This is the second post in which I provide extracts of my recently drafted paper on local electoral culture in northern Thailand. The paper is based on ethnographic research in the village of Baan Tiam (if you are looking for statistical analysis of voting behavior you will have to look elsewhere!). In the previous post I introduced the concept of a “rural constitution.” The rural constitution represents the everyday political values that inform electoral decision making. It is a concept that challenges the notion that rural votes are readily mobilised on the basis of vote buying.
One of the key elements of the rural constitution is what I am calling “localism.” I am not completely happy with this term as it has also been used to apply to the promoters of “community culture,” “local wisdom” and even “sufficiency economy.” What I am talking about is rather different, but for the time being I will stick with the “localist” label.
Localism
One of the most commonly expressed political values in Baan Tiam is that it is better to elect a local than a non-local. In its most simplified form this is expressed as a preference for candidates from “baan haw.” Literally “baan haw” can be translated as “our village” but “baan” is a delightfully malleable word and its spatial referent of belonging can readily adjust to the different scales of electoral competition. …
In local government elections localism provides an explicit framework for political discussion and debate. Candidates are readily assessed in terms of the strength of their local linkages, which are highly legible and amenable to commentary within the electorate. The importance of localism is enhanced by the fact that the large increase in resource allocations to local government (as a result of decentralisation) has heightened budgetary competition between villages. As one villager told me, seeing the council fall under the control of another village would be like “waiting for an air drop of food and then watching the parachute float down on the other side of the hill.” In fact, Baan Tiam has been a successful contender in these local resource contests. The previous sub-district head (kamnan) was a Baan Tiam resident and he went on to become the district’s provincial assemblyman (until he was defeated in the election of 2004). Most of his supporters in Baan Tiam expressed their support in terms of their desire to “help” someone from the same village. As Grandmother Mon said in the lead up to the provincial assembly election: “I’m helping one of us, whatever happens he’s one of us.” The incumbent candidate for Mayor in the municipal election was also a resident of Baan Tiam and derived considerable support from the view that it was only logical to vote for a fellow villager. He was also able to expand the range of his localist support as a result of close kinship connections with at least two other villages in the municipality. By contrast other Mayoral candidates were weakened by perceptions that they were insufficiently locally embedded. This clearly applied to one candidate who was a former government official who had been posted to the area for only four years. But even long-term residents could be judged as non-local. One Mayoral candidate, Dr Tanet, had distributed aprons advertising one of his businesses to vendors in the market. When I asked one of the small restaurant owners if her apron signalled support for Tanet she responded:
He came and gave them out so we decided to wear them. He is standing for election to be Mayor. But I don’t know if he will get elected. He is not a local (bor jay khon ban haw). He has lived here for 20 years. Most people know him. But he is from somewhere else.
…
One of the underlying motivations for what I am referring to as localism is a desire for political legibility. It is not just the state that seeks to create simplified and legible structures of governance (Scott 1998). Electors themselves seek to locate candidates in a simplified framework of inside (baan haw) versus outside. This is a morally charged framework in which the spatially flexible concept of baan haw is associated with approachability, social familiarity, linguistic ease and commitment to local institutions. But localism does not provide a simple template for political decisions (quite apart from the fact that there are other political values in play). Partly this is because it operates in ambiguous ways and there are competing claims to varying degrees of localness. Within Baan Tiam, for example, there is real concern that the large number of politically engaged people means that the local vote is split and that the political influence of the village is reduced. Quite simply, there are too many “locals” to chose from. Another key factor mitigating the purchase of localist values is that local legibility also often involves an intimate awareness of the human frailty of electoral contenders. The symbolic force of the simplified baan haw categorisation can be attenuated when it is set alongside the reality of interpersonal dispute, jealousy, resentment and gossip. The local reality of interpersonal conflict opens up fissures that can provide a basis for non-localist forms of political orientation. In the Mayoral election it was no coincidence that some of the most active local canvassers for alternative candidates were from the immediate neighbourhood of the incumbent. As one commented to me, if the incumbent Mayor lost it would be a result of “his disrespectful behaviour and the habits of his relatives.” In brief, localism provides one flexible framework for political decision making, but local social life is simply too complex for it to be used as a one-dimensional template for political action.
[Evaluating Thai Rak Thai in terms of localism]
In the national election of 2005 localism played an interesting, but politically ambiguous role. Thaksin is, of course, from Chiang Mai and is, in the eyes of many voters in the region, one of “baan haw.” One of the popular Thai Rak Thai slogans, regularly printed in distinctive northern Thai idiom, tapped into this sentiment: “The people of Chiang Mai are proud; the Prime Minister is from Chiang Mai. Thai Rak Thai is the only party.” Part of the local political identity of the district was that it has become part of the heartland of the Thai Rak Thai electoral support. There is some concern that the district is not an important voting base and that it is potentially taken for granted but, nevertheless, there is a common extension of the “baan haw” category to include Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party. This commonly expressed sentiment was nicely summarised by a local party canvasser:
Thaksin’s policies develop Chiang Mai. And we are Chiang Mai people. So why wouldn’t we vote for him? Northerners have to help northerners and then Thai Rak Thai will win. They have the north, Isan and the centre. We have to help Thaksin because the southerners will vote Democrat, they won’t vote for a northerner. If Thai Rak Thai win then the budgets will come here. Otherwise they will be cancelled.
The common contrast with the Democrat south is morally charged, with the southern region increasingly seen as an undesirable place characterised by religious difference, ongoing violence and, in the lead up to the 2005 election, the inauspicious misfortune of the tsunami. At a speech at the district centre the Thai Rak Thai candidate made much of the contrast between the “good hearted” people of Chiang Mai and the Democrats of the south. In response to a question about agricultural extension he enthusiastically promoted the virtues of rubber, claiming that Thaksin had lifted the Democrat-imposed southern monopoly on the cultivation of rubber, providing a new source of lucrative income for farmers in the north and the northeast. Initial tests, he suggested, had shown that northern farmers could produce even higher quality rubber than their southern counterparts!
So, localist sentiment certainly acted in Thai Rak Thai’s favour and it was actively cultivated during the campaign. But this was not without complexities when we come to consider the candidates themselves. The Thai Rak Thai candidate (the incumbent, first elected in 2001) may well have been a Chiang Mai man, but to my knowledge this was not a key point of local discussion. What was more relevant was that his long career in public administration combined with a somewhat bookish, formal and aloof style clearly marked him in non-local terms. Regular comments were made that he had a very low profile in the district and that he did not communicate easily with farmers. By contrast, his opponent (who had previously served as a member of parliament) was well known and locally popular. He came from a neighbouring district (where many in Baan Tiam had relatives) and was renowned for his informal, friendly and avuncular style. At the election rally he held in the district centre he impressed the large crowd with his entertaining command of informal northern Thai. He was even able to address some comments to the Karen present in their own language, a smart move in a region where linguistic word play is an exceptionally popular pastime. He explicitly played up his localist credentials, emphasising that the election was about choosing a local representative rather than choosing a party (the Thai Rak Thai campaign message was exactly the opposite). The pre-election sentiment was that the localist credentials of the opposition candidate may well result in his victory and while he lost heavily in the overall count I have no doubt that he attracted substantial support in Baan Tiam where some of the most influential opinion leaders (including the headman) were keen supporters.
Localism = playing on peoples fears, prejudices, greed & ignorance.
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nganadeeleg,
you wish to fight human nature?
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Thanks PL – I know it’s very difficult to rise above human nature, but the first step is to recognise the problem.
No problem can be overcome until you admit there is a problem.
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Where is the problem in the “localist” values I have written about? Or is the problem simply that you have different values?
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nganadeeleg, localism is on a small scale what patriotism (and maybe also nationalism) is on a larger scale… and you wouldn’t want to throw away all your nice yellow shirts, wouldn’t you?
The problem I have with the term (besides my resentment against such things as nationalism) is that it is too common to prefer people who share your background. I don’t think it is something that is special to the Thai rural community (but I do think that the observations are true).
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nganadeeleg, maybe there ought to be a stazi to maintain *adopts ocher accent* the locals denial of their confounded animal desires?
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What can one say — yes, this sort of localism is widespread all over Thailand (even in Europe, and elsewhere).
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Yes, I agree. Rural Thai voters are a lot like voters anywhere else.
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Andrew, my post #1 above refers to the problem.
Do you accept that the ‘localist’ values you outlined contain many of those attributes?
Of course I accept that rural thai voters are not alone in finding it difficult to rise above human nature, and to a large extent they are a captive of their particular environment and circumstances.
IMHO it is a problem when the majority of the electorate are in those circumstances, and I also believe they could do better for themselves if they used a different decision making process in deciding how they vote.
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Your remark includes voters in urban areas, right? In his campaign for the governorship of Bangkok, Aphirak ran under the slogan “Krungthep khong rao.”
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Andrew, the argument that rural voters are more sophisticated than the stereotype assumed by middle class Bangkokians and the junta propagandarists is an important one. However, I’m not sure that “localism” is evidence of sophistication.
The charge that is repeatedly laid against rural voters is that they are too dumb to know the difference between good and bad policy; that they are easily led by “populist” promises etc. It is a rather unfair charge, because the same charge can probably be laid on urban middle class voters who will vote for tax cuts without giving a damn about how it was funded, but nevertheless the charge is there, and it must be answered/refuted. I’m just not convinced that showing that “localism” exists in rural Thailand refutes the charge.
You need to go further (and you may have done so in the full version of your paper). You need to show that, in Baan Tiam at least, the majority of voters are not only relatively unswayed by “vote-buyers”, but they are also able to discern the merits/pitfalls of the policies offered by the various candidates. This is not to say you need to show that the villagers have PhD-level understanding of economics. You just need to show that they are be able to understand the arguments & criticism put forward by the various candidates and make informed decisions about which policies/candidates best meet their short and long term interest. In my book, if they can do that, then they are as sophisticated as most voters in the most advanced democracies.
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Personally, I like the term “localism” as it contains the “-ism” which refers to a condition or a (in this case unwritten) doctrine. The context of local wisdom is wrongly applied to this terminus as it disregards the etymological root of the word. Localism hence is a “doctrine of the place”.
There is nothing very particular with Thailand’s localism. Like Srithanonchai has said, it happens all over the world. In Africa we have the redistribution system that works similarily. And in Germany the parlamentary system has incoorporated the localism. Every district and sub-district is electing MPs hoping that the local community is benefiting from that electoral choice. However, what is different in Thailand is the regionalisation of political parties, obviously very much due to its leaders. In some countries we have ethnic parties, but as in Thailand ethnicity is not very much a factor in politics, the regional or local identity plays as a counterbalance to the centralised Thai administration.
The Thai centralised state has very much swiped out any local loyalties. As it tries to retreat under the term “decentralisation” (krachai amnaat – which I don’t believe to be really happening as the Thai center is extremely anxious on losing the margin, see Mandala system), the void space if filled out by what I would call “local heroes”. As the country had no opportunity to develop a diverse local/regional political landscape, these emerging (or existing) heroes enter the political stage uncontested on the local/regional level. Now they end up fighting for the central power.
What rather strikes me is that on the administrative level we have a reversed picture. Here we cannot see (at least I can’t) any localism as it is seen on the political level. With regards to administration the provinces are still colonialised by the center. Even in Maehongson you have district officers, teachers and even the head of the post office coming from central Thailand.
Seeing that it is no wonder that one adheres to a kind of localism to oppose all that…
Sorry if there is a incoherence in my comment, I am writing that at work….
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I still don’t get the point of any of this.
What does it prove?
I don’t see the difference between this paper and me walking outside my home right now and asking my neighbors who they vote for and why. What realistic conclusion could I make if I talked to my neighbors about their political habits?
And what if I took a bus to Suphanburi or Thonburi or Prachinburi or Songkla and just asked random people about their voting habits?
I could make up anything from the anecdotes I received and call it a theory.
I could go to Barharn’s stronghold in Suphanburi and make the same conclusions or maybe not.
I could call it rural constitution or patronage politics or whatever.
Plus, what happens in a local constituency says nothing about national trends.
I’m not trying to be contentious.
What does the reader get from the conclusion that “Thais in Baan Tiam prefer local candidates more than folks from outside their district”?
Also, it is not the same all over the world.
In the US, politicians move all over the country and represent places where they are not originally from.
Hillary Clinton is not from New York.
In Australia, I’m sure Australians move around and represent areas that they are not originally from.
In the UK, there is a long tradition of MPs representing districts other than their original home districts
George Galloway is an MP I can think of right off the top of my head.
Srithanichai-And what about Merkel? She is from East Germany, yet doesn’t she get most of her support from the West, at least on the national level?
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I was really stupid, Andrew. Given the reputation the rural voters have for the middle-class it was of course your aim to show the similarities with general voting behaviour.
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Tosakan, you might not like this sort of research. That’s fine. But it would be good to read it properly. In the case I talk about it was the unsuccessful opposition candidate that was regarded as the most local. One of the benefits of local studies is that they can provide some insights into subtlety. Media watch is useful, but not all useful knowledge comes from the media.
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I appreciate the ‘insights into subtlety’ provided by Andrew’s local studies.
Rural voters make up a large proprtion of the Thai electorate, so finding out how they make their voting decicions is important (as Thaksin & TRT obviously realised)
Sorry if I derailed your topic to some extent (I will stay clear of your new thread), but the point I was trying to make is that we get the politicians we deserve.
Voting based on self interest is not unique to rural thai’s, I just happen to think if the electorate was more discerning we would get a better quality of politicians.
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Tosakan, would you deny a peoples self-determination? Irrespective of whether or not you would, you have clearly taken this as an attack on your person! Are you from the SAR of Bangkok!?
Thankyou Andrew, this selection from your work has been most informative.
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Andrew-
My criticism has nothing to do with liking or not liking your “research.”
Your research doesn’t prove anything. That is my point. How can I like or dislike something you haven’t proven?
You are guessing what local people want in Baan Tiem with anecdotal evidence that you have collected, but that proves nothing in terms of electoral behaviors or trends for the rural population of Thailand. A couple people in one village does not make the opinion of one village, and one village does not make a whole country.
You have not proved that there is any such thing as a rural constitution, and you have not proved that localism exists. Therefore, how can you make a conclusion that these things have an impact on electoral results in the rural population or in Thailand one way or the other? On top of that, you don’t think empirical evidence is important to this study at all.
Was your focus group or sample of villagers chosen scientifically?
You specifically asked for people to comment on your “research.” If you only want people to agree with everything you say, then next time you should put that in your post.
Of course, there will be many here who will jump down my throat and take your side because they have a “feeling” that what you say is true. But that doesn’t change the fact that neither you or them have proven anything of significance with scientific evidence.
If you don’t think the science part of being a social scientist is not important, then just say so and I will leave you alone.
Pig Latin-
You have made two inferences about me that have no basis in reality.
1. I have never denied anyone’s self-determination and I challenge you to find where I have done so.
2. I have never attacked Andrew personally. He asked for comments. I gave them. If he doesn’t want comments, then he shouldn’t have a blog entry where he specifically asks for comments.
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Tosakan: Merkel is a GERMAN, her position is national-level Chancellor, and only a small fraction of voters resides in East Germany.
You won’t need to go to Suphanburi or Songkhla, because we already have substantial work on the politics in these two provinces. This also applies to Chachoengsao, Pattani and Narathiwat (both under construction), Ayutthaya, and partly Phetchabun. However, you are most welcome (I really mean it!) to chose a province that suits you. But, please, it is not a simple as going there on a day trip. You would have to spend a few months there, and do some hard work (also in preparing your research). Then, you might be able to make a contribution to our attempt to aggregate data in this field.
I previously have tried to point out to you that social science research is a piecemeal process, and though one might have some ideals about how one could do it, we also need to consider research reality (availability of qualified researchers, funding, election phenomena, etc.). You should not to see Andrew’s work in isolation, but rather in the context of results reported about in other works. And since you are inclined easily to assign work to others, may I take this occasion to ask you–not “to do the maths”– but to do the reading, that is creating the appropriate scholarly context for your evaluation?
All this does not mean that I think Andrew’s work is exemplary, or even helpful. I don’t have any opinion on it so far, because I need to see the entire piece to know whether it is a good contribution–however limited in scope–or not. This includes in which way he contextualizes his work by reference to existing works.
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I never said you attacked Andrew, I said you found what has been written, personal.
I did not say that you specifically have denied ‘someones’ self-determination. This isn’t semantics. You do allude to denying localism and in essence, (for me at least) denial of a communal determination.
In East Germany, one in six were stazi representatives, maybe Bangkok SAR could try one in three, and maybe you can push for the country-side to have one in four.. Who knows what those crazy locals might think?!
Funnily enough, I wear a yellow t-shirt today!
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He was even able to address some comments to the Karen present in their own language, a smart move in a region where linguistic word play is an exceptionally popular pastime.
During my years of living in the rural north, I too noticed the rather high degree of linguistic awareness of the locals, such as their noting and actually reveling in the small linguistic differences that exist between the spoken Kham Muang (Northern Thai) of different districts, not to mention the more significant differences between say more distant dialects such as the local language spoken down in rural Lamphun. I have little experience in other regions of Thailand, but up north small nuances in spoken language are a big part of what constitutes fellow members of baan haw from others and knowing a few choice phrases in the local minority’s language where such populations exist also plays a key part in local identification.
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