Thailand's Political Crisis

A Coup for the Rich : Thailand's Political Crisis


A Coup for the Rich. Thailand's Political Crisis, Giles Ji Ungpakorn (Bangkok: Workers Democracy Publishing, 2007)

On 19 September 2006, the Thai military seized power from the government led by Thaksin Shinawatra. Fully armed troops using tanks and humvees occupied Bangkok's television stations and staked out a range of buildings, including the parliament. The military claimed that they were acting to restore democracy and to protect the monarchy.

Their claim to be restoring democracy was a reference to the widely held view amongst the middle classes that Thaksin had become an autocrat. Of course, the military's claims to be restoring democracy would have been a remarkable turnaround from their previous political involvement which had always been antidemocratic. In fact, the new "democratic" military acted no differently from their predecessors; they declared martial law (in March 2007, this continued in many provinces), revoked the 1997 Constitution, limited civil liberties, and controlled the media. Some daft foreigners accepted the military's claims about this putsch being a "good coup," getting rid of a government that was considered corrupt. For example, the Asia Foundation's Director in Bangkok, James Klein, claimed that this coup was "... probably ... the first time that there wasn't some political agenda." Even the military didn't make such an extraordinary declaration.

Following the coup, when troops were still on the streets, Ji Ungpakorn was one of the first Thais to publicly demand that the military withdraw from politics. He was involved with a small group of protesters that was the first to defy the military's ban on demonstrations, and has been bravely critical of the military, its government and the palace's role in making the coup.
The author's actions alone mean that A Coup For the Rich is a book that should make interesting reading. In fact, this is the first book in English to challenge the return to military rule. In Thailand, the book is controversial for it offers interpretations that challenge conventional understandings. Indeed, some bookshops have refused to carry it. The author is a professor of Political Science at Chulalongkorn University and it is scandalous that his own University's bookshop has refused to sell the book.

Ji Ungpakorn makes his political views clear throughout the book. As a Trotskyist, he brings that particular lens to this study of the 2006 coup, but that lens highlights many aspects of Thailand's politics that have been missing in the media coverage of the coup and in much of the growing debate on the role of the military and the palace.

The title--A Coup For the Rich--is interesting in itself. Many observers have neglected the class character of the coup. For example, there have been few reports of the military's continued threats against opponents in poor rural areas and the city's slums. The author makes it his task to reveal the class interests that have been involved in recent Thai politics and post-coup events. Unlike mainstream discussions, he goes beyond the ruling class and examines the role of social movements that claim to represent the working class and farmers. In examining the relationships between the elite and the oppressed and dispossessed, the author is able to pinpoint a number of conflicts that have been overlooked in other accounts of the coup. And, Ji Ungpakorn does this in an accessible style. While there are some problems of repetition and production, given the time and resources available to the author, A Coup For the Rich is quite an achievement.

The book is divided into four chapters. The first three of these are mainly about the coup, its aftermath and the author's assessment of the state of the people's movements. Chapter 1 begins with a brief account of the coup, the Thaksin government and its policies. Noting the business community's generalised support for Thaksin, Ji Ungpakorn devotes most attention to the "People's Movement" which, at least in the latter days of his government, was critical of Thaksin's corruption, authoritarianism and conflicts of interest. The core of the chapter is a critical examination of "tank liberals." The author uses this term to identify the way so-called democracy activists supported the overthrow of an elected government, repeatedly called for the extra-constitutional intervention of the monarchy and celebrated the palace-military coup. The author reveals the deeply held antidemocratic ideas and elitist affinities of those who have long been portrayed as liberals and democrats, and shows how they fear the empowerment of the masses.

Chapter 2 (Inventing Ancient Thai Traditions) is essentially a consideration of the role of the monarchy in contemporary Thailand. Ji Ungpakorn begins this chapter by noting that the role and position of the monarchy is much debated in Thailand. This may come as a surprise to many foreigners who seem to buy the propaganda that has it that the monarchy is above criticism and its role cannot be debated. Rather, the author explains how the current propaganda about the monarch is a manufactured image. In fact, the king's PR machine has pumped out so much syrupy material that it has created an image of a god-like monarch that is perhaps only matched for its hagiographic heights by North Korean treatments of Kim Jong-il. This book presents alternative images of King Bhumibol, reminding readers that the current image is manufactured. One criticism of this chapter--and much of the book's analysis--is the omission of a discussion of the source of the ruling class's power. For example, this chapter might have included a little more detail of the monarchy's fabulous wealth or the palace's re-emergence as one of Thailand's major capitalist business groups.

Chapter 3 takes up some of the issues raised in Chapter 1, with Ji Ungpakorn focusing on the "October Generation" of activists that developed from the October 1973 overthrow of a military dictatorship. This chapter looks more closely at the 1973-76 period and the development of a group of students who joined the Communist party, returning from the jungle to become intellectuals and politicians. This group was reasonably cohesive until Thaksin built his Thai Rak Thai party and brought a number of the October Generation into his circle. The author notes that this supposed cohesion had begun to dissipate before Thaksin came on the scene. Ji Ungpakorn is certainly correct to note the way that intellectual fashions like postmodernism and political and economic liberalism have had a deleterious impact on their political activism. His discussion of the influence of these leaders on people's movements is interesting, and his claim that their impact has been negative and depoliticising should not be ignored.

The fourth chapter is about the ongoing woes of the southernmost provinces. In my view, this chapter is the weakest. The predominantly Malay-Muslim provinces have seen increased violence and a rapidly developing insurgency. The author doesn't add a great deal to the existing literature on this topic. At the same time, it has to be said that the south has been a remarkably perplexing problem for a multitude of analysts.

There are a few problems with the book, some of which have been mentioned above. To nitpick, I also find the author's system of transliteration confusing. He insists on a system that results in some oddities, including changing the spelling of very well-known figures like Thaksin (Taksin in this book). Another difficulty for me is the tendency for the author to sheet home many of the problems of Thai politics to the now-defunct Communist party, which he sees as Maoist and Stalinist. That may be so, but many of the basic conflicts of Thai society have little to do with the party's doctrinal debates and its eventual failure. But these are merely distractions in a book that deserves serious consideration.

A Coup For the Rich should be required reading for anyone interested in contemporary Thai politics. While there will be analysts who will disagree with aspects of Ji Ungpakorn's short book, it has to be said that he has raised a range of issues that demand greater attention, not the least being the significance of class relationships in Thailand's recent political events.


Kevin Hewison [c] 2008

Carolina Asia Center

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill, USA


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the politics of elections in Northern Thailand

The rural constitution and the everyday politics of elections in Northern Thailand


I suspect many Thais still lack a proper understanding of
democracy. The people have to understand their rights and their
duties. Some have yet to learn about discipline. I think it is
important to educate the people about true democratic rule. It is a
challenge to enable all 60 million Thais to gain an in-depth
understanding of democracy and all its rights, duties and rules.
Democracy will thrive once the people learn its true meaning (Coup
leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, cited in the The Nation, 26
October 2006).

The Thai coup of 19 September 2006 derived ideological legitimacy from the view that the Thaksin Shinawatra government's electoral mandate was illegitimate because it had been "bought" from an unsophisticated and easily manipulated electorate. This was not the only rationale, but the denial of electoral legitimacy was fundamental in justifying the removal of a government that had been elected three times. And, with a further election scheduled for late 2006, those seeking to defend the coup relied heavily on the argument that the electorate was in no position to make a reasonable judgement about the Thaksin government's well-publicised faults. Faced with the likelihood that Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party would win yet another election, the coup-makers argued that the army's intervention was the only way to resolve the political standoff (see Hewison, 2008, this issue). The fact that the electorate continued to support Thaksin was, in the eyes of many of his opponents, clear evidence of voter irrationality and of the ongoing failure of the electoral process.


There is nothing new about this argument, nor its use in justifying military interference. Political commentators have regularly asserted that the Thai populace, and especially the rural populace, lacks the basic characteristics essential for a modern democratic citizenry (Connors, 2003). Accounts of the deficiencies of the voting population often focus on three key problems. (1) First, uneducated rural voters are parochial and have little interest in policy issues. Lacking a well-developed sense of national interest they vote for candidates who can deliver immediate benefits. Secondly, given their poverty and lack of sophistication they are readily swayed by the power of money. Vote buying is said to be endemic. Cash distributed by candidates, through networks of local canvassers, plays a key role in securing voter loyalty. And, thirdly, rural electoral mobilisation is achieved via hierarchical ties of patronage whereby local influential figures can deliver blocks of rural votes to their political masters. An array of studies documenting the political rise of provincial businessmen-cum-godfathers or chao pho (McVey, 2000) has added considerable strength to this patron-client model of rural political behaviour. Kasian's (2006: 14-15) account of Thailand's "electocracy" captures the key elements of this enduring view of the rural electorate:


At the base of the electocracy lay the 40 million voters, the
majority of whom were poor, ill-educated and rural-based. With most
of their constitutional rights routinely trampled by arrogant
officials, local mafia bosses and politicians, they had to take
advantage of the one that remained: to sell their votes to their
local political patrons for money, jobs, protection or informal
welfare benefits. Their interests long ignored by urban
policy-makers, their local resources depleted by both state and
private sectors, these voters perforce became willing accomplices
of the electocrats in the systematic corruption of electoral
"democracy."


There is little the rural electorate can do to shake off this persistent image. It is often alleged that electoral reforms and increased regulation of local electoral processes have had little impact on the pattern of financially lubricated electoral patronage. The only solution, we are consistently told, is ongoing political education, to provide rural voters "with a proper understanding of the object of elections and their mechanisms, as well as to arouse political awareness" (Suchit, 1996: 200). In the post-coup environment this call for education has been taken up with a passion by leading anti-Thaksin campaigner, Sondhi Limthongkul, who envisages a vanguard of politically aware urbanites gradually moving out into the countryside to spread their message of disinterested democratic rationality to the parochial and money-focused rural masses (see the discussion in Walker, 2006).


A review of the literature on rural political behaviour in Thailand, and elsewhere in the region, suggests two main alternatives to this negative perspective on rural political culture. One perspective emphasises rural people's non-electoral political mobilisation, in co-operation with an array of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), to resist the incursions of both state regulation and market commercialisation. There is a rich body of research and activist commentary that documents local non-electoral struggles against infrastructure development, heavy-handed conservation policies and the commoditisation of local resources (see, for example, Hirsch, 1997; Missingham, 2003). Rural people's involvement in protest movements and advocacy coalitions, their commitment to alternative forms of resource management, and their vigorous promotion of local knowledge are regularly cited as evidence of a dynamic rural "civil society" standing in opposition to the dominant development directions set by the Thai state.


But does this material provide a sound basis for a reappraisal of local political culture? I do not think so. My perspective is influenced partly by the specifics of my research site where, by and large, "grassroots" advocacy organisations have a very low profile. But there are more fundamental issues involved. Participation in these types of organisations is, in overall demographic terms, very modest and their influence outside specific sites of high-profile resource conflict is limited. More importantly, many of the rural advocacy campaigns waged by civil society organisations are based on what I have called a "limited legitimacy" that relies on an imagery of local cultural identity, self-sufficient agriculture and ecologically friendly lifestyles (Walker, 2001; 2004). This is an empowerment framework that finds it difficult to incorporate widespread electoral support for Thaksin government policies which promoted external cash input into local economic development and the conversion of local resources into capital assets (see Pasuk and Baker, 2008, this issue). Faced with this "rural betrayal" of communitarian values, civil society and NGO advocates tend to resort to the convenient imagery of a rural populace seduced by money politics (Walker, 2007).


A second alternative approach to rural political behaviour focuses on "everyday politics." This approach has received considerably less attention in the Thai context. (2) It draws on the work of Scott (1985), who examined the informal, day-to-day and often surreptitious ways in which subordinate peoples express their dissatisfaction with prevailing structures of power and systems of resource distribution. Kerkvliet's (2002) important study from the Philippines focuses on the politics of daily life to counter the prevailing view that political behaviour is to be understood in terms of the operation of hierarchically organised "factions" that mobilise voters to serve the electoral purposes of the elite. In an attempt to broaden perspectives on what is regarded as "political" behaviour, Kerkvliet (2002; 2005) drew attention to the forms of "everyday politics" that tend to fall beneath the radar of much conventional political analysis. This broader view of politics embraces the "debates, conflicts, decisions, and cooperation among individuals, groups, and organisations regarding the control, allocation, and use of resources and the values and ideas underlying those activities" (Kerkvliet, 2002:11). These debates and values are explored via the informal and everyday politics of complaint, theft, gossip, avoidance, sabotage, denunciation and, at times, outright protest. A key dimension of this analysis is a concern with the alternative sets of values that inform day-to-day political action. Building on Scott's (1976) analysis of "moral economy," Kerkvliet (2002: Ch. 8) identified a range of values relating to assistance, basic needs, security and dignity that "interact" and "tussle" with the values that underpin capitalist property and market relations.


This is an approach that I find promising in seeking to understand rural political culture in Thailand. Its strength lies in its focus on the localised day-to-day debates about resource allocation rather than the more exceptional cases of mobilisation under the banner of civil society organisations. It also directly challenges the view that rural politics can be understood in terms of an uninformed and gormless peasantry mobilised to serve the political interests of elite patrons. (3) However, in exploring "everyday politics" in northern Thailand, I propose an important modification to Kerkvliet's approach. I am rather less inclined than Kerkvliet (1995: 418; 2002: 242-5) to draw a distinction between "everyday politics" and the formal politics of electoral contests. The regularity of elections and the density of participation in electoral matters render the distinction untenable. In the northern Thai village where I have been working there were eight local and national elections between early 2004 and the end of 2006. (4) Voting turnout is usually high (around 80%) and, more importantly, there are a considerable number of people in the village (by my count at least 20) who are active in this "formal" political arena. Given this temporal and social density of political participation, discussions about "elections", "candidates," "policies" and "campaigns" are a regular feature of day-to-day life. Electoral contests are embedded in local social relationships, and values that relate to the day-to-day politics of the village readily spill over into the electoral arena.


The local values that inform the everyday politics of elections can be usefully thought of as a "rural constitution." In most general terms, constitutions regulate the exercise of government: they define government structure, attribute roles and distribute power. As a result they authorise the legitimate use of government power and constrain its illegitimate manifestations, often providing a range of protections for the governed population. While most attention focuses on the formal constitution, political advocates and constitutional scholars recognise that written charters are situated within a broader field of tradition, morality and cultural orientation. This is what historian Nidhi Eoseewong (2003) has referred to as the "cultural constitution" and what I, in the context of northern Thailand, am referring to as the "rural constitution." This un-codified set of political values regulates, constrains and legitimates the exercise of political power. It sets out the desired type of political representative, proposes ideal types of political behaviour and proscribes various forms of abuse of public office. This constitutional role is evident both in local government elections and in electoral assessments of the national government.


The ethnographic focus of this article is the village of Baan Tiam, which is located about one hour's easy drive from the northern city of Chiangmai. It is an ethnically northern Thai (khon muang) village located in a narrow intermontane valley a few kilometres to the west of the district centre of Pad Siew. The village is made up of about 100 households engaged in rice cultivation in the wet season, cash cropping in the dry season and an array of off-farm labouring activities. About half of the households derive their primary income from outside the agricultural sector and a large number of "farming" households have family members working elsewhere. This is a diversified rural economy.


Local Electoral Culture: Localism, Support and Administration

Localism

A number of commentaries of Thai political culture have highlighted the emergence of "localism," a political orientation that places a strong (and often primary) emphasis on the local community as a bulwark against the intrusions of the modern state (Hewison, 2002; Pasuk, 1999). Local community institutions and capabilities are promoted as alternatives to the standardising bureaucratic structures of the modern state. In some respects this is similar to the version of localism that I am describing here. There is a similar emphasis on the moral desirability of local specificity and local attachments. But there is also an important difference. The localism of Baan Tiam is fundamentally outward orientated. It does not seek to resist the state but to draw it into a socially and culturally legible frame of meaning. What is important in Baan Tiam's localism is that relations with the state are mediated by appropriately embedded local actors.


One of the most commonly expressed aspects of Baan Tiam's rural constitution is the view that it is better to elect a local than a non-local. This is usually 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 adjust readily to the different scales of electoral competition. In local government elections localism provides an explicit framework for political discussion and debate. (5) Candidates are assessed readily 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 Tiara has been a successful contender in these local resource contests. The previous sub-district head was a Baan Tiam resident and he went on to become the district's provincial assemblyman. 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 just before the provincial assembly election held in early 2004: "I'm helping one of us, whatever happens he's one of us." The incumbent candidate for municipal mayor in the election of 2006 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 three 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. He has lived here for 20 years. Most people know him. But he is from somewhere else."


Some of the subtleties and shifting coordinates of localism were demonstrated by the Senate election of 2006. Of all the elections discussed this was the least local and posed particular challenges for a localist approach to electoral decisions. There were 39 candidates for the five provincial seats and only a small number of them had tenuous ties to the local area. A typical comment in the lead up to the poll was that there "wasn't even one person standing from Pad Siew district, only people from other places." Without the orientation of local affiliation many voters indicated that they had difficulty in making a choice and a good number spent a long time reading the board outside the polling booth where the candidate's profiles were displayed. Some village officials predicted a large number of spoilt or frivolous votes, and, possibly, a low voter turnout. In fact, the vote went relatively smoothly--though the informal vote was somewhat higher than usual--but their comments did reflect some anxiety about the socially and spatially disconnected nature of the candidates.


Voters are flexible and pragmatic and sentiments of local belonging are highly malleable. Overall, the Senate results from Baan Tiara accorded with a broadly defined localist logic. (6) Two candidates each received 38 of the votes cast in the village. One of these was predicted to do well because he was well known, as the younger brother of a former member of parliament for the province (he was also said to be "Thaksin's man"). The other was a former resident of the district and a provincial assemblyman. As the only candidate who had lived in Pad Siew district he could have been expected to poll better, but pre-election sentiment was that his connections with the district had been limited in recent years and his work as an assemblyman had produced no real local benefits. The next most strongly supported candidate (36 votes) was a key supporter of a nearby temple. Her recent history of merit making in the area was highly regarded, as was her close connection with a senior opposition party figure. Other candidates receiving local support were also locally situated in various ways: one had local business connections through his money-lending business ("good connections, lots of money, but perhaps not trustworthy"); another hosted a popular radio show ("lots of people here know him so they will want to help him"); and another with a "famous" surname had good connections among the district's cock fighting fraternity (and he had supported the construction of a cock fighting facility in a neighbouring district). Interestingly, Thaksin's sister-in-law, who carried the famous Shinawatra surname but who had no significant local connections, received only three of Baan Tiam's votes.


One of the underlying motivations for this kind of 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. Partly this is because it operates in ambiguous ways and there are competing claims to varying degrees of localness. Within Baan Tiam there is real concern that the large number of politically engaged people will split the local vote and reduce the political influence of the village in municipal affairs. Quite simply, there are too many "locals" to choose 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 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.


Support

Many accounts of localism in Thailand emphasise local resources and locally orientated livelihoods as an antidote to the disruptions caused by the external economy. Such thinking gained significant momentum in the wake of the 1997 financial crisis and the king's subsequent promotion of the "sufficiency economy." This version of "localism" does not necessarily advocate disengagement from external economic systems but it does involve "looking inwards for a basis to resist the destructive forces of globalisation" (Pasuk, 1999: 6). Again, the form of localism that I am describing has a rather different emphasis. In Baan Tiam, locally embedded political representatives are not valued because they embody local resources or capabilities but because they are more likely to direct externally derived resources to locally valued initiatives. They are culturally and socially familiar figures with whom villagers feel relatively confident to negotiate for material benefits. Securing access to external resources is a key element of Baan Tiam's outward-orientated localism.


In Baan Tiam's rural constitution there is a strong expectation that political representatives will support their constituency financially. The issue of financial support is clouded in much discussion by the spectre of vote buying. I have no doubt that political candidates make direct cash payments to voters in Baan Tiara--even I was a beneficiary of Thaksin's munificence (100 baht) when I attended a TRT party meeting. But it is important to place direct cash handouts to electors in the broader context of the array of material assistance that is expected of political representatives and other well-resourced people seeking to demonstrate their social standing and their embeddedness in local circuits of exchange. These culturally valued strategies of material assistance include: personal loans; donations to temples; support for household rituals; payment of (appropriately inflated) expenses for attendance at meetings; payment of children's education expenses; provision of low cost transport services; and support for budgetary shortfalls in local development projects. Here are three brief examples.


* Fon obtained a personal loan from the TRT party candidate in the national election when she experienced financial difficulties as a result of crop failure. Local rumour was that this was instrumental in her becoming a canvasser for TRT. Later, she received a mobile phone. In the lead up to the 2005 national election Fon actively canvassed for TRT, and also sought funds from the opposition Mahachon party candidate to contribute funds to a village project she was attempting to initiate.


* Khruawan was a candidate in the 2006 Senate election. For some time she had been building up connections in Pad Siew district by patronising highly regarded temples and supporting religious construction projects. In November 2005 I attended a major temple festival in a village about ten kilometres from Baan Tiam. Khruawan was the major sponsor of the festival but her donation was actually presented to the temple by the district's provincial assemblyman. I was told that Khruawan was making donations in every district of the province.


* Prior to Baan Tiam's headman election in 2004 a group of women were invited to represent the village at a cultural festival in a neighbouring sub-district. Transport was provided by one of the candidates, Jakkrit, who owned one of the few pickup trucks in the village. He also provided modest support to cover the women's expenses for the day, but they considered this inadequate. He was accused of being stingy and the other main candidate was approached for a contribution. He refused, saying this could have been regarded as vote buying.


These various forms of assistance are assessed locally in terms of a range of interlinked political values that address issues of personal status, capability and morality. There is a widespread view that those with an established financial position are in the best position to hold political office. In part this is due to the obvious personal financial demands made on local and national politicians. Being a politician involves the building of charisma and regular demonstrations "that they have not forgotten the villagers." This is an expensive process, requiring regular investment in the form of donations, loans and attendance at many social events. This preference for politicians with established financial positions is also informed by the common view that they are less likely to corrupt public monies than those who are less affluent. One villager, clearly rating affluence above local connections, spoke enthusiastically about the credentials of one of the mayoral candidates:


He is a good and fair man. I don't think he would cheat with money
because he already gets paid a lot, about 40,000 [baht per month].
He is not likely to want to cheat more. Some people say that he is
an outsider, but this is not important because a person from
outside doesn't have an opportunity to favour anyone. And he is
well-educated.


Another political value relating to the issue of support is that the best political representatives are those who have made a sacrifice for the broader community. In local discourse a strong distinction is made regularly between the private and public domains. "Sacrifice" typically involves the diversion of some resources (labour, time and cash) from the private to the public sphere. There are many types of such sacrifice that are valued locally: participating in committees; assisting with the implementation of development projects; making representations on behalf of less capable villagers; and active involvement in village festivals. Provision of financial assistance is a highly visible way of demonstrating personal sacrifice, especially in the busy pre-election environment when time constraints limit other forms of participation. But there is a caveat. An appropriate demonstration of sacrifice requires that there is a perception that the funds being used are private rather than public funds. Of course, there are numerous ways in which candidates will attempt to blur this distinction (especially incumbents who already have access to various budgetary allocations) but a widespread perception that public funds are being used to create an impression of personal sacrifice is likely to generate some electoral backlash.


A commitment to local development is also a key element in the rural constitution's positive evaluation of support. A standard mode of justifying or challenging a candidate's credentials is the extent to which he has, or will, bring development to the local area. The importance of this value is reflected in the ubiquity of terms such as phattana (development), charoen (prosperity), and kaaw na (moving forward) in local campaign material. The incumbent candidate for mayor emphasised his development achievements in his campaign songs that he broadcast before the March 2006 municipal election:


The municipality has moved forward. The roads are good, the work is
finished. We have lights on both sides of the road. We have water
to drink and water to use. The water supply system has provided
water to houses near and far. We will continue to expand it. Rich
and poor are equal. Mark my words, the work we have done is not
insignificant. We will continue to move forward and work together
so everyone can be happy and secure.


The discursive force of "development" in electoral culture is complex. On the one hand it fits readily with the image of the generous and good-hearted patron who makes personal sacrifice for the benefit of the broader community. Financial donation prior to the election is a demonstration of the candidate's willingness and capability to direct development resources to constituents. Personal sacrifice and community development are linked symbolically. But, at the same time, the common emphasis on progress and development can move local discussion of support into a somewhat different domain of social meaning. In broad terms a distinction is emerging between forms of benevolent assistance that are expressed in personalised patron-client terms and forms of development assistance that are linked to more socially inclusive modernist discourses of progress, administration and broad-based access. Whereas personal generosity is valued highly in relation to the former, the latter places primary emphasis on the ability to mobilise government resources effectively and to direct them to "projects" in the local area.


Some of the dimensions of the local emphasis on both benevolent support and community development can be explored in relation to the election for mayor. The incumbent, Somsak, was a resident of Baan Tiam, from a family with substantial kin connections within the village and a high economic and cultural profile. His younger sister was elected head of the village women's group a few months before the municipal election and his key running partner was the brother of the village headman. (7) But this substantial social capital did not translate automatically into electoral support. Overall there was recognition that Somsak had contributed to local infrastructure development, even if this had been slower than some villagers had hoped. This was most visible in the conversion of numerous rutted dirt lanes into smooth concrete strips, but there were numerous other small construction projects that had received municipal allocations. But there were some complaints that one of the key beneficiaries of this development was his son-in-law, who had received many of the construction contracts. Somsak was also criticised for not mobilising assistance quickly enough when the village experienced flash flooding. And, perhaps most damaging, was the view that he did not use enough of his reportedly substantial salary to support local projects. For one villager his failings were highlighted when he responded to a request for budgetary support for one of the village's irrigation groups by asking them to submit a formal written proposal to the local government planning committee. In brief, while Mayor Somsak may have been a reasonably good, if somewhat plodding, developer he lacked some of the key characteristics of the quick-acting benevolent patron.


Somsak's main electoral rival, Dr Tanet, provides an interesting contrast. He was from outside the district (though he had lived there on and off for 20 years), and his social distance from the population was signalled by the ubiquitous use of his professional occupational title. But he had gained a reputation as a locally influential "Mr Fixit," personally supporting a number of local projects, enterprises and welfare activities. For example, when he was told about the irrigation group's request he immediately "pulled money out of his own pocket" and handed it to Chusak, the irrigation group's deputy head. "Compare this to Mayor Somsak," Chusak said, "when he does help us he uses the government's money, not his own, and it comes too late." Dr Tanet's act of patronage and personal sacrifice was sufficiently impressive for Chusak to sign up as one of his local canvassers. Dr Tanet also distributed satellite dishes to key supporters (and was somewhat bemused to receive one of the dishes back after the election requesting repairs under warranty). And he expressed interest in providing support for Baan Tiam's community shop, cleverly exploiting the perception that Mayor Somsak was half-hearted in his support for this particular project given that two of his close relatives were village shopkeepers who were concerned about competition from the community shop. Overall, Dr Tanet's reputation was of a well-connected and wealthy man who could quickly mobilise funds to address local needs and desires.


But the demonstration of an ability and willingness to provide financial support is not without electoral risks. Dr Tanet's generous displays of financial assistance generated some feeling that his campaigning was too "strong" and insufficiently linked to broader development goals. A number of voters expressed the view that he would win the election with money and suggested that there were likely to be "dirty stories" in relation to his campaign. One resident of Baan Tiam suggested that someone who had invested so much in cultivating local support would want it back, plus profit, if he won. There were also allegations about vote buying directed particularly at Dr Tanet's vigorous campaigning in a large upland minority village located near Baan Tiam. But, possibly most damaging, was that his demonstrations of local support were undermined by his history of acquiring land and houses through foreclosure on unpaid debts. As one woman advised her mother, "don't vote for that shit, he has grabbed land all over the place." This was combined with a feeling that he was seeking election so that he would be in a position to upgrade the land titles on many of his holdings in the area. In other words, for some voters, Dr Tanet's demonstrations of personal sacrifice and benevolence were simply not credible, given what was regarded as an established personal history of self-interest and private benefit. As such, his financial support came to be interpreted by some as an attempt to exercise "influence" (itthiphon), which is widely regarded as a negative dimension of power (see Tamada, 1991). (8)

Administration

The concern about the inappropriate use of financial influence points to another key aspect of the rural constitution that, to some extent, challenges a political emphasis on the localist provision of support. This alternative perspective places a primary emphasis on good administration and takes on self-consciously modernist connotations. Local advocates of this position often present themselves as a "new generation" and not infrequently make explicit reference to the general principles of participatory democracy and the need to move beyond old-fashioned systems of patronage and local "dictatorship."


This perspective places considerable emphasis on educational qualifications. This is a clear challenge to localist values. Most locally embedded politicians are of a generation when few rural people progressed beyond the middle years of primary school. For some voters this is seen as a limitation in terms of administrative and legal competence. This issue gained some currency in relation to the mayoral election, with some arguing that Mayor Somsak's limited education (fourth grade) meant that he was incapable of effectively reining-in officials within his administration, most of whom held bachelor degrees. Other better-educated candidates, who also had more formal experience in public administration, were seen as more able to "reduce the role" of non-elected officials. There was particular concern about Mayor Somsak's ability to manage one particular official--a gun-toting local strongman who was widely rumoured to have enriched himself from manipulation of construction contracts. Of course, this view did not go unchallenged, and Mayor Somsak responded by drawing on localist sentiments about the remoteness and impracticality of knowledge acquired through formal education:


Dr Tanet may have university degrees but that doesn't mean that he
can manage the work. Just sitting at a desk in an air-conditioned
office giving out orders is one thing, but he can't get out and
walk in the paddy fields. How will he help the villagers? There are
lots of people who think like this. That's why they will vote for
me.


Apart from the desirability of educational qualifications there are a number of other elements in the modernist emphasis on strong administration. These include an ability to speak well at meetings, to make quick and effective decisions, to manage budgets effectively, and to represent the locality effectively in meetings with higher-level bureaucrats and politicians. But, perhaps most important of all, is that administration and specifically the implementation of "projects" is transparent. Mayor Somsak's campaign slogan--"aiming for development, honest, transparent, accountable"--tapped into one of the most common preoccupations of local political discourse. This discussion often revolves around the implementation of the numerous projects that are a key preoccupation of Baan Tiam's everyday politics. (9) Projects are stereotypically justified in terms of their collective management and generalised benefit. But they usually bring together quite specific coalitions of interests and thus become the focus for ongoing conflict about the allocation of resources and the distribution of benefits. Most projects are subject to withering criticism and gossip including regular allegations of financial mismanagement and misappropriation--by those who support other elements of collective activity. It is in this context that the language of transparency becomes crucial to defend ones own initiatives and to cast aspersions on the supporters of other projects.


For some, this emphasis on transparent administration starts to displace the electoral value of development. In this alternative framing, rapid development can be portrayed as rushed and unaccountable expenditure, often on projects of dubious economic value. Development can also be framed as a form of electoral manipulation. High levels of spending on local projects, especially in the months leading up to an election, can be regarded as a blatant attempt to secure votes. Supporters of Dr Tanet, were at pains to point out that Mayor Somsak had spent over eleven million baht in the final months of his tenure, building on their critique that he was a less than competent administrator for whom development amounted simply to approving projects and pouring concrete.


And, of course, the discourse of transparent administration links to explicit concerns about corruption. One of the most damaging aspects of corruption is that it can undermine the electorally important image of personal sacrifice for the common good. But this is a subtle moral economy. Sacrifice in the form of diversion of resources from the private to the collective domain is a highly valued electoral asset. But, at the same time, it is broadly accepted that many of those who are active in the collective sphere will also gain some private benefit for themselves or for their family, kin and close friends. As such, it is regarded as quite normal that political representatives will derive some private benefit from public office. The key is to maintain this benefit at a level that is appropriate. What is appropriate is difficult to judge, and it is in this grey area of exchange between collective and private benefit that conflict often erupts and allegations of corruption are made. These allegations are likely to be electorally potent if there is a perception that collective resources are used for private benefit in a way that directly disadvantages others. For example, in Baan Tiam an early contender in the village headman election was ruled out on the basis of allegations that he had used his position on various village committees to divert communal funds to support his private money lending business. The fact that communal funds were being used to extract punitive rates of interest from fellow villagers was, for many residents, a blatant breach of the moral economy of exchange between the collective and private spheres. It was corrupt.


Everyday Political Values and the Thaksin Government

In the 2001 national election, which bought Thaksin to power, the TRT candidate in Baan Tiam's electorate won with 48% of the votes cast. In the 2005 election his vote climbed to 66%. However, in the controversial 2006 election, without any opposing candidate, his vote was halved and over half the electorate either did not vote, voted informally or registered a "no vote." (10) In other words, during the period of Thaksin's tenure there was considerable variation in the level of his electoral support. Local elections also cast doubt on the common image of TRT electoral hegemony. In the provincial assembly election of 2004, the incumbent candidate, who had strong TRT backing, was defeated soundly. And, in the vigorously contested mayoral election, the TRT candidate, Dr Tanet, fell short by the slimmest of margins, despite his well-resourced and high-profile campaign. So, rather than assuming, as Kasian (2006:15) does, "rock solid" rural electoral support for Thaksin and his party, readily mobilised via financially lubricated networks of patronage, it is more useful to examine how the Thaksin government was evaluated in terms of the rural constitution's local political values.


Localism: "The Prime Minister is from Chiangmai"

In the national election of 2005 localism played an interesting but politically ambiguous role. Thaksin is, of course, from Chiangmai and is, in the eyes of many voters in the region, one of baan haw. One of the popular TRT slogans, regularly printed in distinctive northern Thai idiom, reflected this sentiment: "The people of Chiangmai are proud. The Prime Minister is from Chiangmai. Thai Rak Thai is the only party." Part of the local political identity of Pad Siew district was that it had become part of the TRT heartland and there was a common extension of the baan haw category to include Thaksin's TRT party. This commonly expressed sentiment was nicely summarised by a local party canvasser:


Thaksin's policies develop Chiangmai. And we are Chiangmai people.
So why wouldn't we vote for him? Northerners have to help
northerners and then Thai Rak Thai will win. 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 party-dominated south is morally charged, with the southern region increasingly seen as an undesirable place characterised by religious cleavage, ongoing violence and, in the lead up to the 2005 election, the inauspicious misfortune of the tsunami. At a speech in the district centre the TRT candidate made much of the contrast between the "good hearted" people of Chiangmai and the Democrat supporters 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 government-imposed southern monopoly on the cultivation of rubber, providing a new source of lucrative income for farmers in the north and the north-east. 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 TRT'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 TRT candidate (the incumbent, first elected in 2001) may well have been a Chiangmai man, but 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 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 Pad Siew 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 TRT 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 Tiara where some of the most influential opinion leaders (including the headman) were keen supporters.


Support: "Good in Some Respects"

TRT had a rather mixed record in terms of the rural constitution's valuing of financial support. There was considerable grumbling about the limited local involvement of the TRT candidate, and there were also complaints about the limited payments received for attendance at TRT meetings. Within Baan Tiam, the local party canvassers were accused of being half-hearted in mobilising villagers to attend various party events, thus denying them potential income. Some even suggested that incompetent local canvassers had been deliberately recruited so that district-level party workers could pocket a greater share of the electoral benefits. Overall, despite some specific acts of personal support, the TRT candidate did not have the reputation for high profile generosity. In fact, it was the locally embedded opposition candidate who was more readily associated with the rural constitution's values of benevolent patronage. His active engagement in Pad Siew district had earned him the affectionate (and, for some, slightly mocking) title of "the honourable tent" (sor sor tent), referring to the large number of canvas awnings (printed with his name) that he had donated to local organisations during his previous tenure as local representative in the national parliament. At his election rally sor sor tent could also claim that he had contributed to various local projects, most notably the construction of a small-scale hydroelectric project and the new agricultural co-operative building. His benevolent profile was enhanced by the commonly expressed local view that, "Mahachon is much more generous than Thai Rak Thai" in its payment for attendance at rallies and party meetings.


But TRT's disadvantage in relation to the personal characteristics of its candidate was outweighed by the strong local endorsement of the official support provided under Thaksin's policy initiatives. Here, Thaksin's government was regarded as having performed very strongly: "they have helped us in many ways. Thaksin has many projects that bring benefits to farmers. The old government did not help us like this." Particularly strong support was expressed for the Thaksin government's local economic development initiatives, such as the village fund and the so-called "SML" program. (11) In Baan Tiam, despite some problems, the one million baht village fund operated relatively successfully with relatively high rates of repayment. It had also managed to increase its original capital stock as a result of members' regular deposits and the purchase of member shares. The village-level SML grant funded the construction of a village rice mill, which offers cheaper rates than the three privately owned village mills. A number of farmers in Baan Tiam have also taken subsidised cattle provided under the Thaksin government's "one million cows" programme. As one villager remarked, "People still like Thaksin a lot. The project for raising cattle tries to fix poverty by creating income for villagers." And about 20 villagers have participated in income-generating activities provided as part of the government's poverty alleviation campaign. There was also very strong local support for the government's health policy, which provided hospital treatment for only 30 baht.


Electoral support for the various government initiatives was enhanced by the perception that they had been implemented very quickly and in a manner that largely bypassed local bureaucracy. The rapid pace of the Thaksin government's financial assistance was a key point of contrast with previous governments. The SML scheme was cited regularly as demonstrating the government's effectiveness. It was promised in the campaign for the February 2005 election and, by June 2005, the village had received the money and was in a position to decide which project would be implemented. Though there was considerable local debate about how the money would be spent, the policy of village-level decision making and implementation was seen as a significant departure from the usual administrative practice of submitting funding requests to higher-level authorities. The eventual decision was to construct a community rice mill and it was completed by early 2006, little more than a year after villagers had first heard about the new programme.


But it would be misleading to suggest that TRT was invulnerable on the issue of support. In fact, there was persistent local criticism that Thaksin's government had offered insufficient support to the agricultural sector. This point needs to be understood in terms of the considerable agricultural uncertainty faced by Baan Tiam's farmers. Coinciding with the Thaksin government's tenure many have experienced catastrophic declines in the yield of garlic, their primary cash crop. Of course, the primary causes of this reduction in yield--disease, bad weather and soil-fertility decline--were unrelated to government policy. However the government was not completely blameless in relation to the garlic collapse, and a good number of farmers correctly linked the steep drop in the price of garlic to the government's free trade agreement with China (see Pye and Wolfram, 2008). As one of the most active garlic farmers in the village told me, "Thaksin has been good internationally but not so good within the country." But even more damaging was a general perception that the government had done little to address the overall agricultural malaise, and there were specific concerns that some of the agricultural support programmes (especially the livestock initiatives) were tokenistic and unviable. Often an implicit contrast was drawn between specific development initiatives (on which TRT scored well) and broader-based support for the agricultural sector. Consider the views of Daeng, when he was responding to rumours that officials would be coming to the village to check that farmers claiming the government subsidy for reducing the area of garlic cultivation had actually done so:


Why should they come? Really, farmers who grow garlic don't get
anything anyway. You have to invest a lot in fertiliser, and I
don't want to be in debt. But we have to do it, because there is no
alternative income. Why is the price of fertiliser and fuel going
up? But the money to help us and the prices for our crops just go
down. Just look at it! For the rice I lost [in the floods in the
2005 wet season] I only got 300 baht. If I had not lost that rice
and been able to sell it I would have got several thousand. The
government is not completely bad but their commitment and spending
on agriculture is small and the farmers are still in trouble. No
end in sight! I am still in debt. Everyone is in debt. The
government has started to help us, such as the 30 baht health care,
but it's not enough and not transparent.


Daeng's impassioned statement about the linkage between agricultural decline and indebtedness expresses the key socio-economic concern in Baan Tiam. Garlic requires significant investment in inputs and the failure of a series of garlic crops has meant that many farmers have substantial debts, in some cases amounting to over 200,000 baht: "garlic made us rich, and then it made us poor." The Thaksin government's debt repayment moratorium was appreciated but it provided temporary relief rather than addressing the debt problem itself. And, more importantly, there was a strong thread of local critique that TRT's one million baht village credit fund had merely increased indebtedness:


Thai politics is terrible. I don't like Thaksin. He has given money
to the villagers but I have not seen any of them get rich, just
further into debt. They just bring budgets and give loans to the
poor people who then go and support them. But it's the money of the
government, not Thaksin's own money. Farmers are in trouble, all
the crop prices are going down. I stopped farming a few years ago.
Running a restaurant is better.


Administration: "I Call Him Sapsin" (12)

There is no doubt that many of Thaksin's personal qualities were highly valued according to the rural constitution's measures of strong administration. He had a record of extraordinary business success, he was a capable public speaker and became a charismatic media performer, and he had excellent educational qualifications. Particularly important in local perceptions was that Thaksin could speak English well--a key cultural marker of social connection, sophistication and intellect. What all this meant was that Thaksin could represent Thailand effectively on the world stage. "Thailand is famous now," Baan Tiam's assistant headman told me, "everyone has heard of Prime Minister Thaksin."


There was one particular aspect of his administration that contributed to the Thaksin mystique and reinforced the image that he was a national leader who could operate effectively on the world stage. Local supporters regularly cited the fact that Thaksin had cleared the IMF debt that had been Thailand's national burden in the wake of the 1997-98 economic crisis. They thought that this had enhanced Thailand's international status, improved the country's credit rating and enabled the government to better support its own population. Some even suggested that Thaksin's success in settling the IMF debt was an indication that, given time, he would be able to deal with the problem of household debt. This electorally beneficial blurring of national and private debt was expressed nicely by the owner of one of Baan Tiam's noodle shops: "In the past any Thai child that was born was 60,000 baht in debt. But now the IMF debt is gone and Thailand's new born can rest easy. And money is coming into the village. Thaksin has done a good job. As for the other side--I've seen nothing."


Another factor that acted strongly in Thaksin's favour was his penchant for high profile campaigns (or what Thaksin called "wars"). The ambitious targets and tight deadlines of these campaigns clearly captured the local imagination. Most prominent of these was the so-called War on Drugs, during which there were widely reported to have been over 2000 extra-judicial killings of alleged drug dealers in a nationwide crackdown. As in other parts of Thailand, this heavy-handed campaign attracted significant local support. It was cited regularly by local supporters as evidence of the Thaksin government's effectiveness and Thaksin's strong and decisive leadership. It tapped into profound local anxieties about the spread of amphetamine use among young people and was also consistent with local sentiments that continue to value direct action against alleged criminals. Consider the comments of Uncle Man who checked himself out of hospital on election day in April 2006 so he could cast his vote in favour of TRT (despite the fact that there was no opposition candidate):


The thing I like most about Thaksin is the war on drugs. There has
been a real benefit. In the past there were a lot of people on
drugs, a lot of young people in this village. Just a couple of
years ago, some young people came and tried to steal computers from the school. They were kids from our village. I didn't want to get
involved. I am old and they might kill me. Our village set up a
"night patrol" committee. It was a secret committee. They got
people in several villages. Now it is quiet and I feel much safer.


Set against these positive perceptions of Thaksin's administrative record were concerns about his corruption. Thaksin's extraordinary wealth and his various business dealings and manipulations while in government made him vulnerable to the charge that he was "greedy," that he "cheated" too much, and that he surrounded himself with bad people. These were commonly expressed views, though for many they were not electorally potent, given the view that while he had "helped himself" Thaksin had also "shared" the benefits with rural people. In other words, his diversions from the public domain to his private domain were not seen as having directly disadvantaged rural voters. But this rationale was not universal, and some countered by pointing out that Thaksin's apparent generosity to the poor was not genuine, as it had come from government money rather than from his own private funds:


Talking of Thaksin, I call him "sapsin" (property). I don't like
the way he has cheated so much money. My relatives in Bangkok don't like him at all and never agree with his actions because he just
throws money away. The money that Thaksin uses is the country's
money. It is not money from his own pocket. He has lots of money
but we never see him make donations. When he dies will he be able
to take it with him?


For some voters, Thaksin's corruption and maladministration were highlighted by the controversial April 2006 election. As a result of the boycott by opposition parties, Baan Tiam's electorate had only one party standing--TRT. Some argued that the election itself was a waste of money ("the country's money, the money of every villager") and that the electorate was being taken for granted by offering them no electoral choice:


I think they should delay the election. Because doing it like this
is not fair to all parties. I don't like Thaksin's government
because it has cheated a lot and "eaten" too much. But here we only
have Thai Rak Thai and this district is a vote base for them.
Personally I would like another government to run the country.


Conclusion

Over the past few decades Thailand has been afflicted by what McCargo (2006) has called a "disease" of "permanent constitutionalism." Enormous energies have been devoted to developing constitutional provisions that will provide the appropriate balance between royalist, military, corporate and civil society interests. For many, the holy grail of constitutional drafting is a form of democracy where an appropriately constrained expression of electoral will is combined with a continued elite hold on key processes of government. Since the 2006 coup, Thailand has entered yet another round of constitutional drafting intent on avoiding a return to the "tyranny of the majority" that emerged from the 1997 charter.


In response to this constitutional obsession, historian and public intellectual Nidhi (2003) wrote in 1991 about Thailand's "cultural constitution." In contrast to the formal written charters, that are so easily set aside by coup-makers, the cultural constitution reflects the more enduring "ways of life, ways of thinking, and values" that underpin the key institutions in Thailand's political life. While, according to Nidhi's account, ultimate "power" resides with the sacred monarch, Thailand's cultural constitution holds that rulers are constrained by other forms of "influence." Local leaders have influence, as do the military and members of parliament (even if they are asleep when votes are taken). Power is also constrained by "morality," at least to the extent that "external manifestations of morality" provide a basis for the public's evaluation of legitimate power. Influence and morality are also "sacred institutions." For Nidhi, this "cultural constitution" is much more important than any written document in accounting for the underlying rationale of Thai political life.


There is, of course, considerable room for questioning how widely held the cultural constitution described by Nidhi really is. But his exploration of the role of informal cultural provisions in national political life is provocative and it invites more ethnographically engaged investigations. This article has taken up this challenge by exploring the operation of a rather different cultural constitution existing in a rural context. The rural constitution provides a basis for judgements about legitimate, and illegitimate, political power in electoral contexts. Like Nidhi's cultural constitution, it acts as an unwritten constraint on the exercise of power. It is embedded in the everyday politics of discussion, gossip and debate about the personal attributes of leaders, resource allocation, development projects and administrative competence. It is an important cultural domain where the everyday politics of village life spills over into the more formal arena of electoral contest. The rural constitution is an unwritten constitution made of numerous informal provisions, but they can be grouped usefully under three main headings: a common preference for local candidates; an expectation that candidates will support their electorate; and an emerging emphasis on strong and transparent administration. But these various elements are refracted in complex and sometimes contradictory ways and do not provide a ready template for political decision making. Rather, they provide a broad framework in which local political evaluation can take place.


In proposing this rural constitution I want to avoid creating a mirror image of the negative portrayals of rural electoral behaviour with which I started this article. It would be ludicrous to argue that all rural electors are careful and rational decision makers who painstakingly assess candidates against a range of clearly defined criteria. Mrs Priaw told me that she votes for Thaksin because she does not know who else to support. Miss Noi goes to vote because her parents and relatives tell her to; but she votes informally because she does not know any of the candidates. And Mr Num, a young government employee, was a member of TRT but was not sure why because he did not get any personal benefits. As in any electoral system there are a good number of people who vote (or not) on the basis of disinterest, disengagement or disillusionment.


Nor do I intend to deny that "vote buying" and party canvassers have any influence on electoral behaviour in Baan Tiam or elsewhere in rural Thailand. But I do insist that these specific institutions need to be placed in the much broader context of everyday political values. As I have indicated, cash distributed by candidates and their canvassers means fundamentally different things in different contexts--it is subject to evaluation and critique within the broad framework provided by the rural constitution. And party canvassers are similarly evaluated. In Baan Tiam one of the key TRT party canvassers was regarded widely as a man who "talked too much, a lot of it rubbish." His somewhat dubious leadership status was underlined when, in late 2004, he was dumped as head of the village's largest irrigation group, given his inattention to the smooth running of the system (largely because his own fields lay at the head of the irrigation canal). The other key TRT canvasser suffered a major setback not long before the 2005 election as a result of her alleged mismanagement of a local development project. When village members ended up having to pay 500 baht each to salvage the project, her reputation nosedived. "She works hard for the community," one woman commented, "but she is hopeless with money."


It is also important to remember that candidates and political canvassers are socially embedded in complex and overlapping networks of relationships. There is no neat hierarchy of political patrons and vote-offering clients. Rather, there is a "diverse society of ill joined actors" (Kerkvliet and Mojares, 1991: 10) in which personal connections overlap, compete and draw people in different directions. Gluckman's (1955) classic analysis of custom and conflict in Africa shows how a complex network of conflicting loyalties prevents feuds degenerating into outright conflict. In the same way, rural voters in Thailand find themselves linked in multiple ways with local figures on all sides of political contests. There is no ready-made social basis for political mobilisation into clearly defined electoral entourages. In this socially complex environment, the rural constitution is drawn upon to provide an informal framework for specific electoral allegiances.


Of course, Baan Tiam is only one village. But greater attention to the rural constitution, in its diverse forms, is likely to prompt some rethinking of the common stereotype of a failed democratic citizenry (see Somchai, 2008, this issue). From the perspective of Baan Tiam's rural constitution, the Thaksin government was elected because a majority of voters considered that TRT candidates and policies best matched their values for political leadership. Often the match was imperfect but, on balance, TRT was the most attractive alternative on oiler. This electoral decision was swept away in a wave of urban protest that culminated in the sabotaged election of April 2006 and the coup of September 2006. Coup supporters and constitutional alchemists have sought to de-legitimise Thaksin's electoral support by alleging that it is based on the financially fuelled mobilisation of an easily led and ill-informed rural mass. This erasure of the everyday political values contained in the rural constitution represents a much more fundamental threat to Thailand's democracy than the tearing up of the 1997 charter.


Acknowledgement

Research for this article was undertaken in the northern Thai village called "Baan Tiam" (located in the district called "Pad Siew") in a series of research visits by the author between 2003 and 2006. The article has benefited enormously from the patient and diligent research assistance provided by research assistants in Thailand. The author has also benefited from ongoing discussions and collaboration with Craig Reynolds (who also provided helpful advice on clarifying the argument in this article) and Nicholas Farrelly. And thanks, of course, to the residents of Baan Tiam and Pad Siew.


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Notes

(1) See, for example, Anek (1996), Arghiros (2001), Callahan (2005), Kasian (2006), Nelson (1998), Ockey (2000; 2004: Ch. 2), Suchit (1996), Surin and McCargo (1997) and Tanun (1994: Ch. 4) and the numerous works cited by these authors. Of course, there is considerable nuance and variation in these accounts and I am not suggesting that all of these authors deal with the issues uncritically--in some cases quite the opposite, especially Callahan (2005).


(2) A key exception is to be found in the work of Turton (1984: 65), who called for greater attention to the "wide range of ... everyday forms of resistance" in rural Thailand.


(3) In exploring the everyday politics of elections in Thailand I am not starting completely from scratch. Of particular importance is the work of Nishizaki (2005) on the "moral origins" of one of Thailand's most famous provincial strongmen. Arghiros' (2001) work on local electoral politics in Ayuthaya is also an important contribution. Like other commentators, Arghiros placed considerable emphasis on vote buying, but he sought to interpret this in the context of the diverse social relations that underpin the local political system and he explored the localised bases of political legitimacy. And Anek's (1996) much-cited "tale of two democracies" does attempt to take rural voting behaviour seriously. However, his claim that the path to "virtuous democracy" lies in transforming "patronage-ridden villagers into small towns of middle-class farmers or well-paid workers" (Anek, 1996: 223) is a reversion to the stereotype that rural people are failed democratic citizens.


(4) One for the village headman; three local government elections, one provincial assembly election, two House of Representatives elections and one Senate election.


(5) Baan Tiam is part of a small municipality (thesaban) for which there is an elected mayor and an elected council.


(6) Given that Senate votes are counted at the village polling booths (unlike lower house votes, which are counted at electorate level), village voting data are readily available.

(7) Each mayoral candidate had a team of candidates running for council membership.


(8) It would be surprising if Baan Tiam residents had not absorbed some of the messages of high profile national campaigns that seek to undermine the electoral power of "influential figures," though Turton (1984: 31) provided an indication of a longer-term subaltern critique of itthiphon.


(9) During the period I have been working in Baan Tiam I have become aware of a large number of these projects. Here is a sample: the community shop, the wood carving project, the music group, a community rice mill, support for children with disabilities, lighting for public events, construction of visitor facilities in the nearby national park, a new concrete pavilion for the village territorial spirit, the handicraft centre, uniforms for the women's group to wear on public occasions, new stoves for the temple kitchen, a village history project, dolomite for the paddy fields, funds for the leaders of one of the irrigation groups to travel to the irrigation office to request further funds for renovation of the irrigation system, a toilet for the community shop, the banana group, the proposed village cultural centre and the community rice mill.


(10) The boycotting opposition parties and anti-Thaksin protest groups urged their supporters to cast a "no vote" in the election. A "no vote" option is available on Thai ballot papers.


(11) Under the SML scheme, funds were provided to villages for local development projects, often construction projects. The "SML" referred to the different allocations for small, medium and large villages. It was usually referred to using this English acronym.


(12) Sapsin means "property," a playful allusion to Thaksin's extraordinary wealth.


ANDREW WALKER

Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia

Correspondence Address: Andrew Walker, Resource Management in Asia Pacific Program, Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, The Australian National University, ACT 0200 Australia. Email: andrew.walker@anu.edu.au



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Thaksin's populism

Thaksin's populism


Thaksin Shinawatra achieved massive personal popularity, as demonstrated by scenes of public acclaim and high endorsement at the general elections in 2005 and 2006. No previous Thai elected political leader had courted or achieved such popularity. His support was strongest in rural areas of the north, north-east, and central regions, and among rural migrants in the capital. During Thaksin's time in office, the term "populism" was applied to Thai politics for the first time, and rendered into Thai for the first time, to describe this novel cultivation of popular support and the mechanisms that lay behind it. Fear that populism would enhance the power of the mass in Thai politics at the expense of established elite interests was a major factor in assembling the coalition of forces behind the coup of September 2006. Among the four reasons which the junta gave for staging the coup was that Thaksin had "caused an unprecedented rift in society," meaning the rift that ran between the Bangkok middle class on one extreme, and Thaksin's largely rural support base on the other. Some key figures in the middle-class opposition to Thaksin pinpointed his populism as a major reason for rejecting his leadership. In the final lines of a book written on the eve of the 2006 coup, the political scientist Anek Laothamatas (2006: 202) wrote, "We must deal quickly with Thaksin-style populism before another economic crisis arises and destroys the nation completely." Shortly after the coup, Sondhi Limthongkul, a media entrepreneur who led public demonstrations against Thaksin, told an audience in the USA that in future he would "work only with the middle class who have sufficient education to truly understand how populist politicians can abuse power" (cited in Keyes, 2006).


Thaksin's populism is often equated with his policies, especially the three-point electoral platform of 2001 (cheap health care, agrarian debt relief, village funds). It can quite properly be argued that such policies are the everyday stuff of electoral politics and do not deserve the label of populism. The equation of Thaksin's populism with this programme also gives the impression that Thaksin's populism was present at least from the time of his rise to power.


In this article, we argue that Thaksin's populism was more complex than his policy offering; that it developed over time in response to social demand; that it has strong affinities with political trends elsewhere in the world owing to a common political economy; and that it helped provoke the urban middle-class rejection of Thaksin, which was background to the coup.


The first part of the article plots the growth of Thaksin's populism, showing that it became by stages a much more important part of Thaksin's public politics. The second part argues that a policy platform was only one aspect of Thaksin's populism, and that two others were the projection of a relationship between political leader and supporters that was dramatically new in the Thai context, and an explicit attack on the form of liberal democracy which has been the template for Thailand's constitutional development. The third part argues that Thaksin's embrace of populism was not mere opportunism but the response to social demand. To put it another way, Thaksin may indeed have been opportunistic, but there would have been no opportunity if there had not been a social demand. This demand was a function of social forces created by Thailand's pattern of development in the era of outward-orientation and neo-liberalism.


The fourth section compares Thaksin with other examples of modern populism, especially in Latin America. There is often resistance to such comparison on grounds that the histories and social profiles of Latin America and South-east Asia are so different. But the similarities between the Thaksin regime and certain examples in Latin America, especially Fujimori's Peru, are so striking that it is worth looking at the extensive analysis of Latin American populism for help in understanding Thaksin. One key message of this comparison is that populism mutates and matures. Another is that populist regimes which lack mass organisation easily fall victim to elite attack. The final section looks at the role of Thaksin's populism in the crisis of 2006.


Although in the past there have been attempts to define populism in terms of ideology or organisational form, scholars nowadays tend to accept the term as a broad description. Kenneth Roberts (2006) summarised "the essential core of populism" as "the political mobilization of mass constituencies by personalistic leaders who challenge established elites." He argued that such movements encompass many shades of ideology, and various types of organisation. (1) We use the term in this broad sense.


Becoming a Populist

When Thaksin formed the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party in July 1998, there was little sign of his later populism. Thaksin was a spectacularly successful businessman from a prominent business family in Chiang Mai. On founding the party, he explained that its principal mission was to rescue Thai businessmen from the 1997 financial crisis and to restore economic growth (The Nation, 15 July 1998).


He later broadened his political mission to include reforms that would modernise Thailand, especially the bureaucracy and the political system, and hence prevent the recurrence of financial crises in the future. The slogan chosen for his party "Think new, act new for every Thai"--reflected the image he projected as a modernist and reformer. In the statement of his political ideas at this time, there is no social agenda except for one brief general commitment "to bring happiness to the majority of the country." The single-minded focus is on "enabling Thailand to keep up and be competitive with other countries" (Walaya, 1999: 211).


The 23 founding members of the party, and the 44 members of a kind of shadow cabinet publicised a year later included only one figure identified with rural or mass issues. Thaksin's speeches of this era do not make use of the term "the people" and do not imagine any social change other than the triumph of business over bureaucracy. For the 2001 elections, the initial party platform focused on measures to help small and medium businesses, and the centrepiece of the media campaign was a dramatisation of Thaksin's own life in which he was cast as a poor boy who made good as a rich businessman--a distillation of the lives and legends of Thailand's urban society of Thai-Chinese migrant families, not of its rural society of frontier rice farmers. As signals of his modernism, Thaksin appeared in public in a suit, the uniform of business, and littered his speeches with English words and references to the sayings of Bill Gates (Pasuk and Baker, 2004: Ch. 3).


To put together a broader campaign platform, Thaksin drew on the services of a group of former student radicals from the 1970s era. The key contact was Phumtham Vejjayachai, who had met Thaksin in 1975-76 when Thaksin worked as an aide to a minister who had to negotiate with leaders of the student movement. In response to a call for policy ideas, another 1970s student leader turned orchard farmer, Praphat Panyachatrak, contributed a scheme of agrarian debt relief. This subsequently became the first item in a platform designed for rural appeal (The Nation, 28 March 2000, 23 March 2001).


Subsequently, the TRT policy team adopted ideas for a universal health scheme which had been developed over some time within health-orientated NGOs. The scheme was based initially on an insurance model with a low annual premium, but was subsequently changed to a retail model with a low price per visit (Viroj and Anchana, 2006). This mass platform was rounded off by a scheme of village funds essentially similar to a scheme which Kukrit Pramoj and Boonchu Rojanasatian had launched in 1975 (Bangkok Post, 17 August 2000).


This three-point platform figured in the campaign material that TRT distributed, especially in rural areas, in the two months before the election. But the agrarian debt scheme and village funds were not evidence of any special tilt towards rural issues on the part of Thaksin and TRT. The policy team also contacted activists working with urban labour, and put together a programme appealing to this interest (Brown and Hewison, 2005). In the same way, TRT attempted to appeal to businessmen, environmental groups, the moral reform lobby and various other sectional interests. It was trying to please everyone.


At the polls in January 2001, TRT won two seats less than an absolute majority. Thaksin's policy platform was strikingly new and will have contributed to the result, but it would be wrong to imagine, with the benefit of hindsight, that this was a populist victory. Many factors contributed to this result (see especially McCargo and Ukrist, 2005: Ch. 3; Nelson, 2002; Ockey, 2003): the opposition Democrats were damned by their association with the IMF's disastrous crisis recovery programme; other parties and politicians were still suffering financially from the crisis; Thaksin was successful in persuading many established politicians to join his party; and the electoral system introduced under the 1997 Constitution was designed to deliver fewer but larger parties than in the past. Thaksin drew attention because of his platform, but even more because of his novelty as a leader and because of his wealth. Opinion polls run after the election found that many voters believed the TRT platform was simply "too good to be true" (Bangkok Post, 12 February 2001).


While in the international context populism is an old term with many meanings, it is important to understand that in the Thai context it was a totally new word and wholly defined by its usage with reference to Thaksin. Anek (2006: 78) showed that "prior to 2001 and Thaksin's election victory, the terms populism and populist were used by almost nobody in academic circles, the media, or the society at large."


Just two weeks after the election, Kasian Tejapira (2001a; 2001b) wrote articles in Matichon, applying the term populism to Thaksin and TRT, and explaining to his audience what the word meant. (2) At first, however, he used a Thai transliteration, poppiwlit. The term was so new and unfamiliar that no translation was in common usage. In the same week, two Thai academics translated the term as prachaniyom during a seminar in Thammasat University. Kasian switched to this term in his article on 3 February and Anek (2006: 79) suspected this was the first time this Thai word was used in print.


Bidding for Popular Support

Thaksin's embrace of populism had two main stages, both when he found himself under attack. In December 2000, Thaksin was indicted by the National Counter Corruption Commission for failing to report his assets accurately in three statutory declarations made when he served briefly as a minister in the mid-1990s. (3) If found guilty, Thaksin faced a five-year ban on participation in politics. He fought the case with legal arguments and with attempts to suborn the judges, but also deployed two other strategies.

First, he manufactured a public presence significantly greater than that attempted by any previous Thai prime minister, primarily by using state-owned media now under his control. He launched a weekly radio show in which he talked to the nation for an hour about his activities and his thoughts on issues of the day. He dominated the daily television news and also appeared in several special programmes, including an evening chat show in which he lamented his predecessors' handling of the economy. In the final climactic sessions of the assets case, he walked the final stretch to the court through an avenue of supporters, pressing the flesh like an American electoral candidate. In an extraordinary innovation, the final summaries by plaintiff and defence in the assets case were run live as a television special.


Secondly, his government implemented the three-point electoral programme with extraordinary speed. For the health scheme, a workshop was held in February, a pilot scheme launched in April, and the roll-out (except in Bangkok) completed in October (Viroj and Anchana, 2006). The agrarian debt relief scheme was made available to 2.3 million debtors by the same month (Bangkok Post, 18 October 2001), while by September the scheme of village funds (4) was extended to most of the country's 75,000 villages and 5.3 million loans approved (Worawan, 2003). The three schemes were immediately popular.


Thaksin's personal popularity, measured by a monthly poll, rose from around 30% in December 2000 before the election to a peak of 70% in May 2001 as the asset case decision approached (The Nation, 7 January 2002).


With this change in public presence and popularity went a change of rhetoric. In direct reaction to the assets charge, Thaksin announced a new and leading feature of his political mission: "Nothing will stand in my way. I am determined to devote myself to politics in order to lead the Thai people out of poverty" (The Nation, 23 December 2000). He and his aides portrayed the assets case as a conspiracy by Thailand's old elite to remove someone who had been elected "by the people" and was dedicated to work "for the people." Thaksin said on the eve of the verdict, "The people want me to stay and the people know what's right for Thailand. And who should ! be more loyal to? The people? Or to the Court? I love people. I want to work for them" (Time, Asia edition, 13 August 2001: 19).


In rhetoric, over the nine months of the asset case, Thaksin went from modernist reformer championing businessmen in the face of economic crisis, to populist championing the poor against an old elite. By late 2001, academics and journalists, both Thai and foreign, used the term populist more regularly in reference to Thaksin. But most analysts still pictured Thaksin primarily as a business politician who had adopted populist policies as a strategy to win popular acquiescence for reforms designed primarily in the interests of capital. Kevin Hewison (2004) dubbed this formula a "new social contract." (5)


Going to the People

The second stage of Thaksin's development as a populist began in late March 2004. Thaksin came under increasing attack in the press and on public platforms, especially over his management of the upsurge of violence in the far south, but more generally over a range of issues including corruption, government aid for Shinawatra businesses, the privatisation of state enterprises, and the government's handling of avian influenza. With an election approaching in early 2005, Thaksin reacted quickly to secure his electoral support in the countryside. He launched a series of tours covering every region of the country. His motorcade swept into villages and district centres, where provincial officials and local leaders had been gathered. Flanked by other ministers and high officials from the capital, Thaksin listened to reports on local problems and petitions for budget assistance. In many cases, he then gave instant approval for projects, using a vastly expanded central fund under his own control which he had created by reforms in the budget process. In a seven-day swing through the north-east in April 2004, he pledged approval of projects totalling 100 billion baht (The Nation, 28 April 2004). In a six-day swing through the north in July, he pledged approval of projects totalling six billion baht (The Nation, 23 July 2004). He visited the central provinces in several shorter trips, and the south in August. In Chiang Mai he promised to rid the city of poverty within three years. In Nakhon Pathom, he told students, "Come and tell me if you don't have a notebook [computer] yet and I will buy one for you out of my own pocket" (The Nation, 14 May 2004). Thaksin also invited all Bangkok's taxi drivers to Government House for lunch (The Nation, 16 May 2004).


In the month prior to the election in February 2005, Thaksin made further tours, mainly in rural areas of the north and north-east. Election law forbade any instant handouts in this period, but Thaksin announced a much more elaborate programme of election promises than in 2001, including an extension of the village funds, land deeds for every landholder, a government pond dug for anyone prepared to pay a small fuel cost, four new cheap loan schemes, free distribution of cows, training schemes for the poor, cheaper school fees, special payments for children forced to drop out of school because of poverty, an educational gift bag for every new mother, care centres for the elderly, more sports facilities in urban areas, cheaper phone calls, an end to eviction from slums, more cheap housing, lower taxes, more investment in the universal health scheme, a nationwide scheme of irrigation, and a deadline for the end to poverty--"Four years ahead, there will be no poor people. Won't that be neat?" (Thaksin, 2005; see also The Nation, 18, 19 October 2004; Bangkok Post, 7 November 2004). For this election, the modernist "Think new, act new" slogan of 2001 was replaced by the intensely populist, "The heart of TRT is the people."


After the 2005 election, Thaksin toured less but made increasing use of a practice, begun in 2001, of holding occasional "mobile Cabinet meetings" in an upcountry location. These events similarly created occasions for local people and officials to present petitions to Thaksin, and for Thaksin to pledge local budget spending, all in full view of the public media. This strategy climaxed in January 2006 when Thaksin led a troop of ministers and senior officials to spend a week in At Samat in Roi-et province, one of Thailand's poorest districts, supposedly to devise systems for eradicating poverty which could then be replicated elsewhere.


These events dramatised Thaksin bringing government to the people, and were rewarded by increased popularity. Even though very little concrete action resulted from the At Samat poverty experiment, popular support for Thaksin in this area increased dramatically from an already high level. (6) Although the motorcades, mobile Cabinet meetings and the poverty experiment reached only a small sample of places, the events were magnified by display on television. The poverty experiment ran all day on live television as a form of "reality show." The upcountry tours provided opportunities for Thaksin to be photographed in homely situations emerging from a village bath-house in a pakoma (common man's lower cloth); transported on a village tractor (i-taen); riding a motorbike down a dusty village street; accepting flowers from toothless old ladies.


In this period, Thaksin changed his public appearance and speech. He shed his business suit in favour of shirtsleeves with buttons open at the neck, sometimes all down to his waist, and his hair lightly tousled. He stopped littering his speeches with English to denote internationalism and modernity, and instead used dialect and earthy humour. He stopped quoting Bill Gates, and instead often mentioned his own family and sex life. The format of his weekly radio show underwent a subtle change: instead of commenting on current issues, Thaksin related the events of his week like a diary, allowing listeners into his life.


By the end of this period, Thaksin's populism had expanded beyond a policy platform into a distinctly new form of politics which can be portrayed as three messages to his supporters.

Thaksin's Three Messages

I Give to All of You

Thaksin's government had launched three major schemes of social provision, and promised many more. The distinctive characteristic of most of these schemes was that they were available to all. Previous governments had provided cheap or free health care for the poor by distributing cards. However, through corruption and inefficiency, these cards reached only a minority of the families that deserved and needed them. Using these cards carried a stigma, and often subjected the holder to poor treatment. Thaksin's health scheme was available to all as a right, and significantly extended access to health care. According to the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), which was generally critical of Thaksin, the scheme lifted more people out of poverty than any other single government measure. While there remained a service differential between the 30 baht scheme and private treatment, participation in the scheme conveyed no stigma and the treatment was mostly judged to be good (Viroj and Anchana, 2006). In polls, the health scheme regularly rated as the TRT government's most popular measure (e.g. The Nation, 26 September 2004). This popularity outstripped actual experience of the scheme. People who had not used the scheme liked the idea of it.

In the same way, the debt relief scheme was available to all indebted farmers, and the village funds extended to every village. The slew of schemes floated in the 2005 election campaign offered provisions for everyone through every stage of life--from birth through education and employment to old age.

As Pitch (2004) has argued, people felt empowered by the TRT schemes, partly through the very real impact of the programmes, partly through the impression that Thaksin and his party were responsive to their demands, and partly because the schemes positioned each citizen in an equal and direct relationship with the state. From interviews and observation in Mahasarakham in 2005, Charles Keyes (pers. comm., February 2007) concluded,


The relationship with the rural populace was clearly symbiotic and
grew over time. As villagers benefited from Thaksin's populist
programs, they felt empowered because they were responsible for
putting him in power.... In one interview, a middle-aged villager
said that in the past people in Bangkok controlled politics, but
today we villagers do.


I Belong to You

Thaksin transformed himself into a public property over which people felt they had some ownership. He used the media and public appearances to convey an image of constant and dominating presence in public space. He re-crafted the presentation of himself to become much less distant from the ordinary person. He distinguished himself from previous political leaders and from other figures in the political arena including officials, academics and journalists. He delighted in provoking criticism from such figures and then boasting about such criticism on his radio shows, upcountry tours and election appearances. He understood that presenting himself as an enemy of Thailand's political elite conveyed an appealing message to his mass audience.

Deft use of the media is, of course, commonplace in modern politics in any country. But, in Thailand, Thaksin's development of a powerful public image was new and broke many local conventions. On public appearances, he was received in scenes normally reserved for rock stars and certainly never before seen around a Thai political leader.

I am the Mechanism which can Translate the Will of the People into State Action

In many of his public statements from 2004 onwards, the government was reduced to the first person singular. For example, in his last speech before the 2005 poll, Thaksin spoke as follows:


I will make the Thai economy improve. I have already raised the GDP
from 4.8 to 6.5, and now I will take it from 6.5 to 9 trillion
[baht]. I will increase exports. I will expand the markets ... I will
fix the economy by fixing the problem of poverty ... I ended the IMF
loan. I changed the status of the country from one which chases
around borrowing money to one which lends ... I will take care of
kids by developing their brains ... I will change the way of giving
financial support to universities ... I will build more sport
stadiums and more parks ... I already gave officials a salary
adjustment in 2002, and I will give another ... I will provide
opportunities for people to study at university level without their
parents having to open their wallets (Thaksin, 2005).


At this and other campaign meetings, he dispensed with the usual ritual of introducing the local party candidate, and instead launched into his speech as if the election were a presidential poll. His domination of television news became so overwhelming that other ministers spent ministry budgets to buy billboard space to display their face and achievements. In a specially televised Cabinet meeting, Thaksin presented himself as a traditional taokae (Chinese boss) commanding and instructing a group of passive subordinates. He told NGOs that they no longer had any role because there was no need for intermediaries between the leader and the people. After the landslide 2005 election victory, Thaksin constantly repeated, "I have the votes of 19 million of the people."

In his speeches before the 2005 election, Thaksin offered himself as the vehicle through which the wishes of the people could be translated into action on the part of government.

These past four years, this kind of change was not by chance or
fluke [in English], but because of the power of your belief in me.
I work hard, don't I? If I work hard, but you don't believe in me,
there could be no trust. But when you believe in me, then people
listen when I speak, and bureaucrats are not stubborn, because they
listen to the people. This is democracy ... I have the same power as
prime minister as every person who is prime minister. But I have
special power more than the others because I do what I say I will
do. People put faith and belief in me, don't they? (Thaksin, 2005).


Thaksin devalued the importance of parliament, neutralised the check-and-balance bodies of the 1997 constitution, micro-managed the electronic media and said in public that law, the rule-of-law, democracy and human rights were not important because they often got in the way of "working for the people." In his 2005 election speeches, he suggested to his audience that the bundle of liberal democracy-rule of law, freedom of criticism, human rights, oversight by parliamentary opposition, checks and balances on the executive had done little for them in the past, and that making him into a powerful executive would deliver them greater benefit. He described criticism by press or opposition as "destructive" and exhorted his audience, "We want politics with meaning, don't we? We want politics which have something for the people, don't we? And this politics which is just destructive, can we get rid of it yet?" (Thaksin, 2005). In his public criticism of opponents, he focused especially on people associated with Thailand's history of democratic development (Thirayuth Boonmi) or with the reform pressure of the 1990s (Prawase Wasi, Anand Panyarachun). On several occasions, he encouraged people to draw parallels between himself and authoritarian military leaders in the past, especially Sarit Thanarat, whose memory had become associated with direct and decisive action (e.g. Matichon Raiwan, 30 September 2003).


Thaksin's authoritarian tendency was clear from the beginning of his premiership. It stemmed from his enormous self-confidence, his need to conceal the massive conflict-of-interest over his family business, and perhaps his police training and experience as an old-fashioned taokae of a family-based business. But Thaksin's embrace of populism gave him a means to justify this authoritarianism as an alternative to the liberal model of democracy.


The Social Context of Populism

Thaksin's populism was a response to social demand, with roots in the social structure moulded by Thailand's strategy of outward-orientated economic development. With the development policies adopted by governments since the 1950s, Thailand became significantly more industrialised and urbanised. But Thailand's decision to develop with a relatively open economy and high reliance on external sources of capital, technology, expertise and even labour resulted in a social structure that differs significantly from the classic pattern of the West, and that of the early Asian industrialisers such as Japan, Taiwan and Korea. Figure 1 is an attempt to sketch this social structure using labour force data (the 2004 Labour Force Survey, February round and the 2002 Industrial Survey).


The formal working class is small, accounting for around 8% of the workforce. By "formal" working class we mean those with relatively permanent employment in sizeable establishments. As a proxy, we use the numbers employed in manufacturing in establishments with more than ten workers, as recorded in the Ministry of Industry's (2002) Industrial Survey. This is not "the working class" as a whole, which would be far larger. This formal working class is small because the multinational firms that dominate manufacturing tend to employ technology which is more capital-intensive than Thai conditions would merit. (7) It is weak in bargaining power because of labour competition on a global scale, and suffers from the legacy of the Cold War when Thai governments devoted considerable care to controlling labour organisation through legal measures, political co-option and outright suppression (Brown, 2004).

The white-collar middle class is relatively large, at around 15% of the workforce. This figure is calculated from those with higher education and a professional, managerial or clerical job, as recorded in the Labour Force Survey. This class developed very rapidly over little more than a single generation because of the rapidly rising demand for skills to service the expanding modern economy.

The numbers remaining in agriculture have fallen, especially over the 1985-95 economic boom, yet still two-fifths of the workforce returns their major occupation as agriculture. However, for most nominally agrarian families, agriculture is no longer the sole source of income, and for many it is only a minor contributor. Because of low public investment directed towards the agricultural sector, a long-term trend of decline in international prices and environmental destruction, returns to agriculture have declined. Agrarian households rely on transfers from the urban economy to supplement their incomes.

There is a steady seepage of people from agriculture into the urban informal sector, which has ballooned to around a quarter of the workforce. This sector includes the whole "shophouse" sub-sector of "morn-and-pop" stores, and other family and micro-scale enterprises; vendors; the self-employed; many illegal or semi-legal enterprises; and a large workforce that floats between construction, seasonal agricultural work, sweatshops, legal and illegal services industries, and other forms of casual employment (Endo, n.d.).

The agricultural and urban informal sectors are linked closely through flows of people and remittance. For shorthand we will refer to these two combined as the informal mass. Together they account for around two-thirds of the workforce and roughly the same proportion of the electorate. As electoral democracy has developed in Thailand, the potential importance of this informal mass in politics has advanced in parallel. But numbers are only part of the story. Those who depend for a living on the informal economy also tend to be involved in informal systems of social organisation and political regulation. As they are not directly affected by the taxation, budgetary spending or regulatory action of government, they have low motivation to invest in the organisation needed to make their weight felt in national politics. At the same time they are bound by informal linkages into clientelist politics (Anek, 2006; Khan, 2005). In Thailand, they were recruited into politics mainly through the hua khanaen (vote bank) systems of electoral organisation, in which candidates rely on village heads and other locally influential people to deliver the people's votes (see the discussion in Walker, 2008, this issue).

However, the politics of the informal mass has changed markedly over the past two decades. Over the 1980s, the controls through which the military suppressed grassroots political organisation by intimidation and force during the Cold War were eased. From the late 1980s onwards, civil society movements raised political consciousness over issues concerning rights, environment, livelihood and equity. Then, in 1997, the financial crisis hit very hard on the informal mass. The two million who were immediately made unemployed by the crisis came mostly from this segment. Returns to agriculture were initially improved by the currency movements, but then sharply depressed. Numbers below the poverty line rose by three million (World Bank, 2001). Declining remittances from urban work knocked through into rising levels of agrarian debt. This severe and sudden impact had a politicising effect.

The two years following the crisis saw the biggest upsurge in rural protest since the early 1970s. The chief demands were for agricultural price support, agrarian debt relief, and land for the landless (Pasuk and Baker, 2000: Ch. 5). Thaksin and his advisers adopted exactly these demands. Agrarian debt relief was the first measure that Thaksin's ex-activist advisors inserted into his rural electoral platform; Thaksin frequently distributed land deeds during his rural tours; and government support for rice prices became a key policy through which Thaksin consolidated rural support. (8)

Thaksin connected with the emerging political demands and aspirations of the informal mass. Although he was not an obvious candidate to become a populist leader, and although he had shown no interest in "the people" before 2000, he was drawn into this position by the mechanisms of electoral politics. As his political career was threatened, first by legal process, later by growing urban opposition, he discovered a new and powerful base of support in the growing political involvement of the informal mass. He gave them a form of leadership that brought their demands and aspirations to bear in national politics. At the same time, Thaksin's programme, leadership style and political message were shaped by the aspirations and insecurities of this support base. As Nithi Eoseewong observed, '"Think new, act new' is just somebody taking the dreams of Thai society and making them into policy" (in Matichon Raiwan, 26 May 2003).

The universalism of his policies had immediate appeal to people who lived and worked within informal rather than formal structures, and who often missed out on government schemes that were designed and delivered within a formal institutional frame. The failure of previous targeted schemes of subsidised health care are a good case in point. Similarly, his leadership style was a targeted appeal to the informal mass. He approximated the style of the local boss with a strong streak of personalism ("I do this for you"), a promise of generosity in return for loyal support, and a cavalier, tough-guy, dismissive attitude towards enemies. Finally, his promise to act as the mechanism through which popular demands would be translated into state action carried an implicit message that old-style politics, and the whole liberal-democratic bundle, had done little for the mass of the people.


Thaksin's populism thus went far beyond a transactional relationship in which he appealed for support in return for a menu of policies. He tapped the aspirations, insecurities and sense of exclusion of this major segment of the population, and was rewarded with support that was both emotional and rational.


Brothers and sisters, look at me! My ribs are all cracked, because
when they hug me, they hug me tight, solid, humph! Today, I was
hugged a bit too heavily. My arms are starting to be different
lengths. Today, I was pinched all over. But I'm happy because people
have the feeling that I care for them. I want to see them escape
poverty. They have placed their hope in me. I know that I'm taking
heavy burdens on my shoulders with the things I'm saying here. But
I'm confident I can do them. Someone born in the year of the ox in
the middle of the day likes working hard--has to plough the field
before he can eat the straw
(Thaksin, 2005).

Latin American Parallels

Leaders with many similarities to Thaksin have appeared in many other countries in recent years. In Turkey in 2004, for example, a new prime minister whose party's base of support comprises small-scale producers and the informal sector, launched a slew of populist schemes, and stood aggressively against the country's political tradition going back to Ataturk in the 1920s (Carroll, 2004). However, the region where this political tradition has the longest history and the most extensive academic analysis is Latin America.


Several scholars detected a change in Latin American populism which began in the 1980s and continued into the following decade. In the prior era from the 1950s onwards, the dominant trend had been movements that built on organised labour and social movements to form mass parties delivering policies of protectionism, import substitution industrialisation, and redistribution through controls on prices and wages. The movements that emerged in the 1980s, and were dubbed neopopulism, were substantially different. They were detached from labour unions or other civil society organisations. They had little permanent organisation, only ad hoc electoral campaigns. The policies through which they courted popularity were mostly forms of welfare provision, while their macroeconomic management largely accepted the neo-liberal framework advocated by the US (Conniff, 1999; Roberts, 1995; Weyland, 1996).


Two main schools of thought emerged to explain this shift in Latin American populism. The first concentrated on the political economy. Labour movements had declined with the rise of multinational capital and the development of an internationalised labour market, while the decay of agriculture had swelled numbers in the informal sector, creating a "disorganised mass." This mass was mobilised as a political force by a "critical juncture," such as a severe cyclical economic crisis, or the delegitimation of an old ruling elite. The second explanation, coming from the rational choice tendency in political science, argued that the rise of mass media had supplanted the need for political entrepreneurs to use "labour intensive" techniques of mass mobilisation (Roberts, 2006). These two arguments are not mutually exclusive, though it is difficult to see how the rational choice version can work without some political economy underpinning.


The most striking example of this era of neo-populism was Alberto Fujimori's Peru. As an ethnic Japanese former professor of agronomy, Fujimori was a total outsider to the old political elite and enjoyed very limited support only a few months before his rise to power in 1990. He was swept to the presidency on a wave of emotional reaction against the old political elite in the aftermath of an economic crisis. He consolidated his support with a raft of welfare schemes, which included universal health care and other mainly universal schemes. He systematically undermined the parliament, media and judiciary by bribery on a massive scale, while simultaneously telling his supporters that democratic institutions were a hindrance to his efforts on their behalf (Ellner, 2003; McMillan and Zoido, 2004; Roberts, 2006).


Fujimori was far from alone. Menem in Argentina and de Mello in Brazil followed similar patterns in the early 1990s. Kurt Weyland (1996: 10) summarised the populist leaders of Latin America in this era as follows: "They ... appeal to unorganized, largely poor people in the informal sector, have an adversarial relation to many organized groups in civil society, and attack the established 'political class' as their main enemy." They rely on "a strongly top-down approach and ... strengthening the apex of the state in order to effect profound economic reform and to boost the position of the personal leader." They have tended "to ally with the army, sideline or destroy existing political institutions (unions, parties), and manipulate the media." They also tended to align with the USA, acquiesce in neo-liberalism and pursue rapid economic growth to win the support of local business elites. The similarities to Thaksin are obvious.


In short, Thaksin's populism is far from unique but follows in broad outline a pattern that was dominant in Latin America a decade or so earlier. But the Latin American case has a second important learning. Populist politics are not static. Just as neo-liberal neo-populism supplanted an earlier "classic" era, so neo-populism has already been supplanted by distinctly new trends in Latin America. In the last few years, movements embracing leftist ideologies of varying degrees have won power through the ballot box in Venezuela, Brazil, Uruguay and Chile, while mass movements have toppled conservative or centrist presidents in Ecuador, Argentina and Bolivia.


This shift appears to have many elements, which operate in greater or lesser degrees in different countries. First, there is a growing popular reaction against neoliberal policies which can be tapped in electoral campaigns, particularly through promises to roll back the penetration of multinational capital in these economies. Secondly, there is a rise in anti-Americanism--or at least a drop in deference to the USA--which is probably attributable to the international rejection of the George W. Bush presidency. Thirdly, there is some mobilisation of class interests on ethnic lines, most obvious in the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia in 2005.


The point is that populism evolves and mutates in response to ideological development, shifts in the political economy and changes in the international environment.

Organisation and Party

In the neo-populism phase, Latin American populism moved away from mobilisation based on structured parties and social movements towards looser organisations and "electoral populism" in which the party existed only for the purpose of election campaigning. Fujimori is again a primary example. He formed a new party on each of the three occasions that he stood for election and promptly abandoned or disbanded the party in the aftermath of his victory. The lack of any institutional form to bind Fujimori to his electoral promises gave him the freedom to woo local business and make his settlement with the USA (Ellner, 2003; Roberts, 2006).


Roberts argued that change in the degree of organisation by Latin American populists is not a trend over time but a function of the fierceness of opposition. Populist leaders who face no serious response from an old elite can afford to operate without any organised base of support, but those that provoke opposition need defences.


Populist leaders are often polarizing figures who generate fervent
loyalties and intense opposition, particularly among elites who
feel threatened by populist reforms, rhetoric, redistributive
measures, or mobilizational tactics. The more radical the discourse
and behavior of populist leaders, the more intense the opposition,
and the more likely that socio-political conflict will be
channelled into extra-electoral arenas. These conflicts create
incentives for populist figures to organize and empower their
followers for political combat. Followers not only vote, but they
may be called upon to mobilize for rallies and demonstrations,
participate in strikes and occupations, or even take up arms to
defend their leader in times of peril (Roberts, 2006).

Fujimori's lack of organised support eventually became "a congenital defect of Fujimorismo." When the extent of the organised corruption that underpinned the regime became public in 2000, the government collapsed and Fujimori had to flee into exile (McMillan and Zoido, 2004). Roberts cites the contrasting example of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. He also began with no substantial party organisation, and came to power through a clandestine movement in the military, and spontaneous acclaim at the ballot box. However, as his radical policies alienated the USA and large sections of elite and middle-class opinion in Venezuela, Chavez responded by founding a network of grassroots organisations called "Bolivarian circles." When his enemies ousted Chavez by coup in April 2001, he was able to regain power through his remaining influence in the army, and his ability to organise people on the streets and at the polling stations. He subsequently founded a more conventional party organisation that claimed 20,000 base units by 2003 (Roberts, 2006).


Thaksin's TRT party closely resembled the loose form of electoral populism in Latin America. It differed little from other Thai parties except in the scale of its funding (McCargo and Ukrist, 2005, Ch. 3). Its prime function was to orchestrate election campaigns. It held an annual conference, and occasional regional meetings, principally as rituals to celebrate the party leader. The party claimed to have signed up eight million members before the 2001 election (The Nation, 18 December 2000) and extended that to 14 million by the 2005 poll (The Nation, 21 February 2005). But these members paid no party dues, engaged in no party activities and had no part in selecting the party executive. There was no formal channel for party members to influence policy. Thaksin's aides used market research techniques to help formulate policies. The party membership list served principally as a database for election campaigning.


TRT organised for the 2001 election by the classic tactic of persuading factions of sitting MPs to join the party on the expectation that TRT would form the next government and be in a position to reward them (Ockey, 2003). Thaksin thus attached the existing clientelist networks, which extended down from the MPs into the localities, to his new party. He continued this strategy after the election by persuading two surviving parties to merge into TRT. At the 2005 poll, the influence of TRT as a party, Thaksin as a leader and the clientelist networks of individual MPs are impossible to disentangle. The MPs were bound to the party by constitutional barriers against splitting away, and by the continued expectation that TRT would again win. TRT as a party thus continued to draw on their clientelist networks.


Prior to the 2001 election, Thaksin and his aides toyed with schemes to ally civil society groups to his party. In particular, Thaksin appeared in public with the Assembly of the Poor, the most prominent activist coalition of the 1990s. He promised to act on their agenda of complaints and won their endorsement for his election campaign (Bangkok Post, 19 December 2000). Similarly, TRT met with representatives of organised labour, resulting in a nine-point policy document, and endorsement of TRT's election campaign by labour organisations (Brown and Hewison, 2005). But Thaksin reneged on both these promises. When the party's labour policy was submitted to parliament in the month after the election, four of the nine points had already disappeared, including those considered the most important--ratifying the ILO conventions on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and establishing an occupational health and safety institute. Organised labour's support for Thaksin dwindled and turned to outright opposition over privatisation in 2003 (Brown and Hewison, 2005). The Assembly of the Poor's major demand was decommissioning the Pak Mun dam which disrupted the ecology of a major river and the livelihoods of people depending on it. Thaksin visited the dam and called for research on the issue, but then personally made a summary decision to retain the dam before the studies were even completed. The Assembly of the Poor turned hostile (Bangkok Post, 8, 9 January 2003).


Subsequently Thaksin avoided arrangements with civil society groups which might place him under some obligation to deliver against his promises. Once in power, with a virtual monopoly control over the electronic media, he relied on his ability to dominate public space to secure public support.


However, as opposition increased from 2004, Thaksin not only intensified his efforts to win public support by populist strategies, but also began to consider strengthening the party as an organisation. In campaign speeches before the 2005 poll, he promised that TRT would soon introduce a system to allow local party members to select the TRT candidate on the model of the US primaries (Thaksin, 2005). In July 2005, the TRT party moved into massive new offices in two buildings (of 8 and 14 storeys) previously occupied by a state bank, and Thaksin announced his aim to "institutionalise" the party (The Nation, 15 July 2005). Nothing concrete had emerged, however, before the 2006 coup.


Instead, he tried to mobilise support through informal means. His lieutenant for this task was Newin Chidchob. Before the 2005 poll, Newin was sent to the south in an apparent attempt to disrupt the Democrat Party's support base through wholesale vote-buying delivered through the bureaucratic apparatus. The scheme was exposed and had to be abandoned. As opposition to Thaksin accumulated over 2005 and early 2006, Newin was involved in organising support among Bangkok taxi drivers and among farmers' groups from the north-east. The taxi drivers were occasionally assembled for shows of support for Thaksin in the capital. In 2006, groups of north-eastern farmers travelled to Bangkok and set up camp in a city park to serve as a counter to the demonstrations organised by Sondhi Limthongkul and the People's Alliance for Democracy, and to demonstrate against newspapers that opposed Thaksin (Kasian, 2006: 8-10). Thaksin's aides threatened to bring a million farmers to the city.

As with Fujimori, the lack of any strong organisational base proved to be a "congenital defect." Thaksin and TRT crumbled when confronted by opposition from the palace, the military and a hostile middle class.

Populism and the Coup

What is the significance of Thaksin's populism for analysing the coup of 19 September 2006? As Hewison argues (2008, this issue), the coup was very much a royalist event. Yet it depended also on urban middle-class support in the public space of the media and public platforms. The army's planning for the coup appears to have begun after an attempt by a Thaksin ally to buy up the Matichon press group in September 2005 turned the press and intellectuals openly hostile, and after the Shinawatra family's tax-free sale of Shin Corp in January 2006 provoked a gut reaction in the tax-paying middle class.


Royalist opposition to Thaksin was evident from the beginning of his first government in 2001 and thus predates the development of his populism, though that opposition undoubtedly increased as the implications of Thaksin's populist leadership became clearer.


The evolution of Thaksin's populism and the growth of middle-class opposition were interrelated in a kind of dialectic: as Thaksin lost urban middle-class support, he intensified his populist appeal to the informal mass; as Thaksin's populism became more strident, the middle class felt more alienated. (9) Thaksin's threat to bring millions of rural supporters into the capital was the logical conclusion to this spiral, and a key trigger for staging the coup. Beneath this interplay lay the massive gap in incomes between city and village, and a long-standing middle-class fear of empowerment of the rural mass. The threat which the middle class perceived in Thaksin's populism was partly fear that they would be obliged to pay for his redistributive schemes, (10) but more fear that they would no longer have a privileged position to influence the state agenda. Sondhi Limthongkul, who set out to channel middle-class aspirations, stated explicitly that Thaksin had to be overthrown in order to restore political influence to the middle class. In talks given in the USA following the coup, Sondhi was reported as follows:


He [Sondhi] argued that there cannot be electoral democracy in
Thailand such as is found in the West because most people outside
the middle class lack sufficient knowledge to understand how power
can be abused. The rural people only vote, he claimed, for those
who pay them either directly through party organizers (hua khanaen)
or indirectly through the populist programs. He compared the
populist programs of Thaksin to those of Peron in Argentina. Khun
Sondhi said that in the future he himself will work only with the
middle class who have sufficient education to truly understand how
populist politicians can abuse power (Keyes, 2006).

A more detailed rejection appeared in a book Thaksina-prachaniyom [Thaksin-style populism] completed in mid-2006 in parallel with the countdown to the coup. Anek Laothamatas is a prominent political scientist who entered politics in the late 1990s, became an MP under the Democrat Party in 2001, and switched to lead the Mahachon Party which was annihilated at the 2005 poll. Anek (2006) argued that the rural electorate supported Thaksin because his populist policies were in their self-interest, but these "irresponsible" policies had made people dependent on handout welfare, politicised the bureaucracy and would result in fiscal crises of the sort endemic to Latin American populist regimes. Anek suggested alternative policy offerings, including a version of TRT's policies cleansed of their intrinsic irresponsibility and dishonesty, and an adaptation of the third-way welfarism of Anthony Giddens. But ultimately Anek seemed to doubt that these policy offerings would sway the Thai electorate, and instead offered a political solution.


Anek argued that populism would outlast Thaksin because it was founded on the surviving vertical linkages in rural society. Thailand's rural voters were not free agents but bound by patron-client ties. Where they had once been clients of a local boss, they had now been transformed into clients of a national boss and his party (Anek, 2006: 123-4). In this social setting a "pure democracy" was bound to lead to de Tocqueville's "tyranny of the majority" and irresponsible populism. Anek's answer was that, "A better democracy is a balanced compromise between three elements: the representatives of the lower classes who are the majority in the country, the middle class, and the upper class" (Anek, 2006:177). In this democracy, the only time when everybody would have equal rights would be when they dropped their ballot paper in the box. After that "the importance of each person will depend on knowledge, ability, experience, and status," so that the wishes of the majority would not be able to replace "what is correct according to ethics and academic principles" (Anek, 2006: 178-9). (11)


The "tyranny of the majority" would be avoided by ensuring that the opinions of two groups had special weight. The first, Anek called ekaburut and translated as "monarchy," but glossed that this was not simply equivalent to royalty, but comprised "a small number of upper class people who are leaders or governors of the country at the highest level, who are prominent by their office and by themselves, and who command the trust of the majority." The second group, Anek called apichon and translated this as "'aristocrats." This included "the middle and upper classes, especially the leaders with wisdom and experience in politics and administration," including senior bureaucrats, top intellectuals, and senior journalists (Anek, 2006: 178, 179, 181). He cited examples of samurai and medieval knights as apichon who "had won acceptance of state and people through leadership on the battlefield" (Anek, 2006: 181), and this is perhaps a metaphor for the military. Anek claimed that such a "mixed system" had in fact been in operation in Thailand "ever since October 1973" (Anek, 2006: 183). A major duty of this leadership would be to educate the lower classes so that they "upgraded their needs and demands" to be less self-interested, and more aware of the interests of society and nation.


For the longer term, it would be necessary to transform rural society through education, welfare and employment "to make rural people stronger and more self-reliant so they do not remain clients of state policy." This would "benefit the middle class and those in the city as the rural people would no longer be the foundation for populist-style democracy" (Anek, 2006: 198).


Both Anek and Sondhi argued that Thaksin's populism mobilised popular support for change, and that more power had to be given to the elite and middle class to prevent this. The rise of Thaksin's populism was a crucial part of the background against which the assault on Matichon and the Shin Corp sale could bring the middle class onto the streets.


Conclusion

Thaksin Shinawatra was an unlikely candidate to become a populist leader. Prior to his arraignment for false asset disclosure in December 2000, he had shown little interest in rural society and made no reference to "the people" in his rhetoric. He made a bid for popular support, but thereby became the instrument of popular aspirations. He was swept along by social forces shaped by Thailand's strategy of outward-orientated development and subjection to neo-liberalism. The content of his populism began with a simple raft of redistributive policies which responded to the needs and aspirations of the informal mass that constituted around two-thirds of the workforce and the electorate. Thaksin subsequently went much further by responding not only to this constituency's demand for political goods, but also for a leader they felt they could own. People supported Thaksin because he gave them cheap health care and accessible credit, but also because he gave them a feeling of empowerment. Thaksin appealed to people by setting himself up as the enemy of the "old politics" represented by the bureaucracy and the Democrat Party; by adopting the familiar style of the local boss inflated to the national scale; and by arguing that his personal leadership would deliver more than the old liberal-democratic model, which had failed to prevent massive inequality in economy and society. Thaksin's populism was thus not just a policy platform, but matches the three key points of Roberts' definition, namely mass mobilisation, personalised leadership and a challenge to established elites.


In the old model of "development," based on the historical experience of the West, industrialisation creates a domestic capitalism, urban working class, and white-collar middle class; these new social forces sweep away old social and political elites, and support liberal democracy as the best means to resolve the conflicts among themselves. This model was replicated in the post-Second World War transformation of Japan, Korea and Taiwan but has since become irrelevant. Since the collapse of the Cold War, the West has lost interest in nurturing domestic capitalism in developing countries and sees the outside world solely as a field of expansion for Western capitalism. Countries like Thailand find the barriers against independent industrialisation are now too high, and choose instead to adopt outward-orientated development strategies and become dependent links in the global production chains of multinational capital. This strategy results in a very different social evolution. The domestic capitalist class is weak and embattled; the formal working class is small and politically marginal; the white-collar working class is conscious of its dependence on global forces; and a high proportion of the population remains in declining agriculture or in a swelling urban informal sector. Thaksin's populist politics echoed themes visible elsewhere in South-east Asia, in Latin America, and in Eastern Europe because the political economy underpinnings and neo-liberal framework are similar.


Latin America offers the most interesting parallels because of the long history of populism in the region, and the consequent subtlety of its academic analysis and debate on the topic. Thaksin's populism had strong affinities with a phase of Latin American populism in the 1980s and 1990s, in which the most striking example was Fujimori's Peru. These populist regimes tapped the support of the informal mass by offering universalist schemes of welfare and redistribution, and by posing as enemies of an old political elite. These regimes was careful to direct their fire against the political and social elite, while simultaneously co-operating with US neo-liberalism in external policies, and supporting domestic business. Fujimori undermined the parliamentary system, media and judiciary with corrupt money flows, while promoting an alternative model of personal, authoritarian rule. In order to avoid incurring obligations to their support constituency and to retain their freedom of action to negotiate with other social forces, populist leaders of this era dispensed with mass party structures and close links with civil society organisation, and relied instead on modern media and mass communication to mobilise electoral support. The cost of this strategy was insecurity, especially in the face of elite counter-attack. Most of these regimes lasted between two and five years. Fujimori was the exception, surviving for a decade, but ultimately falling just as precipitately.


This phase of populism in Latin America has since been superseded. The new wave of leaders, exemplified by Chavez, Lula da Silva and Morales, has seen a return to more explicit leftist ideology, mobilisation of ethnic divisions, and new types of mass organisation. We are not implying that Thailand's populism strain will move in the same direction, only that the Latin American story shows that populism evolves in response to social change, the external environment and local history.


Thaksin's populist leadership challenged the monarchy's claim to be the sole focus of political loyalty. It threatened the ability of key sections of the middle class to influence politics businessmen through money, bureaucrats through position and tradition, and media and intellectuals through command of public space. It promised to replace Thailand's plural, managed democracy with something akin to a personalised one-party regime. Thaksin's populism was thus a key factor in assembling the support that persuaded the military to undertake a manoeuvre which had generally been counter-productive for its own interests over the prior quarter-century.


Acknowledgement

This article began as a keynote speech at the International Conference of Thai Studies in de Kalb, April 2005. Thanks to the Center of Southeast Asian Studies, University of Kyoto, where it was originally written, and to the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo, where it was finalised. For comments and advice, thanks to audiences at both those institutions, Kevin Hewison, Charles Keyes, and an anonymous reviewer.


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Notes

(1) According to another definition, populism is any movement that "mobilises those who feel themselves to be disadvantaged by socioeconomic and political dislocation, as well as a leadership style that draws on a sense of disaffection from the established political system and elites" (Sabatini and Farnsworth, 2006: 63, note 2).


(2) The first use of the term "populist" to describe Thaksin in English appeared two days earlier in the Far Eastern Economic Review, but in an offhand way, expressing the view that the TRT election platform was not meant to be taken seriously: "In reality, stripped of its populist sheen, Thaksin's government will be one of big money and big-business interests, reflecting its leader's pedigree" (Crispin and Tasker, 2001). The Review did not regularly apply the adjective to Thaksin until one year later.


(3) Large volumes of shares in the Shinawatra companies had been filed under the names of the family's housekeeper, maid, driver and security guard, making them figure among the stock market's largest shareholders.


(4) "Village" here is an official territorial unit used in both urban and rural areas. The funds were available to both urban and rural communities.


(5) The first drafts of this argument by Hewison appeared in early 2002, as did our similar analysis of the double-headed nature of Thaksin's populism (Pasuk and Baker, 2002).


(6) This can be seen by comparison of the vote for TRT in the February 2005 and April 2006 polls, before and after the At Samat event. Votes cast for TRT increased by 11.5% in Roi-et (and by 13.2% and 17.9% in the neighbouring provinces of Yasothon and Kalasin which were also peripherally involved in the event), while falling 8.6% nationwide. Our calculation using unofficial results for the 2006 poll (there are no official results as the poll was rescinded).


(7) Thai industrialisation is also very much part of global production chains, with many manufactured goods assembled using imported parts and inputs produced elsewhere.


(8) From 2003, the Thaksin government set rice procurement prices above the market price. The coup government estimated this policy had cost 101.76 billion baht (The Nation, 14 October 2006).


(9) As a crude index of the middle-class interest in populism, these are the total mentions of populism or populist in The Nation, using their web cache of past issues. 2001: 66; 2002: 150; 2003: 265; 2004: 280; 2005: 206; 2006: 307.


(10) A graphic created by an anonymous academic and circulated in March 2006 purported to show a "Thaksin model" in which taxes levied on the middle class (25% of the population) paid for populist policies lavished on the poor (70%) to keep Thaksin in power to boost the wealth of the rich (5%). It concluded, "The middle class has to support the whole country." The graphic appeared in several newspapers including The Nation, 20 March 2006.


(11) Anek initially argued that people are rational to support Thaksin's populism, and should not be pictured as stupid and fooled (pp. 164-5). But later he compared populism to a mantra that can stupefy (sakot) people and to a whirlpool that can suck them down (pp. 166, 186); he dismissed TRT's election victory as illegitimate because of the use of money (pp. 179, 182); and argued that people need education to "upgrade their needs" (pp. 167, 185, 189-91).


PASUK PHONGPAICHIT, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

CHRIS BAKER, 98/2 Soi Nualnoi. Sukumwit 63, Bangkok 10110. Thailand


Correspondence Address: Pasuk Phongpaichit, Faculty of Economics, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. Email: chrispasuk@gmail.com



Figure 1. Distribution of labor force, 2004


Informal 26%


White collar 15%


Industry 8%


Other 10%


Agrarian 41%



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Author : Phongpaichit, Pasuk; Baker, Chris

Publication : Journal of Contemporary Asia

Date : Feb 1, 2008

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