Book Launch: Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy

Friday 2 July 2010, 4-6pm
H103, Connaught House
London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)
Houghton Street, WC2A 2AE

Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy is Giles Ji Ungpakorn’s latest work concerning the on-going political crisis that has engulfed Thailand since the military coup d’état of 2006.

The book analyses the nature of the deep political divisions between the “Red Shirts” and the royalist “Yellow Shirts”, starting from the creation of the People’s Alliance for Democracy, through the 2006 coup and up to the end of 2009. It discusses that in trying to understand the political crisis, it must be seen in its entirety, including elite divisions and disputes, but also the roles of Civil Society activists and the constantly developing social movements which are made up of ordinary people.

Please join us for an afternoon discussion with one of the most recognized voices on the issue of Thai politics. Copies of “Thailand’s Crisis and the Fight for Democracy” will also be available for purchase.

About the speaker:

Associate Professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn, an exile Thai independent scholar and political activist, taught at the Faculty of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand from 1997-2009.

In February 2009, he fled Thailand after Thai government charged him with the lese majeste law after the publication of his book, “The Coup for the Rich”, which criticized the role of the military and the elites in the coup d’état of September 2006.

Giles was educated at Durham, Sussex, and the School of Oriental and African Studies. He is widely published, having written for The Asia Sentinel, New Statesman, the Guardian, and a numbers of journal articles in Journal of Contemporary Asia, Inter-Cultural Studies, and Ratasatsarn, a Thai political science journal. Giles is recognised by English PEN, a non-governmental organisation working to promote and protect the right to freedom of expression, as its honorary member.