Thai Politics Beyond the Coup:
Dr. Pasuk Phongpaichit proposes a way out of the quagmire
By Jon Fernquest[Introduction|Vocabulary|Article]
[Reading Questions|Answers]
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Prolific author, political analyst, and scholar of Thailand's political economy, Dr. Pasuk Phongpaichit analysed the roots of Thailand's current political quagmire this week in a Bangkok Post Op-Ed piece.
The op-ed piece is a summary of the Supha Sirimanond Memorial Lecture delivered at the Political Economy Centre, Chulalongkorn University last Saturday (July 25, 2007).
Dr. Pasuk's editorial this week injects a new dynamic into the public space of political debate and challenges people to think and act.
The pie chart to the right shows the relative size of the different sectors of Thai society.
For further reading, check out Dr. Pasuk's online papers on Thailand's contemporary political economy.
Reading Questions
Here are some questions to guide your reading (See answers at end):1. Was populism part of Thaksin's original policy platform?
2. How large is the segment of the working class that has permanent secure jobs at large companies? Is this group large or small in the overall economy?
3. What percentage of total working class jobs do these jobs constitute?
A large percentage?
4. How large is the Thai middle class?
5. What kind of jobs is the majority of the workforce doing?
6. How do rural farming households add some security and certainty to their income?
7. What sectors in the workforce dominate the electorate?
8. Which sectors in the workforce bore the brunt of the 1997 economic crisis?
What was the result of this?
9. Do poor people live in rural or urban areas? (Express your opinion)
The 2006 coup
10. What is the long-standing great division in Thai society?
11. How long had the division in Thai society existed before Thaksin politicised it and made it even greater?
12. What are the three elements of the triple alliance behind the coup?
How has each element of this alliance supported the coup?
13. What are some of hte reasons that the military has given to eliminate an elected government in the past?
14. How long has the military's power been in decline?
15. How did middle class support for Thaksin change during the period of his administration?
16. What were the three reasons that the middle class turned against Thaksin?
From exclusion to inclusion
17. What strategies have been used to exclude different groups from the democratic process? How were they excluded?
18. What conditions are necessary for politics in Thailand to become stable, according to the author?
19. Is democracy a simple and orderly thing when done right?
(Express your opinion)
Bangkok Post Article July 31, 2007
FOCUS/ LOOKING FORWARD TO INCLUSIVE POLITICSThai politics beyond 2006 coup
The most difficult task is how to convince the triple alliance behind the coup to accept a political system which accommodates everybody fairlyBy PASUK PHONGPAICHIT
The keywords of political debate of the 1990s were terms like civil society, rights and freedoms, participation, and reform. By contrast, the keywords of the 2000s have included authoritarianism, exclusion, coup, nominee, security, violence and reconciliation.
What has happened, and where will this lead?
Whether we like it or not, Thaksin Shinawatra's premiership (2001-2006) has brought out a deep division in Thai society. On the one hand, the mass electorate embraced him as their leader and gave him three unprecedented election victories. On the other hand, old elite rejected him for being authoritarian, for using political power to enrich his family and cronies, and for threatening major longstanding institutions through his headlong pursuit of rapid change.
Thaksin's populism
The core of this division is Mr Thaksin's so-called "populism." It's important to understand where this came from. When he rose to power, Mr Thaksin showed no real interest in the masses. He became a popular leader over the following years because of the demand for such a leader.
This demand was a function of the social structure and politicisation. The accompanying diagram provides a sketch of Thai society in the 2000s. The formal working class - meaning those with relatively permanent jobs in enterprises of some scale - is very small, around 8% of the working population. The middle class, meaning anyone with a white-collar job including bureaucrats, professionals, and managers is around 15%.
The majority of the society, about 2/3 of the workforce, are in agriculture or the urban informal sector-vendors, mom and- pop stores, services, small enterprises, illegal businesses and a big casual workforce floating between many jobs. People move back and forth between agriculture and the urban informal sector.
Remittances from urban informal work subsidise faltering agricultural incomes. Together these two groups form the "informal mass." They are outside the state legal structure and social protection, and they dominate the electorate. For this informal mass, the financial crisis of 1997 was a key moment of politicisation. They did not cause the crisis but bore much of the impact (especially through unemployment), and received no relief. The resentment, and resulting politicisation, led to a wave of demonstrations, such as for debt relief, over 1998-9.
This wave coincided with Mr Thaksin's bid for political power. As a wealthy businessman, he was an unlikely candidate to become a populist leader. But he became more intensely a populist over the next five years - as he realised the potential of the informal mass as a base of popular electoral support.
First, he offered social policies which were universal in scope (e.g., cheap health care for everybody) and thus appealed to the informal mass which is usually exempted from formal welfare schemes.
Second, he made himself into a public figure which members of the informal mass could imagine they owned, partly by deliberately distancing himself from old elite of bureaucrats, politicians, and intellectuals.
Third, he claimed that he was the mechanism which translated the will of the people into action by the state, overriding democratic principles, judicial process and the rule-of law on grounds that these principles had never benefited the ordinary people.
The 2006 coup
Mr Thaksin had politicised the gaping division in Thai society - between the urban elite and the great informal mass - which had been developing over the past half century of development. The leaders of the coup explicitly cited this division as one of the four justifications for the coup.
His populist trend has frightened the ruling elites, the military and a large segment of the middle class. These three elements joined hands in the coup of September 2006. The army provided the force. The ruling elites provided traditional legitimation. The middle class gave support in public space. Even though the middle class is a minority, it shapes and dominates the public space in which politics is debated. In this space, Mr Thaksin was condemned as a demon, and the coup was given a warm welcome. The crucial point for understanding the participation by the ruling elites and army is to realise that 2006 is actually one point in a sequence going back to the coups of 1947, 1957 and 1976.
In all these four events, the army and royalists moved in alliance to eject an elected government on grounds that the elected government was too weak, too strong, too corrupt, too disrespectful of the monarchy, or too something else.
In 2006, the army had a special reason to participate. Mr Thaksin had been trying to bring the army under his personal control. The old guard in the military and a lot of their upcoming subordinates resented this.
The army also saw an opportunity to gain redemption for the army's role in 1992, which had reduced their status so dramatically. The military had long wanted to regain some of its former prominence, and the opportunity to overthrow Mr Thaksin gave them the chance.
The middle class initially welcomed Mr Thaksin in 2001 as a leader to continue the modernisation reforms begun in the 1990s. Their support held up for four years, but in 2005, they turned against him in a violent and highly emotional way.
The middle class had three fears: first, that it was dangerous to have a state dominated by a clique of the biggest and rather corrupt business interests; second, that they would have to pay for Mr Thaksin's populism through increased taxes and the resulting economic disorder; and third, that Mr Thaksin's formula - an alliance of big money and big numbers - would make the middle class politically irrelevant.
What next?
The best guide is history.
The alignment of social forces around the 2006 coup is similar to that around the coup of 1976. On one side are the ruling elites, army, and urban middle class. On the other is the rest, with a strong rural weightage.
In both 1976 and 2006, the coup was a reaction against a political challenge with its centre of gravity in the countryside. In 1976, Bangkok felt threatened by a Maoist insurgency, a peasant movement, and a student movement which sympathised with rural demands.
In 2006, Bangkok again felt threatened, but this time by a political leader and political party which had built unprecedented support in the rural areas of the North and the Northeast by delivering a range of populist programmes, and promising more.
After 1976, the establishment solution was a formula of "managed democracy" with three main parts: constitutional engineering to produce a system that was democratic in form but insulated against the risk of mass takeover, military oversight of political activity from top to bottom and a public campaign for national unity around the monarchy. All these three parts are seen again in 2006.
The 2007 draft constitution deliberately sets out to weaken the prime minister and the political parties. It installs a semi-appointed senate to serve as a conservative deadweight on the parliament. It aims for a return to the fluid coalition politics of the 1980s and 1990s.
The Internal Security Bill gives massive powers to the army chief to oversee politics from top to bottom. The military has tried desperately to undermine support for Mr Thaksin using old-fashioned methods of disruption and intimidation.
This strategy of "managed democracy" will not be as easy as in the post 1976 period, because of the large changes over the intervening thirty years. Thailand's globalised economy is incompatible with military rule.
The 1985-95 boom raised income levels, and multiplied the number of interests that are promoted or protected through political actions. Since the early 1980s, elections have become established for parliament and later for local government.
There is a dense pyramid of electoral organisation extending down from MPs through local government heads to village canvassers. Many have benefited from electoral democracy.
The attempt to "manage democracy" might fail completely, unless it is flexible. Many people are unhappy about the 2007 draft constitution, and the attempt to pass the internal security bill. Civil society groups have opposed the current army chief's ambitions to become the next prime minister. Many in the informal mass feel Mr Thaksin and TRT have been martyred. These resentments can be explosive.
From exclusion to inclusion
Mr Thaksin's populism, the coup and "managed democracy" are all strategies to exclude opponents from the democratic process. Mr Thaksin hijacked the constitution in order to neutralise opponents to his political ambitions. The coup tore up the constitution in order to undermine Mr Thaksin's massive electoral support. The 2007 constitution is written with the single-minded aim to prevent the return of Mr Thaksin and the social forces he has come to represent.
Politics will only become stable when the political system reflects and accommodates all the important social forces and political aspirations in the society.
Competitive strategies of exclusion will only add to social division and political tension.
Democracy succeeds in societies where enough of the major social forces come to realise that elections, parliaments and public debate (for all their messy faults) are better ways to resolve the conflicts in society than power, repression, exclusion and violence.
In such societies, everyone agrees to accept a set of rules and institutions, and to play within them, rather than trying to subvert the rules or tear them up at the first opportunity.
The first step towards such a stable system has to be an inclusive procedure for writing the rules. Whatever faults the resulting charter had, the 1997 process at least was an attempt at such an inclusive procedure. The 2007 process was not and as such will inevitably be a false start.
It is time to aim for an inclusive politics. Perhaps the most difficult task in Thai politics now is how to convince the triple alliance behind the coup of 2006 to accept a political system which accommodates everybody fairly.
The article is based on the Supha Sirimanond Memorial Lecture delivered at the Political Economy Centre, Chulalongkorn University on July 25, 2007.
Vocabulary: Social Groups
triple alliance behind the coup - 1. ruling elites, 2. military, and 3. urban middle class
the formal working class - have a secure job with a company
white-collar jobs - work in an office for a company or the government (See Wikipedia on white collar worker)
working class, blue collar jobs - workers who perform manual labor and earn an hourly wage, the luckier ones have secure jobs with companies (formal industrial), the less lucky ones have less secure often temporary seasonal work (See Wikipedia on working class and blue collar)
professionals - people whose job requires advanced training, education, or certification (professional standards of practice, annual conferences, and continuing education to keep up-to-date are also common)
urban informal sector - urban workers who do not have secure jobs with companies
the informal mass, the great informal mass - rural agriculture sector + urban informal sector, with a large overlap between the two, workers who do not have permanent and secure jobs in companies who combine farming with work in the informal urban sector
mom and- pop stores - small neighborhood stores
old elite - members of families who have had power, influence, and money for several generations
cronies - close friends who a politician helps in business
the old guard - a group of people who have been around for a very long time and are unwilling to accept new ideas and ways of doing things
Vocabulary: Social divisions and repairing them
reconciliation - becoming friends again after quarrelling, making up
inclusive, inclusive group - allows many different kinds of people to belong
inclusive politics - allowing many different kinds of people to have power, particularly those who have not traditionally had power, like the poor
inclusion - making people part of a group
exclusion, exclude - not allowing people to be members of a group
* competitive strategies of exclusion
accommodates, accomodates a group of people - satisfies, pleases, makes this group happy
* accommodates everybody fairly
social division - a large split and disagreement between two or more sectors in society
an inclusive procedure for writing the rules -
inclusive politics - politics that tries to bring people back together again, compromise, and live in harmony
populism - claiming to represent and defend the rights of the common people
* Thaksin's populism
politicisation - make political (something that is not ordinarily political)
resentment - anger and bitterness about something
resented - felt anger and bitterness about something
gaping - wide and big
gaping division - a very great division
* the gaping division in
an insurgency - an armed uprising, rebellion, or revolt against an established civil or political authority (See Wikipedia)
a Maoist insurgency - an insurgency inspired by the Chinese political leader Mao
a movement, a political movement - a political group that shares the same goals and beliefs
a peasant movement - a group of rural farmers working together for political change
Vocabulary - Other
political economy - a theoretical approach which emphasises the importance of combining political and economic analysis (See Wikipedia)
bore the brunt of - suffer the worst part of
prolific - writes and publishes a lot of books and articles
a quagmire - a difficult, complicated, and unpleasant situation
a pie chart - a circular chart divided into sectors, illustrating relative magnitudes or frequencies (See Wikipedia)
look forward to x - expecting x to happen
authoritarianism - when the state has tight control over the ac
coup - the sudden overthrow of a government, often through illegal means by a part of the state establishment — mostly replacing just the high-level figures (See Wikipedia on coup d'etat)
the 2006 coup - the 2006 coup in which the military removed Prime Mininster Thaksin and revoked the 1997 constitution (See Wikipedia and From Shin Sale to Coup)
a nominee, a proxy - a person who acts on behalf of another
a nominee shareholder - a person who can legally own certain shares of a company [a Thai] who acts on behalf of a true owner who cannot legally own the shares [the foreigner]
security - protecting from danger, being and feeling safe, can also be an excuse for oppression and suppression of basic rights such as free speech (See glossary examples #1, examples #2)
premiership - being the Prime Minister of a country
headlong - moving quickly forward
pursuit - chasing, following, trying to catch and get
headlong pursuit - chasing quickly, making great effort to get
headlong pursuit of rapid change - trying to make changes with great effort
remittances - money sent to someone
relief - money, food, and clothing given to poor people, after a war, natural disaster, or financial collapse
* received no relief
debt relief - helping people pay back money they owe
exempted - not included in
welfare - help to provide better living conditions and to overcome financial problems
scheme - a system or plan (See glossary)
formal welfare schemes - an official government program to help poor people with their living conditions and financial problems
distancing himself from - he became less involved with (because you feel less friendly and positive about)
overriding - more important, takes precedence, higher priority
judicial process - when courts enforce laws and resolve disputes between people using standard procedures and rules
rule of law - the principle that governmental authority is legitimately exercised only in accordance with written, publicly disclosed laws adopted and enforced in accordance with established procedure. The principle is intended to be a safeguard against arbitrary governance (See Wikipedia)
do x on grounds that y - do x for reason y
explicitly - named, done in a way that is easily seen and understood, not hidden or implicit or implied
cited - quote or mention as proof to support an argument
explicitly cited - mentioned as proof to support an argument, in a very clear fashion
legitimation - the process of gaining popular acceptance of a governing regime or law as an authority (See Wikipedia on political legitimation)
public space - public debate on issues
redemption - when people once again have a good opinion of you after you have done something bad
* gain redemption for
reduced their status so dramatically -
prominence - being well-known and important
reforms - changes to improve laws, society, or government (See glossary)
a clique - a small group of people
a formula - a plan to deal with a situation or problem
* Mr Thaksin's formula
unprecedented - never happened before
built unprecedented support - generated support that had been generated before
managed democracy - when the government is dominated and managed by non-elected bureaucrats and military officers, the period of Prem's premiership in the 1980s has often been given this label
insulated against the risk of mass takeover -
oversight - making sure people do what you want them to do (See glossary: #1, #2)
2007 draft constitution - the constitute that has recently been drafted and will either be accepted and rejected in a referendum on August 19 (See Wikipedia and New Mandala Blog at Australian National University)
deadweight - something that makes change and progress difficult
* to serve as a conservative deadweight on the parliament
fluid - unstable and changing all the time
coalition - government of people from two or more political parties
* the fluid coalition politics of the 1980s and 1990s
Internal Security Bill - a draft bill that gives the military great power and almost virtual control of even elected governments (See Chang Noi analysis)
disruption - normal continuous operation prevented
intimidation - frighten people to make them do what you want
intervening - coming between
incompatible with - different and do not agree with each other
1985-95 boom - the period of rapid economic growth in Thailand that preceded the 1997 economic crisis
interests - stakeholders, people who stand to gain or lose from a company's performance or how a situation turns out
a pyramid - a hierachy shaped like a pyramid with one leader at the top (like Thaksin) and larger and larger levels of supporters supporting it underneath, at the lowest level lies the voters
a dense pyramid of electoral organisation - the organisation of people to generate votes for political parties or candidates
canvassers - election helpers, people who try to persuade people to vote for a party or person
electoral democracy - democracy with government chosen in free elections
civil society - all the voluntary civic and social organizations in a society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state and commercial institutions (See Wikipedia on civil society)
TRT - the Thai Rak Thai [Thai Loves Thai] political party founded by Thaksin (See Wikipedia on Thaksin and Thai Rak Thai Political Party)
martyred - made to suffer because of one's beliefs
hijack - take control of unrightfully
hijacked the constitution - take control of the constitution (to use for personal goals)
neutralise opponents - make opponents ineffective and powerless
ambitions - high-level goals, things you very much want to do and achieve
political ambitions - political goals
undermine Mr Thaksin's massive electoral support -
single-minded - have a single goal and determined to achieve, focused
aim - goal
single-minded aim - focused on a single goal
reflects - shows
an aspiration - a desire to achieve something
political tension - low of level of trust among people due to disagreements over political issues, and the potential for violence
repression - use of force to control and restrict a group of people
subvert - undermine, destroy secretly and invisibly, without looking like you are trying to destroy
subvert the rules - undermine the rules, secretly go against the rules
false start - a first attempt to start that fails
Answer Key:
Thaksin's populism
1. Was populism part of Thaksin's original policy platform?
No, initially Thaksin "showed not real interest in the masses." After being elected he realised the potential of populism for gaining electoral support and became a popular leader to satisfy the demand for such a leader.
("This wave [of problems following 1997] coincided with Mr Thaksin's bid for political power. As a wealthy businessman, he was an unlikely candidate to become a populist leader. But he became more intensely a populist over the next five years - as he realised the potential of the informal mass as a base of popular electoral support.")
2. How large is the segment of the working class that has permanent secure jobs at large companies? Is this group large or small in the overall economy?
Industrial workers in the formal sector account for 8% of total workers, a pretty small group in the overall economy.
3. What percentage of total working class jobs do these jobs constitute?
A large percentage?
8% / (8% + 26%) = 24%
So these jobs constitute a only a quarter even of working class jobs, a relatively small percentage.
4. How large is the Thai middle class?
15%
5. What kinds of jobs are the majority of the workforce employed in?
The urban informal sector consists of many different kinds of jobs:
a. Agriculture.
b. Vendors
c. Mom and pop stores.
d. Services
e. Small enterprises
f. Illegal businesses
g. Part of the casual workforce floating between many jobs.
6. How do rural farming households add some security and certainty to their income?
They participate in the urban informal workforce and send remittances back to their rural household in the provinces.
7. What sectors in the workforce dominate the electorate?
a. agricultural sector - 41%
b. urban informal sector - 26%
Total - 67%
8. Which sectors in the workforce bore the brunt of the 1997 economic crisis? What was the result of this?
The agricultural sector and the urban informal sectors above bore the brunt of the 1997 economic crisis through:
a. Unemployment
b. No relief
This resulted in:
a. Resentment.
b. Politicisation.
c. Demonstrations.
9. Do poor people live in rural or urban areas?
(Express your opinion)
Many clearly live in both, working in rural areas during the harvest season
and urban areas during the off-season to supplement their income.
The 2006 coup
10. What is the long-standing great division in Thai society?
The social division between: 1. the urban elite, and 2. the great informal mass (agriculture + urban informal sectors)
11. How long had the division in Thai society existed before Thaksin politicised it and made it even greater?
50 years. Over the last half century of development.
("Mr Thaksin had politicised the gaping division in Thai society - between the urban elite and the great informal mass - which had been developing over the past half century of development. The leaders of the coup explicitly cited this division as one of the four justifications for the coup.")
12. What are the three elements of the triple alliance behind the coup?
How has each element of this alliance supported the coup?
a. Military provided force.
b. Ruling elites provided traditional legitimation.
c. The Middle class provided support in the public space where politics is debated by demonising Thaksin.
("His populist trend has frightened the ruling elites, the military and a large segment of the middle class. These three elements joined hands in the coup of September 2006. The army provided the force. The ruling elites provided traditional legitimation. The middle class gave support in public space. Even though the middle class is a minority, it shapes and dominates the public space in which politics is debated. In this space, Mr Thaksin was condemned as a demon, and the coup was given a warm welcome. The crucial point for understanding the participation by the ruling elites and army is to realise that 2006 is actually one point in a sequence going back to the coups of 1947, 1957 and 1976.")
13. What are some of the reasons that the military has given to eliminate an elected government in the past?
The elected government was either:
a. Too weak.
b. Too strong.
c. Too corrupt.
d. Too disrepectful of the monarchy
e. Or other things
14. How long has the military's power been in decline?
Since the coup of 1992.
15. How did middle class support for Thaksin change during the period of his administration?
At first the middle class supported him and for four years continued to support him, but in 2005 they turned against him, violently.
16. What were the three reasons that the middle class turned against Thaksin?
a. The state was dominated by a small group of powerful business interests.
b. Paying for Thaksin's populism would entail increased taxes and economic disorder.
c. The middle class faced political irrelevance in the face of Thaksin's strategy of joining powerul business interests (big money) with the great informal mass (big numbers).
From exclusion to inclusion
17. What strategies have been used to exclude different groups from the democratic process? How were they excluded?
a. Thaksin's populism: Hijacked the constitution to neutralise opponents.
b. The coup: Tore up the constitution to undermine Thaksin's electoral support and prevent his return.
c. Managed democracy: In the 1980s and once again in the near future, perhaps.
18. What conditions are necessary for politics in Thailand to become stable, according to the author?
This key sentence cannot be paraphrased:
"Politics will only become stable when the political system reflects and accommodates all the important social forces and political aspirations in the society."
19. Is democracy a simple and orderly thing when done right?
Probably not, it may always be a "messy" thing.
("Democracy succeeds in societies where enough of the major social forces come to realise that elections, parliaments and public debate (for all their messy faults) are better ways to resolve the conflicts in society than power, repression, exclusion and violence.")
