and the judiciary are being transformed. The military looks as though it is being transformed as well. Political parties are becoming more interested in politics. The poor and dispossessed have developed a hope and a voice. NGOs and social movements have been forced to think about what their leaders are doing. Students have been re-energised.
All of this could amount to zilch in the end, but probably not. For me, it is not the political dinosaurs that will drive political development in Thailand. Increasingly, it looks like the global economic crisis is going to come into play. Some might see this as a threat to a more “progressive” outcome in Thailand but, equally, the chips might fall in another way and support a more progressive, democratic Thailand.
That’s the optimistic view for sure, but there are , to quote the great Ian Dury, some reasons to be cheerful (maybe).
While some may see in Ginsborg’s article something that shores up their argument on behalf of the PAD in support of their distrust of representative democracy, I think his analysis misses the point when it comes to Thailand in particular. For whatever that Thaksin has done for the country, one thing he did not seem to encourage was particularly the kind of participatory, low-level kind of democracy Ginsborg talks about.
What I have in mind is that, when he was in power, Thaksin tried to centralize power ever more strongly to his hands, and his administration did not devolve power and decision regarding budgetary process or anything to the extent that a working small-scale democracy could really develop in the villages or tambons. Surely we have the Or-Bor-Tor (Tambon Organization Administration), but it does not seem to be a place where really active participatory democracy happens.
The ideal, of course, is that the Or-Bor-Tor or the village become breeding ground for genuine democracy. It could become a forum where deliberation takes place, something that the populace really feel belong to them. But in Thailand instead of democracy taking roots from the grass roots up, it was the opposite.
I can’t imagine anyone claiming that democracy in Thailand is not participatory. Protests by locals dictate the course of major business plans throughout the country, for iron smelters in Prachuap Khiri Khan, potash mines in Isan, coal driven electricity generation plants along the eastern seaboard. Senator Rosana’s dogged pursuit of PTT would certainly qualify as participatory democracy as well as auditor general Jaruvan and her protege the auditor turned senator who brought down Samak. Sometimes it is a small group of people participating very intensively, paying attention to and questioning to all the details that make all the difference. On the other hand, some of the most innovative legislation was sweeped through the post-coup parliament at the end of its tenure, like limiting bank lending to family and close associates, perhaps ideas from the permanent bureucracy that could never make it through the big money vested interests of a fully elected parliament.
“His favourite case study is the participatory budgeting process adopted in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. A series of meetings, at various spatial scales, are held in which citizens (and their delegates) contribute to the formation of the city’s spending program. In 2002 over 30,000 of the city’s 1.3 million residents participated in the process.”
Sounds like, unlike provincial Thailand, there is a well-developed critical local media or how else would so many people learn about the such details. Clearly there is not even participation by full parliament right now in Thailand with a lot of policy being executed by cabinet decree, just like the later Thaksin years, and seemingly popping out of nowhere with details that obviously haven’t gone over with a fine tooth comb by anyone much less the broad public (e.g. the recently scrapped air-conditioned Bangkok bus leasing programme that seemed to benefit some special interest, or Chaiya as public health minister, where exactly did his mandate come from to reverse compulsory licensing of AIDS medications, Big Pharma lobbies?, or the six measures six months programme that skipped poor apartment dwellers in its electricity subsidy and subsidized rich gas guzzling SUVs in its fuel tax reduction).
I would say overall the details are important and that politics is a patchwork of participation and non-participation depending on where you look.
Michael > I am sorry. I cannot give you any evidence of corruption in the Education Ministry but used to know some Thai educational publishers who complained bitterly about it. OK, this is hearsay evidence but corrupt officials wouldn’t post scans of the receipts on the Internet. Maybe this doesn’t matter much anyway, since, as Ralph pointed out, education has not necessarily helped urban voters make enlightened political choices. After all they voted for Samak as Bangkok governor in 2000 and were overwhelmingly behind Thaksin in the 2005 general election, when neither candidate really seemed to offer much to Bangkokians. Perhaps their importance is not their superior education but just the sheer logistical difficulty and cost of setting up a vote buying structure in the metropolis which results in Bangkok voters supporting whatever seems to be the latest fashion.
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Thanong’s perspective on the future
If I recall correctly, Thanong was targeted by Thaksin with the AMLO investigations of people at the Nation and seems to have taken a personal hatred to remarkable levels. He has taken to baying for blood. More than any other journalist writing in English, he has been calling for confrontation and violence in order to rid the country of Thaksin and his cronies. He saw long ago that a battle was required if the man he hates so much is to be crushed.
Of course, it is not all personal. Thanong probably considers that the palace for not preparing well enough for succession, and like some others he has come to the conclusion that a succession with Thaksin around would be a disaster for the conservative elite.
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
Readers might want to compare Ginsborg’s essay with a similarly-focused earlier text:
Benjamin R. Barber. 1998. A Place For Us: How to Make Society Civil and Democracy Strong. New York: Hill and Wang. 166 pp.
Thanong’s perspective on the future
believe that if you look you’ll find other examples that this editor of a major newspaper is no friend of free speech when it doesn’t follow his party line. Sadly, the mass layoffs of recent months at The Nation have gotten rid of most (not all) the countervailing voices there.
Can’t agree more with you, Amberwaves
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
Ginsborg’s book on Berlusconi and ours on Thaksin were reviewed in tandem in a couple of journals. In 1966, he had supervised me in my first term in Cambridge when he had just finished his PhD and was not yet the famous historian of Italy that he has since become. He was a superb teacher. After the reviews, I sent him the Thaksin book and we talked about something collaborative but it came to nothing.
I haven’t read this essay, but I’ve read several of his books on Italy. He’s brilliant at combining national-level political and economic analysis along with evocations of everyday individual and family life – a sort of leftist-humanistic historiography which draws on Gramsci but also on Habermas and similar thinkers. As with most modern historians of Italy, the issue of Fascism is never very far from the surface of his writings, especially the question of conformity – how Fascist regimes thrived on the passive conformity of so many ordinary citizens. Remember Bertolucci’s wonderful film The Conformist. Ginsborg’s yearning for an active citizenry should probably be seen in this context.
He’s not the first to write about Europe on this theme. There’s now a big literature about the domination of formal politics by business and technocracy, and the eruption of wayward movements of popular and populist protest in reaction. What seems interesting from Andrew’s short summary is Ginsborg’s attempt to expand this theme to the globe.
It’s difficult to think of Thai politics being “hollowed out” since that assumes that it was once “filled in” or “solid” in the past, whereas what seems to me to be happening right now is exactly such a process of “filling in” something that was earlier rather sparse and empty. People are being mobilized to contest for rights, budgets, and other political goods in ways that are quite new.
Thanks for this, Andrew. I look forward to reading it.
Thanong’s perspective on the future
If the excerpt didn’t mention the People Power Party, I would have thought this was the blog editor’s trick, and he was quoting one of Thanong’s columns from before the September 2006 coup. This year, Thanong has been writing this sort of thing every two weeks.
That’s not to say his prediction is wrong, though the purpose of such pronouncements seems to be to encourage a coup.
At the same time, The Nation’s many apocalyptic stories and headlines (other Thai newspapers as well) have done much to ramp up the atmosphere of fear and confrontation.
Thanong is also one of those opinion leaders who spread the idea that members of the foreign press who publish stories unsympathetic to his viewpoint are probably in the pay of Thaksin. Publicly he stops just short of saying this, privately he crosses the line.
I believe that if you look you’ll find other examples that this editor of a major newspaper is no friend of free speech when it doesn’t follow his party line. Sadly, the mass layoffs of recent months at The Nation have gotten rid of most (not all) the countervailing voices there.
What happened on 7/10/2008?
Michael (#94): If you leave me your e-mail address, I can send my Ph.D. thesis to you in .pdf format.
Nicolaides: Australia should do more
Another piece on Harry in the Age today:
http://www.theage.com.au/national/the-trouble-with-harry-20081121-6e4z.html?page=-1
What next in Thai politics?
Sidh: I did try to open a broader question and to move beyond the pro-/anti-Thaksin mindset. Seems I failed.
You should read Suriyasai’s interview in the Nation on the 20th. His position is not that dissimilar to yours on the need to put Thaksin in jail. He then says that Thaksin might then be able to legitimately claim that he is in the mould of Nelson Mandela. That suggests a remarkably narrow knowledge base. What is more likely to happen if Thaksin is put in jail (or assassinated) is that the big war will be on for all. I suspect that is what some in the PAD leadership crave.
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
I had a chance to listen to a lecture by Paul Ginsborg a while back at Sydney Uni. He discussed two concepts of freedom: positive and negative freedom and argued that what is lacking in Italian democracy is the promotion of positive freedom (by positive freedom, he means the people ‘s capacity to participate in setting up rules or system that work for the benefit of the people as a whole, and the ability to adhere to this agreed upon rules or laws. Negative freedom, on the other hand, is the ‘freedom from’– or in other words, the freedom to do what one pleases– a privilege, in short, and clientism (patron-client relationship) can enhance negative freedom, but damage positive freedom). I think these two concepts of freedom have relevance to the Thai political life. Thailand also has a long history of clientism, and poor development of ‘positive freedom” ( grassroots people are not familiar with decision-making or genuine democratic process, democratic ideals are not made part of everyday life). I tend to agree with Sindh s. — that Taksin didn’t try to promote positive freedom but rather undermine it. On the other hand, the one who has consistantly tried to promote ‘positive freedom’ or participatory democracry at the local level is Dr Prawese Wasi. I see so many parallels in Dr Prawase’s concepts of grassroots democracy and Paul Ginsborg’s idea of positive freedom.
What next in Thai politics?
Koon Sidh,
Thaksin above the law, PAD above the law, declared desire to overthrow govt not illegal, demonstrations with armed guads and bombs not illegal.
Seems like everyone in Thailand is above the law. Police have to ‘ask” permission from PAD for access to govt house to investigate bombing.
My question is – is the govt house now under a different country’s jurisdiction? Since when does the PAD or Sondhi “own” the govt house?
Anyway, too many questions and not enough answers as everyone seem NOT to want to “SEE” the obvious.
My personal take on the bombing – just figure who benefits from the act? PAD support is waning, Chambron said it himself when he laments the dwindling numbers at PAD marches. This bomb can re-ignite the PAD cries – smells like conspiracy and burnt flesh of sacrificial lambs
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
Let’s see how the renewed “Thai democracy” will look like after the PAD’s attempt this Sunday to bring down not only the “puppet government of tyrants” but also the “Thaksin-system slave assembly” (aka the “democratically elected House of Representatives”).
The good news is that the ECT can limit its role to overseeing local elections, while it can save about two billion baht for national elections, because the PAD will appoint members of their bed-fellow Democrat party, and some sympathetic members of the Bangkok elite, to the House. That’s what the PAD calls “Thai-style People’s Democracy.”
Anybody for making the North and the Northeast independent from Bangkok and the South?
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
What ‘democracy’? Surely what we have here in Thailand is a kind of mentality of governaning through interminable crisis-Thai-ness, civility under attack- and emergency whereby the norm of Thai insecurity and politicsis a state of exception, exceptional state wherein he who ‘defines’ the emergency is sovereign’ which rather expends those candidates liable to ‘lese majeste’ accusations?
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
This June, I happened to have bought and read the German translation of this essay (on the recommendation of a left-leaning German friend). It is well written, but idealistic and intellectually thoroughly uninspiring. So, I still regret having spent the Euro 9.90 it cost me.
What next in Thai politics?
Dog Lover, thanks for your optimism. And yes, we can just conveniently blame yesterday’s bombing on the “Third Hand”. However I don’t think the criminals are that anonymous – as there are people in the know, from PMSomchai to MajGenKhattiyaa Sawadipol (both closely linked to PMThaksin), who has mentioned that heavy arms will be used against the PAD protestors. As they are people in power, it is unlikely we’ll get to the bottom of this as is the case of Oct7th (where there are video footages in the internet as evidences)…
On the other hand, for the immediate future, there’s not much to be optimistic about. As long as a former prime minister who is also a convicted fugitive refuses to submit to the Thai judiciary system and who can still commands significant respect and influence over Thai politics. Regardless of whether the cases against him are “politically motivated” as he alleged or not, this is very fundamental – otherwise where would this conflict end? Amnesty to all factions involved? What precedents does this set for Thai Democracy? As long as you are popular and win elections by big margins, the rule of law does not matter?
PMThaksin must remember that in his 2001 assets concealment case, his actions were clearly illegal. However, the judges made their decision and his enemies accepted it.
Just as the US Supreme Court decided the 2000 US election, which was clearly politically biased and unfair to Al Gore who won the popular vote, he had to accept it. At times, true leaders has to sacrifice themselves for bigger principles that benefits society.
The troubles will continue as long as PMThaksin thinks he is above the Thai judiciary system and his supporters only think of self-preservation…
Cambodia’s four letter word: NGOs
I don’t see any need to choose sides here: the NGO law will certainly be used to silence critics of the regime, some of which do find homes in NGOs, and the most radical of which would never be able to complete the stringent new registration requirements. The regime will never reform itself in a participatory fashion (what regime does?), but NGOs have had little sway on government policy thus far anyway, so I fail to see a real threat here. Similarly, the NGO sector as a sector is a mess, full of predatory experts living high on the hog in Cambodia in a way they never could at home, all the while patting themselves on the back for ‘doing well by doing good,’ when in fact they are only doing the former.
Cambodia’s clogs
Thanks to Maylee for writing about the great cloggers and noting this story from FEER, and for linking to my own page at the end. Thanks also to Jon F. for the nice comment.
I’d like to point to a few other blogs that I check on a regular basis (a few haven’t been updated in a month or so), and which may also prove interesting/useful to those curious about Cambodia:
Some excellent cloggers not listed about: ThaRum, Chanroeun Pa, Sophat, Kounila Keo. Details Are Sketchy has long had a list of Cloggers on the homepage
Phnomenon is a ‘dead’ blog; the excellent Phil Lees, who wrote Phnomenon, now writes (occasionally about Cambodia food) over at The Last Appetite.
The Mirror is an excellent news site, which translates one article from the Khmer language press into English on a weekly basis, along with a roundup of Khmer language press headlines from the week.
Cambodge Soir is a long-running French-language news site about Cambodia. Ka-Set is a French-language news site started by ex-Soir reporters. Both do very good reporting and analysis.
Thanks.
What next in Thai politics?
Sidh: These were not exactly Nick’s words and I wondered if you had slipped up, considering that there were such politicians and were keeping them to yourself. Now I see that you can find none and seek others views on who are the appropriate leaders and political players hoping to become more optimistic.
I tend to think that if you draw back from the minute-to-minute then you might see a more optimistic perspective. In other words, one may not need to blame Thaksin for an event for which there is no evidence only supposition. Equally, no particular need to think that PAD might be responsible for these attacks on their own supporters/pawns. One may not have to read too much into Suriyasai seeming to call for civil war and carping about the military’s failure to intervene by way of a coup.
Rather, one might see these political troglodytes and dinosaurs in their death throes or being significantly transformed. To what, we may not be sure. However, we know that the monarchy and the judiciary are being transformed. The military looks as though it is being transformed as well. Political parties are becoming more interested in politics. The poor and dispossessed have developed a hope and a voice. NGOs and social movements have been forced to think about what their leaders are doing. Students have been re-energised.
All of this could amount to zilch in the end, but probably not. For me, it is not the political dinosaurs that will drive political development in Thailand. Increasingly, it looks like the global economic crisis is going to come into play. Some might see this as a threat to a more “progressive” outcome in Thailand but, equally, the chips might fall in another way and support a more progressive, democratic Thailand.
That’s the optimistic view for sure, but there are , to quote the great Ian Dury, some reasons to be cheerful (maybe).
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
While some may see in Ginsborg’s article something that shores up their argument on behalf of the PAD in support of their distrust of representative democracy, I think his analysis misses the point when it comes to Thailand in particular. For whatever that Thaksin has done for the country, one thing he did not seem to encourage was particularly the kind of participatory, low-level kind of democracy Ginsborg talks about.
What I have in mind is that, when he was in power, Thaksin tried to centralize power ever more strongly to his hands, and his administration did not devolve power and decision regarding budgetary process or anything to the extent that a working small-scale democracy could really develop in the villages or tambons. Surely we have the Or-Bor-Tor (Tambon Organization Administration), but it does not seem to be a place where really active participatory democracy happens.
The ideal, of course, is that the Or-Bor-Tor or the village become breeding ground for genuine democracy. It could become a forum where deliberation takes place, something that the populace really feel belong to them. But in Thailand instead of democracy taking roots from the grass roots up, it was the opposite.
(Thai) Democracy: Crisis and Renewal
I can’t imagine anyone claiming that democracy in Thailand is not participatory. Protests by locals dictate the course of major business plans throughout the country, for iron smelters in Prachuap Khiri Khan, potash mines in Isan, coal driven electricity generation plants along the eastern seaboard. Senator Rosana’s dogged pursuit of PTT would certainly qualify as participatory democracy as well as auditor general Jaruvan and her protege the auditor turned senator who brought down Samak. Sometimes it is a small group of people participating very intensively, paying attention to and questioning to all the details that make all the difference. On the other hand, some of the most innovative legislation was sweeped through the post-coup parliament at the end of its tenure, like limiting bank lending to family and close associates, perhaps ideas from the permanent bureucracy that could never make it through the big money vested interests of a fully elected parliament.
“His favourite case study is the participatory budgeting process adopted in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre. A series of meetings, at various spatial scales, are held in which citizens (and their delegates) contribute to the formation of the city’s spending program. In 2002 over 30,000 of the city’s 1.3 million residents participated in the process.”
Sounds like, unlike provincial Thailand, there is a well-developed critical local media or how else would so many people learn about the such details. Clearly there is not even participation by full parliament right now in Thailand with a lot of policy being executed by cabinet decree, just like the later Thaksin years, and seemingly popping out of nowhere with details that obviously haven’t gone over with a fine tooth comb by anyone much less the broad public (e.g. the recently scrapped air-conditioned Bangkok bus leasing programme that seemed to benefit some special interest, or Chaiya as public health minister, where exactly did his mandate come from to reverse compulsory licensing of AIDS medications, Big Pharma lobbies?, or the six measures six months programme that skipped poor apartment dwellers in its electricity subsidy and subsidized rich gas guzzling SUVs in its fuel tax reduction).
I would say overall the details are important and that politics is a patchwork of participation and non-participation depending on where you look.
What happened on 7/10/2008?
Michael > I am sorry. I cannot give you any evidence of corruption in the Education Ministry but used to know some Thai educational publishers who complained bitterly about it. OK, this is hearsay evidence but corrupt officials wouldn’t post scans of the receipts on the Internet. Maybe this doesn’t matter much anyway, since, as Ralph pointed out, education has not necessarily helped urban voters make enlightened political choices. After all they voted for Samak as Bangkok governor in 2000 and were overwhelmingly behind Thaksin in the 2005 general election, when neither candidate really seemed to offer much to Bangkokians. Perhaps their importance is not their superior education but just the sheer logistical difficulty and cost of setting up a vote buying structure in the metropolis which results in Bangkok voters supporting whatever seems to be the latest fashion.