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Two Styles of Military Rule: Thailand and Burma

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 March 2014

John H. Badgley
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Extract

THE DIVERSE POLICIES OF BURMESE A ND THAI GOVERNMENTS obscure the similarities between these two countries. To contrast their political styles highlights these similar features and also reveals a general political change that applies also to much of Asia. That trend is towards the politization of military leaders and their creation of political parties to sustain their power base. Civilian experts and civil organizations increasingly serve these military governments and thereby tend to bolster their legitimacy.

It is two decades since the European powers commenced their withdrawal from Southeast Asia. Considerable political experimentation followed as leaders of these states adjusted their freshly won sovereignty to fit their weakened condition. Democracy burst on the region like a river in spate. Without exception every central government employed elections to legitimize itself. Then (but for the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore) military juntas moved to seize power from impotent legislatures. Liberals saw military totalitarianism sweeping Asia, conservatives viewed the nationalization practices as statism that crushed private initiative.

Type
Articles
Information
Government and Opposition , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , 01 January 1969 , pp. 100 - 117
Copyright
Copyright © Government and Opposition Ltd 1969

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References

1 Riggs, F. W., Thailand; the Modernization of a Bureaucratic Polity, Honolulu, East-West Center Press, 1966.Google Scholar

2 Nash, Manning, The Golden Road to Modernity; Village Life in Contemporary Burma, New York, Wiley, 1965 Google Scholar; and Spiro, Melford, Burmese Supernaturalism; a Study in the Explanation and Reduction of Suffering, New York, 1967.Google Scholar

3 Sarkisyanz, M., Buddhist Backgrounds of the Burmese Revolution. The Hague, 1965.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Badgley, J. H., Burman Politics, forthcoming, 1969.Google Scholar

5 Riggs, op. cit..

6 Bangkok Post, June and July issues daily carried information about the new parties.

7 The Guardian. The government-owned newspaper reprints letters to the editor which reveal critical views not expressed in articles or editorials. Issues from May to August 1967 devoted considerable coverage to the rice crisis and the peasant-government relations.

8 Yatsushiro, T., Village Organization and Leadership in Northeast Thailand, Bangkok, Research Division, USOM, 1966 Google Scholar.