INTRODUCTION

In 2014, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo took office with strong nationalist party credentials. He is also the first president with significant and successful business experience. It is an unusual combination of a nationalist inclination combined with a pragmatic approach that focuses on action and results more than programmes and planning. Both these characteristics suggest an approach that is different from that of his predecessor Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) in regard to social issues and the labour market.

Like Yudhoyono, Jokowi has strongly supported agriculture and food self-sufficiency, as well as self-reliance in the public documents that set out his five-year term plans and policy directions. The country's overall economic policy framework has not undergone a dramatic change in focus under Jokowi — continuities are especially evident in regard to macroeconomic policies. But microeconomic reform has emerged as a priority. Simplification of administrative processes and concrete reform packages across a wide range of areas of the economy have quickly become a hallmark of his presidency. Jokowi has been more wedded to the nuts and bolts of microeconomic reform than Yudhoyono. This bodes well for employment and skills.

When it comes to labour market issues, Jokowi's approach has emphasized combining fair wages with greater business certainty to make sure sufficient better jobs are created. In the policy domain, he has been assisted by the Minister of Manpower, Hanif Dhakiri, who has also been pragmatic and committed to labour reforms in contrast to several predecessors in this position. In areas like international migration, Jokowi reaffirmed the government's strong commitment to improve labour standards. On the ground, there was a major shake-up as his cabinet sought to promote more investment (and hence more jobs) and improved living standards for working families. Emphasis has been on programmes that raise the productivity and skills of workers, which fits well with the president's private sector background. With some modifications, most programmes oriented directly towards poverty alleviation — a hallmark of the Yudhoyono era — have continued. But like in other areas of public policy, the sheer volume of policy initiatives has not always been backed up with institutional arrangements that ensure effective implementation.

The coup d’état staged by Thailand's military under the leadership of army commander General Prayut Chanocha on 22 May 2014 inaugurated the country's longest period of naked dictatorship in half a century.

Even before the duration of this spell of authoritarian rule in Bangkok became clear, other factors had already distinguished the 22 May putsch and its aftermath. For one, the campaign of political repression and ideological transformation launched by the self-proclaimed National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO, Khana raksa khwamsangop haeng chat) junta that seized power in the coup represented a notable break with what had followed Thai coups of the recent past. Above all, that campaign made this coup very different from the coup of 19 September 2006, which had ousted Thaksin Shinawatra from the premiership, and it left many observers of Thai affairs concerned that the junta was determined to entrench long-term military domination of the country and its politics.

A second factor shaped observers’ understandings of the NCPO, of its project and of the prospects for the success of that project from early on. Even at the time of the junta's seizure of power, it was evident that the end of the long life and long reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej was near. In the event, the king passed away, at the age of eighty-eight, on 13 October 2016, after seventy years as Thailand's sovereign. His son Vajiralongkorn succeeded him, fully four and a half decades after being designated crown prince (Handley 2006, p. 249).

In social, political, cultural, economic, institutional, demographic and other terms, the Thailand that the new king inherited was a different country from that of 1946, from that of the decades of counter-insurgency in which his father had redefined the role of the Thai monarchy, from that of the heyday of Bhumibol's reign in the 1980s and 1990s, and even from that which had first elected Thaksin to the premiership in January 2001. The events of the decade and half since that election had left the NCPO, a segment of the Thai military, more broadly and a number of civilian interests that backed the junta and its seizure of power determined to pursue a certain vision of Thailand's political and social orders.

Will the military launch a coup? Will the army overthrow the elected government? Such questions continue to arise regardless of the stage of development in which Thai society finds itself. From 1932 to the present, military intervention in Thai national politics has been a recurring theme, making it necessary for those who want to understand Thai politics to understand the Thai military. Indeed, the role of the military in the country's politics has been a crucial point of contention since the Siamese Revolution of 1932. It remains so because the Thai officer corps remains unreformed and unchanged. From 1932 to the Second World War, to the Cold War and through the post–Cold War era, the military has remained a main actor in Thai politics regardless of changing international circumstances.

Thai politics remains subject to the significant influence of military leaders. Since its break with the palace in 1932 and through its extended record of political intervention in subsequent decades, the Thai officer corps has held an undisputed role as a leading political actor in the country. The military has never proved its professionalism in large-scale warfare; rather, it has engaged only in limited counter-insurgency operations in rural areas. The absence of external security challenges has left the army free to involve itself in political affairs and to become more skilled in political manipulation. Furthermore, the political strength of the army has owed much to the weakness of civil society and of other potential civilian challengers.

This reality suggests that the political preferences of military elites determine whether a democratic transition is possible or not. More fundamentally, the country cannot sustain such a democratic transition unless military elites decide to commit to democratic rule and to abide by government by elected civilians. In other words, the Thai military's support is a basic prerequisite for the emergence of democratic rule.

Observers typically use one of two conventional discourses of democratization to explain the May 2014 coup in Thailand. First is the “vicious cycle” discourse that posits a repeated cycle of military coups, followed by new constitutions, and then general elections. The elected government proceeds to fail, whether because of challenges from the communists, challenges to the monarchy, corruption scandals or a combination of these factors. This failure leads to yet another coup. This discourse was most prevalent between the 1950s and the 1980s, when coups were more frequent. From 1992 to 2006, when electoral democracy was more stable, another discourse — that of “linear progress” — became more popular. This discourse characterized Thailand's history of democratization as one of linear progression beginning from the end of the absolute monarchy in 1932, with milestones such as the 1973 popular uprising that ended twenty-three years of military rule and the 1992 uprising that seemed to put military rule to rest. However, the occurrence of two coups in less than ten years, in 2006 and 2014, undermined the second discourse and revived the idea of the vicious cycle as an explanation for the state of Thai democracy.

The two discourses have one thing in common: an understanding that democratization is the struggle against the military to entrench the supremacy of elections and civilian rule. This struggle is a common political experience for Thais, especially those born in the 1940s or somewhat later and coming of age in the late 1950s or the 1960s. Likewise, during the past fifty years, Thais have conventionally understood their monarchy as being “above” politics, always neutral in the ideological struggles and politicking between political parties and within the government.

By “monarchy”, I mean a social institution and entity that is active in cultural, social, economic and political life, like any other institution or entity. Duncan McCargo (2005) shows that the “royal institution”, as it is often called, is a network of non-monolithic groups and individuals whose interests rely on, and who derive legitimacy from, their varying associations with the king. This “network monarchy” is thus a larger entity than the king or even the palace. Nonetheless, as this chapter argues, the charismatic king himself was indispensable and indeed pivotal to the success or failure of this network monarchy.

The upper middle class, the social group between the upper class and the lower middle class, comprises mainly professionals, senior-level employees of firms and business-owners. This class has contributed in crucial ways to Thailand's current political crisis. Taking active roles in the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) movement of 2005–8 and in the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC) movement of 2013–14, its members opposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his political allies. While they claimed to be struggling for a more substantive form of democracy, they in fact contributed to the Thai military's return to power, and they have since become the main support base for the current military regime in Thailand. One can therefore raise crucial questions about the political stance of the Thai upper middle class, and especially about the emergence of its members’ antagonistic perception of electoral democracy, and the conditions that have influenced this perception.

This chapter undertakes two major tasks. The first task is to pursue a quantitative analysis of socio-economic data to describe the development of the Thai upper middle class. The goal is to place this development in the broader context of Thai society and to understand the group's socioeconomic characteristics in order to provide insight into the conditions that have shaped the Thai upper middle class's attitudes towards democracy. The second task of this chapter is to build on that insight. The chapter draws on interviews with fifteen members of the Thai upper middle class, all older than fifty years of age, and selected to represent various segments of that class. In-depth interviews with these respondents covered the trajectories of their lives and the development of their political perspectives in the changing socio-economic context. The goal was to understand conditions that have influenced their turn against democracy.

The chapter begins by contextualizing the shifting political stance of the Thai upper middle class with a literature review that sets the scope of the chapter's investigation. It then offers a quantitative socio-economic analysis of the rise of the Thai upper middle class from the 1980s to the present. A qualitative examination of the lives and political perspectives of the Thai upper middle class follows that quantitative analysis.

Throughout 2013 and the early part of the following year, the political excitement resulting from each huge Red Shirt demonstration, both in Bangkok and beyond, in support of the elected Yingluck Shinawatra government, led many observers to believe that the Red Shirt movement was a strong democratic force, particularly in the Northeastern and Northern regions of Thailand. These observers believed that the movement was ready to oppose the return of an authoritarian regime by any means, and that the establishment of a government in exile or a division of the country to set up a Federation of Isan-Lanna States or Sahaphan rat isanlanna would be an option if a military coup were staged.

A study of peasants in rural Chiang Mai published by Andrew Walker in 2012, and drawing on fieldwork undertaken since 2005, presented a vivid picture of the transformation both of villager-farmers’ outlooks and of rural politics since Thaksin's Thai Rak Thai Party came to power in 2001. It documents many peasants’ dissatisfaction with the coup (Walker 2012, p. 209). In addition, two often-quoted works on the Red Shirts in Northeast and Northern Thailand, the first written in November 2013 and published in 2014 (Pinkaew 2013, pp. 51–60) and the second released in September 2014 (Keyes 2014, pp. 175–94), seem to confirm notions concerning the strong political activism of the Red Shirt villagers in these two regions. According to the two studies, especially Pinkaew's, villagers had risen up, had become politically active citizens and brave fighters for democracy, and were ready to protect democracy and to sacrifice their lives for the cause.

Two enduring popular images characterize the People's Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), which led the rallies against the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra in late 2013 and early 2014 that culminated in the 22 May coup. The first is that it was supported by Bangkok residents, especially the “educated urban middle class” and celebrities. Images of the PDRC's mid-day “Bangkok Shutdown” (patibatkan pit krung thep) rallies gaining the support of thousands of “office people” in Bangkok's business and commercial centres were widespread, as were images of celebrities taking part in and holding cultural activities at PDRC rallies. The second is Southerners’ support for the movement, that of both those travelling from the region to attend rallies in the capital and those residing in Bangkok. Images of tents offering Southern Thai food for free at PDRC rallies were highlighted, along with images of hundreds of Southerners taking trains to Bangkok to attend those rallies. These two popular images combined to create one of the PDRC as an alliance of Bangkokians and Southerners.

Such an alliance is of crucial importance to Thai politics for three reasons. First, it highlights the birth of a new “political actor”. While Bangkokians have as a group been a dominant actor in Thai politics for decades — from the “Black May” of 1992 through the anti-Thaksin People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in 2005–6 and 2008–11 — Southerners had never been the backbone or stood at the forefront of any political uprising until they vigorously took part in the rallies of the PDRC. Second, the alliance challenges the “Two Democracies” theory once widely held among observers of Thai politics. Rather than acting as rural people who voted for a government destined to be overthrown by Bangkokians, Southerners working through the PDRC joined Bangkokians in ousting the government voted in by people in and from the North and the Northeast. Third, the alliance challenged the notion long held among scholars, especially Thai scholars, of Southern Thailand. Instead of being “anti-state” with regionalism as a backdrop, Southerners emerged as champions of royal nationalism under the PDRC. “We the Southerners come to protect the nation and the king” is what one of them said with great pride when asked why she attended the PDRC's rallies.

Thailand's electoral politics has changed drastically in the past four decades, and these profound changes have ushered in a new type of political struggle. Since the democratization process began in the late 1970s, electoral politics in Thailand has been tainted by various forms of violent conflict. Apart from targeted assassinations, other forms of election-related violence have included attacks on polling stations on election day, bombing candidates’ and vote canvassers’ houses, threatening election-related personnel with harm, burning political parties’ headquarters, and mass protests following elections. Hundreds of people have died or been injured as a result of these various types of election-related violence. Arising from this history is an important question that calls for investigation: how have the patterns and degree of election-related violence shifted over time? Election-related violence first manifested itself in the 1975 and 1976 elections, during the turbulent period of democratic transition after the 1973 student uprising. The intensity and degree of electoral violence increased in the 1980s and remained relatively constant until the late 1990s. Thai society then observed a sharp rise in violence associated with the 2001 and 2005 elections. Despite predictions that the deep political polarization that occurred after the 2006 military coup would intensify electoral competition and produce higher levels of bloodshed during campaigning and polling, electoral violence actually declined in the 2007 and 2011 elections. Violence increased again, with a new pattern of mass mobilization, in association with the 2014 elections, polls that resulted in the paralysis of the country and eventually paved the way for the military coup of May 2014.

These trends in electoral competition and violence occurred in the context of dramatic political change in Thailand during the past four decades. This chapter aims to provide a broad overview and explanation of the changing landscape of electoral politics since the democratization process began in the 1970s by focusing specifically on political violence in Thai electoral politics. It aims to identify the primary factors, processes and actors that fomented electoral violence. By examining the changes in the characteristics of actors involved in electoral violence in particular, it reflects the shifting mode of electoral competition and terrain of struggle in Thai politics over time. During 1975–76, electoral conflict was a struggle between progressive forces, led by the student movement on the one hand and the conservative elite on the other.

To determine whether political transformation causes radical and long-lasting change requires attention to the question of whether that transformation has changed the regime or the state (Petras 1989, pp. 26–27). At the regime level, change occurs in government, parliament, electoral rules, political parties and degrees of civic participation. Changes at the regime level often occur as a result of the reform of political institutions, from which a new regime emerges. For instance, when the administrative structure is reformed, state-society relations are re-regulated or the electoral system is changed, regime change is or may be the result. In the context of international interest in democratizing reforms, many states have introduced institutional designs meant to promote democracy. Political change at the state level, while more powerful and consequential, has proved less likely to occur. Petras (1989, p. 26) emphasizes the state's embodiment of “the permanent institution of government and the concomitant ensemble of class relations which have been embedded in these same institutions”. It follows that to determine whether political change has the potential to consolidate democracy demands consideration of change at the level of the state.

Decentralization ranks among the most important reforms of a state's political institutions. It entails administrative restructuring that aims to establish efficient, participatory and democratic self-government. According to Sharpe, three principles underpin democratic local governance: liberty, participation and efficient service (Sharpe 1970, p. 156). Any local administration that upholds these values would approach the ideal of local democracy, which is a foundation for a developing democratic regime.

This chapter examines the effects that regime decentralization can have on the characteristics of the state, including those not anticipated by the elites that have supported decentralization. It elaborates on characteristics of the Thai state and, in particular, on interactions between the state and local political actors in rural and provincial areas. Its focus is on political power relations outside Bangkok. The chapter assesses the way in which three basic attributes of the state — a centralized and powerful bureaucracy, deep-rooted clientelism and what I term “hegemonic ideology” — informed decentralization. In turn, these attributes engendered resistance to the process of decentralization itself. That resistance dated from the beginning of the decentralization movement. However, the trend of democratization at the time meant that it took concealed forms.

As tourists to Bangkok hurtle down the highway from Suvarnabhumi Airport into the city, one particularly forbidding sign will flash by them. Written both in English and Thai, it says, “It is wrong to use Buddha as a decoration or tattoo. Means no respect [sic]. Don't buy or sell Buddha.” This is perhaps no surprise, given the status of Buddhism as the country's de facto national religion, not to mention the ubiquitous commodification of Buddha images for all manner of business from bars and bistros to club music and fashion. So one may be forgiven for believing that the government is serious about clamping down on the crass popularization and export of Buddhist iconography. After all, it strictly prohibits the export of any Buddha images without written permission while imposing an export ban on parts of Buddha such as the head, hands or feet (Bangkok Post, 30 June 2013). Moreover, although trinket-sized images do not require government permission for export, only a maximum of five pieces are allowed per person. Not least, such rulings have firm footing in the legitimate need to prosecute looters who remove pieces from Buddhist monuments and archaeological sites around the country.

However, later that evening, as the very same tourists stroll down Sukhumvit Road or traverse cavernous shopping purgatories like MBK Centre, it will become strikingly obvious that Buddha statues of varying sizes are as popular as $20 Rolexes and even cheaper aphrodisiacs lining the streets. Buddha heads the size of watermelons for your dining table, Buddha masks for your wall, Buddha paintings in colour or black and white, Buddha smiling, laughing, lying prone, in wood, bronze, silver, on t-shirts, are arranged openly for your perusal. Asking your friendly neighbourhood vendor if her Buddha products have had prior approval from the government will win you, at best, a patronizing smile or, at worse, a derisive snort. Furthermore, if you are brave enough to test her patience even further, you can ask whether they know where to seek export permits for your purchase.

By the end of the evening, our tourist friends will have realized two things. First, there are sensible rules and regulations in Thailand. Many may have strong rationales behind them and are, for the most part, well thought out. This culture of bureaucracy is evident in almost every part of Thai society, even when the country is in political transition.

In comparison to its neighbours, Thailand has long given the impression of being a stable and unified country. Its monarchy has been seen as a vital force behind this stability, and when the Cold War ended the kingdom was expected to be a key driver of regional economic cooperation and a model for democratization in the region. However, the portrayal of Thailand in major foreign press outlets in this century has told a different story. It has depicted a country that has been in deep crisis since the coup d’état that overthrew the elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra in September 2006, with a solution still nowhere in sight. The coup that overthrew the Phuea Thai Party government in May 2014 swept away any fragile opportunity for Thailand carefully to build a functioning democracy.

Foreign press coverage of the leading players’ role in the conflict has changed, too. This change has been most evident in journalists’ increasingly frequent challenges to the long-accepted mainstream narrative of the Thai monarchy. Discussion of the role and objectives of traditional elites and of Thailand's draconian lèse majesté law began to appear more frequently, while news coverage of and op-ed articles on the royal institution became increasingly critical. The titles of articles in the foreign press that appeared after the 2006 coup themselves conveyed this newly critical tone towards the monarchy: “As Thai Monarchy's Power Wanes, King Still Revered” by the Associated Press (25 May 2010); “Thailand's King Sees His Influence Fading” in The New York Times (Mydans and Fuller 2010); “Thai Monarch Is a Factor in Dispute” in The Wall Street Journal (Wright 2014); “The King and Its Crisis: A Right Royal Mess” in The Economist (4 December 2008b); and “Thailand, A Coup, the Crown and the Two Middle Classes” in The Diplomat (Ünaldi 2014a).

While constructing itself in the image of traditional Buddhist-Brahmin kingship, the Thai monarchy has also presented itself as international and cosmopolitan. Since the era of King Chulalongkorn (r. 1868–1910), the institution has deeply and openly concerned itself with its international image, with successive monarchs fashioning themselves according to European norms. Western-style etiquette, dress, habitation, patronage and pageantry have long since made their way into the Thai court and been on display in both the domestic and international arenas (Peleggi 2002).

Nearly two decades ago, Duncan McCargo argued that the Thai media constituted “a political space in which different elite groups have sought to advance their interests and views” (McCargo 2000, p. 166). This chapter assesses patterns of continuity and change in the relationship between the media, both traditional and social, and politics in Thailand in the inter-coup period between 2006 and 2014 and the post-coup period since 2014. Using McCargo's analysis of the Thai press as a departure point, we focus on the period of the last decade for three reasons. First, Thailand experienced unprecedented levels of political and social upheaval — marked by prolonged and violent street protests, significant political instability and two military coups d’état — during that decade. Second, the proliferation of information and communications technology for mass consumption in the 2010s has led to an expansion of space for civic engagement. Third, the military government has sought since 2014 to institutionalize information controls in ways that would have a negative impact on future relations between the state and the media. We therefore evaluate and analyse how this period of heightened political conflict, on the one hand, and the rapid expansion of social media use, on the other, have fostered change or demonstrated continuity in the dominance of political elites, including the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO, khana raksa khwamsangop haeng chat) junta, over the media landscape.

We advance two claims in this chapter. First, political elites have continued to exert control and influence over traditional and social media in three major ways: (1) establishing new institutions to reduce media independence, (2) taking direct ownership of media outlets in order to advance their political agenda, and (3) shaping the content and discourse of both traditional and social media through state channels. Specifically, we argue that the Thai military and its conservative-royalist allies made a comeback in exerting dominance over the media during two recent periods of authoritarian rule, 2006–7 and 2014–15. The creation of new institutions to govern both traditional and social media — most notably the constitution of 2006 and the 2007 Computer-Related Crime Act (CCA) — constrained media independence and press freedom in ways that allowed political elites to re-exert their dominance. Of particular use to government agencies and the military, these institutions were not created to advance the interest of the public or to protect freedom of press and of expression.

The year 2004 brought a dramatic surge of violence in Thailand's southernmost region, which has now claimed nearly seven thousand lives. In the 2016 Global Terrorism Index, Thailand ranked fifteenth among the 163 countries surveyed for being affected by “terrorism” (Institute for Economics and Peace 2016, pp. 10–11). Despite the relatively high death toll resulting from political conflicts in the southernmost Thai provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat and adjacent parts of Songkhla, the insurgency there remains at the periphery of public attention both at home and abroad. For almost a decade, the Thai state tried to defeat the militants by suppression and co-optation, but this approach had little effect in putting a permanent end to the conflict. “Negotiation”, or kancheracha, was a taboo — an idea that the Thai state, and particularly the Thai military, strongly opposed. Nevertheless, a significant policy shift came on 28 February 2013, the day that a formalized peace dialogue between the Bangkok government and the Barisan Revolusi Nasional Melayu Patani (Patani Malay National Revolutionary Front, BRN) was launched. The BRN is an active armed movement seeking to liberate from Thailand what it considers a previously independent sultanate. It is widely perceived to be the strongest among Patani liberation groups in terms of military capability.

This chapter examines how peace initiatives in southern Thailand have unfolded. In particular, I examine how the formalized peace process has changed the dynamic of armed conflict in southern Thailand. The formalized peace dialogue has significantly opened a new front of political contestation and negotiation. It has therefore allowed conflicting parties, particularly the various liberation movements, to bring their grievances concerning ethnic, religious and cultural discrimination and demands for self-governance to bear. It has also allowed them to search for political solutions in a non-violent manner. However, this initiative has encountered challenges from hardliners on both the government and the insurgent sides. The first section of the chapter provides a brief review of state initiatives to establish channels of communication and dialogue with Malay-Muslim insurgents. The chapter then discusses the 2013 formal peace dialogue conducted under the government of Yingluck Shinawatra. The following section examines the resumption of peace dialogue under the military government installed after the May 2014 coup. The chapter concludes with observations on the development of formalized peace dialogue and its prospect for conflict resolution.

Viewed in retrospect, the Asian economic crisis of 1997 marks a watershed in the pattern of long-term Thai economic growth. Prior to the crisis, Thailand had experienced a lengthy period of significant growth, but the growth rate has subsequently shown a sharp decline. At the present time it seems that slower growth will characterize the Thai economy, at least for the next decade or so.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore aspects of this slower growth. In particular, it analyses the structural changes in the Thai economy that underlie this trend, and also suggests that there are positive features of the Thai economy that will sustain its growth, albeit at moderate rates, in the future.

It is well known, of course, that gross domestic product (GDP) statistics are a blunt instrument for depicting a true picture of economic attainment. Nonetheless, GDP data are the best indicator for the purposes of assessing long-term change and drawing international comparisons, and the chapter therefore uses GDP statistics to give an overall picture of the performance of the Thai economy. Table 13.1 presents figures relevant to long-term trends.

Since the crisis of 1997, Thailand's economic growth rate has been only moderate, and much lower than in the decade before the crisis. Thailand's medium-term growth, as measured by the thirteen-year moving average of annual GDP growth rates during the 2000–2014 period, has been only about 4 per cent. This is a sharp decrease from the 7 per cent or higher that was obtained during the 1963–93 period (NESDB, n.d.).

Short-term factors have certainly contributed to slow economic growth since the late 1990s. The crisis itself was one factor, and there have also been political turmoil, the tsunami of 2004, Southern separatism, the 2008 global economic crisis, various periods of drought and flooding, and most recently the Bangkok bomb blast of August 2015, with its adverse impact on foreign capital inflows and tourism.

International factors have affected, and continue to affect, Thai growth too. The slowdown in China's economy is one factor, and another is the present economic difficulties faced by Russia. The former has considerable repercussions for inward investment, trade and tourism. The latter has had a particularly serious effect on tourism and property markets.